Urgent!

[Davey]

Thus we are all hypnotised by the culture we grow up in; we are all sleepwalking, guided by that culture's conceptual suggestion.

It would seem that no-one has anymore right than anyone else, predominantly because 'rights' don't seem to exist apart from in our minds.

That 'illegal' individual whom began on another land mass is neither more entitled or less entitled to be here than any other person. You thinking otherwise is the sign of sleep. Well, half sleep.

So hang on a second, does this mean I can come and take anything I fancy from your house and walk off with it and you wont call the police because you don't actually own it other than in your head?

Get real!!!!!!

Davey

[yoyoyo]

You cannot find 'ownership' or 'law' in ... shape we call a house. I've never seen 'ownership' or 'law' anywhere.

Deeds?

[Davey]

Deeds?

I thought to mention that but clearly he's talking from some sort of purist point of view, whereby a deed is a mere piece of paper created under the hypnosis of culture's conceptual suggestion... or some crap?!?

Davey

[1a2bcio8]

Ok, firstly, what the f*ck are you on about, haha? By the looks of it I'd say you were the one who is asleep, or on some kind of medication, hahaha!

Secondly, ownership has nothing to do with it, people who say "my country" merely refer to the country which they were born into or which they have lawful right to reside in, unlike these chaps we are all discussing who appear to be residing here unlawfully. Also, law is a necessity in order to prevent exploitation or unfair advantage of any one person over another (not that it is always succesful in doing so). It's not a physical thing which you can see so that is why you have never seen it, silly boy!

Lastly, I congratulate you on your post as it is a fine example of that typical method utilised by many preaching types in order to make people believe they are somehow on a higher plane of wisdom, whereby you say a lot of clever sounding stuff but upon inspection of the substance of your comment you have in reality said nothing at all!

Davey

I think that perhaps you didn't understand what I said. You seem, in part, to have gone through the exact process I was trying to illuminate - unless perhaps I am talking poo.

My point stands in opposition to preaching because it's basis is relativisitc which removes the absolutism which preaching is usually based upon.

I've pondered a similar thing since hearing Rick in The Young Ones exclaim that "all property is theft". You've got some interesting points there, but personally I'm ok with today's culture. Capitalism doesn't scare me and I'm happy that I can have posessions of my own. From now until the end of the Earth there'll be inequality, greed and poverty.

That's fair enough. I'm not going to tell people how to think or feel. I'm just expressing what I think is the actuality of material/physical things before we start projecting our intellect and abstractions onto them. One point I should have included is that you are not neccesarily hypnotise if you follow the cultural norms; that may just be your choice to follow them. I just happen to think it's more than like that you are hynotised/indoctrinated by your following of them. I'm including myself in that. There are so many behaviours that I inact each day without either a first or second thought. I believe them to be a result of the process of culturalisation in part with biological disposition.

I do however think that if you are aware of what I speak of, you'll be less likely to denounce anyone that breaks or goes against those cultural/group/individul norms because you realise your justification is almost definitely arbitrary and relative. Rules seem like a whole different thing when you realise they are not absolute.

While I do agree with what your saying, Britain (or England, whatever) is more about the economic state than the physical land. And in that respect, it is owned by the people who pay taxes. So get clapping?

Sorry Tomm, I only just noticed your reply.

We're about to get into infinite regress. Why does payment of taxes result in ownership? Where is the justification for what you say other than in your own mind?

You're making an assumption that a certain quality creates a result but how do you know?

taxes = ownership. Why?

If you respond to this with another conceptual justification, I will simply ask you "why?" again. This process can repeat and I think you'll never find a point where we stop. Think of a child and and their endless use of the word "why?".

Edited March 23, 2007 by rowly

[Davey]

I think that perhaps you didn't understand what I said. You seem, in part, to have gone through the exact process I was trying to illuminate - unless perhaps I am talking poo.

My point stands in opposition to preaching because it's basis is relativisitc which removes the absolutism which preaching is usually based upon.

That's fair enough. I'm not going to tell people how to think or feel. I'm just expressing what I think is the actuality of material/physical things before we start projecting our intellect and abstractions onto them. One point I should have included is that you are not neccesarily asleep if you follow the cultural norms, iI just happen to think it's more than like that you are. I'm including myself in that. There are so many behaviours that I inact each day without either a first or second thought. I believe them to be a result of the process of culturalisation in part with biological disposition.

I do however think that if you are aware of what I speak of, you'll be less likely to denounce anyone that breaks or goes against those cultural/group/individul norms because you realise your justification is almost definitely arbitrary and relativistic. Rules seem like a whole different thing when you realise they are not absolute.

Erm.... no.... hmmmmm.... nope I'm sorry I must just be actually stupid because I'm reading that and it's like reading one of those fancy "mission statements" you see on the websites of trendy new age marketing agencies, full of long words strung together in seemingly undirectional sentences, full of isms. I have no doubt that you have a point to make, which makes it all the more frustrating that I can't figure out what you are on about. So for the sake of us plebians who only have GCSE's can you explain what you mean in words of minimal sylables please?

Davey

Edited March 23, 2007 by Small_Gear_Big_Style

[Has anyone seen my shoe?]

Rowly is high again

[1a2bcio8]

Erm.... no.... hmmmmm.... nope I'm sorry I must just be actually stupid because I'm reading that and it's like reading one of those fancy "mission statement" you see on the websites of trendy new age marketing agencies, full of long words strung together in seemingly undirectional sentences, full of isms. I have no doubt that you have a point to make, which makes it all the more frustrating that I can't figure out what you are on about. So for the sake of us plebians who only have GCSE's can you explain what you mean in words of minimal sylables please?

Davey

Ok fair enough, I shall puts things a bit differently.

My point is that we all grow up in different societies. Within each society you'll find people behaving in a 'similar' fashion that is different from other societies. Therefore we can assume that each society, to some degree, is causing the differences of behaviour itself. In other words, society creates itself from what it already is - with somewhat of a deviation across time. For instance, you may have one society that loves and eats meat and one society that finds the eating of meat disgusting. It is most probable that the society has caused its members to think in the way of loving or hating meat. Neither society is 'right' or 'wrong', they are just different. In other words the society has constructed the thoughts and feelings of people contained within it.

So each of us grows up in a society and that society gives us certain thoughts and feelings about things. The idea of 'law' or 'ownership' are two of those ideas. The ideas decribe how we 'should' or 'have' behave towards certain things in our environment. But the laws do not tell us how the environment is. The environment holds no laws. Nobody ever actually owns anything, they just say they do, or it is written down that they do. Other people can abide by that or ignore it. If you abide by that idea by saying "I shall not take such and such an item because there is a law that says I should not", then I call that being controlled by an idea. If instead you were to have a thought about something and you then said, "I will not take that item because the person who uses it might beat me up for doing so" or "I will not take that item because I do not want that person to feel bad about not being able to use it" then I consider that to be more likely a thought of your own; perhaps. It could always be that you're just repeating somebody elses thoughts on how they percieved the matter. Morals are another form of ideas that control the way we react to situations.

It is the same if you are to say, "this is my 'country', I should be able to live here, but that other person who began their life in that other country should not be able to live here". The land mass that we currently reside on and that we call the UK would appear to me, to belong to no-one. We just say that it belongs to us, but the words or ideas are not the thing. Yet I think that most people who reside here think that this is their country and they do own it. You only own it in your mind, most probably because your society in the form of school, family, media etc. have all told you that you do. I think a more accurate thing to say in this regard is that 'you don't want those people to come to this land mass where you are currently living". I think that gets closer to the truth of things. I think that this sort of though will change the way you think about the material world. It becomes a lot more difficult to say "you can't come here" when you realise that the "here" is not yours. Additionally the word 'should' is very dodgy if you think about it. There is nothing in the material or physical world that says conscious behaviour 'should' do this or that.

"I have a piece of paper that says I own this air! How dare you breath it!". If we all realised that concepts are arbitrary and don't have to mean anything to us as individuals and don't actually mean anything apart from us as individuals, the world might be a happier place, at least in some sense. Perhaps though we'd find anarchy. I don't know.

Finally, I'm not saying laws are completely useless and that we should ignore them, that's upto you and not my concern; choose them if you so wish. The question is, are you choosing them yourself or just following your social programming? Are you viewing the world for how it is, or how your history is telling you to? Do you even care? If not, that's fine by me

I'm not high today :wizard:

Edited March 23, 2007 by rowly

[Tomm]

Sorry Tomm, I only just noticed your reply.

We're about to get into infinite regress. Why does payment of taxes result in ownership? Where is the justification for what you say other than in your own mind?

You're making an assumption that a certain quality creates a result but how do you know?

taxes = ownership. Why?

If you respond to this with another conceptual justification, I will simply ask you "why?" again. This process can repeat and I think you'll never find a point where we stop. Think of a child and and their endless use of the word "why?".

I think you missed my point slightly, I didn't explain very well. I didn't literally mean that our paying taxes means we 'own' the land. Like you say, ownership of things is a fairly abstract concept governed by our morals, laws and so on. I was thinking of it like this: As a country of tax payers, we control an economic community. Therefore we have the right to allow/deny people access. The fact that we all reside on the same bit of land is really immaterial.

I generally agree that we could probably let more people come to this country and work, but if you allowed unlimited migration, then the population of the world would be spread out so thinly and we would lose what national identity we had (and there's a separate debate as to whether that would actually be a bad thing). My point is that the world would be a much more boring place with no culture.

I think that possessions and the other concepts we live by (call them morals, laws whatever you want) are very important and represent what being a human being is about. I don't really think they are anything to be ashamed of. But yes, when you break things down, these things can seem rather arbitrary. However, I think if you recreated the world from scratch, money would soon be invented - it's a necessity, just as ownership of things is. Embrace it, don't fight it

[Walleee]

I love bens posts, good reading.

[1a2bcio8]

Therefore we have the right to allow/deny people access.

Again, I will have to ask why? I still can't find a fixed basis for this 'right'. I'm sorry but words like 'right' and 'should' don't really do it for me. They seem metaphysical and thus nonsensical in reference the physical world. I can't find a 'right' or 'should' anywhere. Nothing, as far as I can tell, has a 'right' or no 'right'. I may be off the mark here but it's where I stand at the moment. Anything involving a justification ultimately ends in infinite regress. I guess you can get into a group and decide that you will react to something AS IF it has a right but I can't get any closer to 'rights' than that. Sorry if this is a bit patchy, I find it difficult territory.

I'm not denying culture, just highlighting the fact we may blindly follow it. We may be so entrenched that we are effectively robots which our society has programmed to behave. Our conceptual reactions to external stimuli causing us to be behave in ways that were already decided. I am including myself in this

Imagine a society with individuals that can be involved in culture but at the same time be aware of it's limitations so that they are able to ignore it when they see fit; that suggests to me the best of both worlds, group cohesion and individuality - admitedly my ideal. Consider the fact that sometimes society designates norms that contradict the desires of the individual to the detriment of individual happiness. We all have weird expressions in all sorts of ways but they get hidden, repressed or ignored because we are too busy behaving in the way we 'should' behave in such and such a context, completely unaware that we're doing so based on our social programming.

I personally think we are whatever we are. Robot, individual, whatever. It's all well funny if you think about it.

I do think, regarding the buddhist in me, that allowing your concepts to define your world will ultimately make you suffer. It's easy to think that they don't but I reckon they probably do.

Entheogenic experience is supposed to be very similar to satori which basically means enlightenment. You might have been onto something with the shrooms

The reason I practise meditation and yoga is it helps your remove all the programming of society, or supposedly so. Perhaps I'm just being indocrinated by another system There's certainly a f'load of dogma in whichever social group you involve yourself with.

I feel I've wandered from my point. Too much thinking today.

Edited January 22, 2009 by Tomm

[tank_rider]

Sorry to hear it Mr Chai, however, the rules is the rules and there the same for everyone. I mean think how hard it is to get into other countries like Aus and NZ, you have to have some really good reason for them to let you in. Our rules are pretty damn relaxed anyway. Breaking them though has to come with the penatly of deportation.

[Tomm]

Again, I will have to ask why? I still can't find a fixed basis for this 'right'. I'm sorry but words like 'right' and 'should' don't really do it for me. They seem metaphysical and thus nonsensical in reference the physical world. I can't find a 'right' or 'should' anywhere. Nothing, as far as I can tell, has a 'right' or no 'right'. I may be off the mark here but it's where I stand at the moment. Anything involving a justification ultimately ends in infinite regress. I guess you can get into a group and decide that you will react to something AS IF it has a right but I can't get any closer to 'rights' than that. Sorry if this is a bit patchy, I find it difficult territory.

I just meant that as a group, you can control who can and can't join the group. It's like lots of things in life. I feel there is probably another 'why' coming, isn't there?! I'm not really saying it's 'right' but that's the world we live in and I'm cool with that. You seem slightly troubled by it all

I'm not denying culture, just highlighting the fact we may blindly follow it. We may be so entrenched that we are effectively robots which our society has programmed to behave. Our conceptual reactions to external stimuli causing us to be behave in ways that were already decided. I am including myself in this

Perhaps. Though when I question the meaning of life, I usually come up with 'because it makes us happy'. With that in mind, where is the harm in fitting in if it makes us feel good? We have undergone billions of years of evolution to get to this stage and if you're a Darwinist like me, you believe that the mind, and subsequently society (and therefore all the rules), are a result of evolution. This is who we are as human beings.

[TomR]

Ok you're all going way OTT on this IMO, the fact is he's bodged his passport and should get out. End of.

Morals, concepts and all that just complicate this. As for ownership, if someone has exchanged money for goods then they own it. We don't live in the year dot when we all roam around inhabiting whatever we find, we've built a society and that's how things go around here. If you want to go all fairy on us, go live in the desert or something.

[1a2bcio8]

Why? ( )

I deserve that I could attempt to explain but it would take some time which I don't have. What a cop out eh?

Ok you're all going way OTT on this IMO, the fact is he's bodged his passport and should get out. End of.

Morals, concepts and all that just complicate this. As for ownership, if someone has exchanged money for goods then they own it. We don't live in the year dot when we all roam around inhabiting whatever we find, we've built a society and that's how things go around here. If you want to go all fairy on us, go live in the desert or something.

Ahoy me harty. You are a prime example of my point; you don't wish to think any further than how it already is. That's upto you and I'm fine with it but I do wish to express my observation of it - regardless if I am wrong or right in that observation.

If I were a hindu, I'd pay my finest respects to you.

[TomR]

But thats because no matter how deep you think about it, it's never going to be how we live.

[Barbra]

I agree with you for what i can understand Rowly, and its bloody good reading But surely if everyone followed their own individual rights this would only lead to even more chaos, society has programmed us this way so that we all think in relatively the same way. That way there is less likely any chance at any serious problems. With everybody behaving in the same way, if you get me?

The only way it could cause epidemic problems in the way society is run today i think is if two countries with completely different lifestyles joined as one, ie Africa and the UK.

Its hard to explain when i'm trying to reply to you hope you understood.

Edited March 24, 2007 by Barber

[1a2bcio8]

I agree with you for what i can understand Rowly, and its bloody good reading But surely if everyone followed their own individual rights this would only lead to even more chaos, society has programmed us this way so that we all think in relatively the same way. That way there is less likely any chance at any serious problems. With everybody behaving in the same way, if you get me?

The only way it could cause epidemic problems in the way society is run today i think is if two countries with completely different lifestyles joined as one, ie Africa and the UK.

Its hard to explain when i'm trying to reply to you hope you understood.

I think I understand

I think you could be right but maybe not? I would say that it depends on exactly what is going on; the other processes of a society that are operating at the time we changed our usage or morals and laws, etc. What I'd say is imagine a society where they taught morals or guiding principles but at the same time they also taught you what principles and morals actually represented. That they are constructed concepts/ideas existing only in your mind. Additionally, that concepts are fixed and general and they don't neccesarily make sense to every situation because the world, at least to me, appears to be ever changing; each moment is never the same as the next. The concept that made sense last year may not make sense this year regarding its differences.

When somebody says "this person should be deported, they are 'illegal'", they miss out the actuality of that person. Who is this person? What is their life? It is easy to make quick judgements about people when all they are to you is a concept. Especially if that concept has negative connotations to you; consider racism. If we are locked into viewing the world through ideas or concepts we can become blinded or distorted by them and mis-judge situations. If, however, you dispose of or are cautious of your concepts, you may be able to view a situation how it actually is, with its uniqueness. In doing so you might find that you react to it in a choice that is your own instead of areacting to it on a reflex regarding how you have generalised it with your concept. You can still consider morals or principals but you have an alternative view as well. This can be quite frightening though and I think that perhaps people are scared of this. Consequences we don't like don't seem to bad when we can say, consciously or not that society says it was the right thing to do. So perhaps morals and our misunderstanding of them is a good thing in that we miss out on some fear but it can defintiely work on the converse. The old lady that sees me walking down the street towards her and gets scared and crosses over the road has most likely done so because she steretyped me. Perhaps because I am young, I have a beard (the main cause I suspet), I wear a hoodie, etc. she has generalised me and is percieving me as a threat that is consequently scaring her. Maybe she was hypnotised by the tv. If you watch the news each day you get the impression that the world is falling to pieces and maybe you develop an idea that distorts your experience of the world. When I walk around I think that 99.99% of people don't want to hurt me. I think this beacuse 99.99% of my time I've never been hurt by all the people ive come close to, walked past etc. Maybe I've been hypnotised by some unknown source though?

A really good way of thinking of concepts is the quote, "the map is not the territory". It's from a discipline called general semantics. It basically states that our perception and all of our ideas are just maps and they aren't the thing they represent; they just help guide us around the thing they represent. This can help you seperate your concepts from your most basic and material perception of the world. Basically consider your map as something which is useful in certain ways at certain times but not always. So then if you are in a new place you might need a new map (new concepts). Or perhaps something changes in the place you were already at then your map might need updating. Either way, you need to stop looking at the world through your current concepts and view the world without concepts so that you can register what its actual condition is. Your concepts are only ever guides, they never tell you anything exact about the world, they just help tell you about things that might be; that seem likely. Realise the limitations of your concepts and you probably won't rely on them quite so much and in turn you might gain some additional freedom. Perhaps though people don't want freedom in this sense.

So then perhaps if we dropped all guiding principles and stopped communicating with one another then we might well fall into anarchy but if instead we understood what are guiding principles do and their limitations, we might use them differently and allow ourselves to think alongside them. Thus we have a suggestion and a choice. If we do not know about the nature of guiding principles we might think that we 'should' react to them in this arbirary way that we have arrived at from the peculiar development we experienced. Most likely as a child when we were most vulnerable to suggestion.

Just remember, the most constant thing is change. The most constant thing about concepts is that they change. The models of science are just the same. Change is usually an updating; perhaps the making of a more accurate map regarding our external or internal environemt. It's much more difficult to update your map if you're not aware you are using a map and perhaps you think your map is THE map.

"Why do I need air when I've got water?" - Probably not as extreme but maybe your map is like that and maybe society made it that way.

I hope I've answered your question somewhat and not gone off on a tangent.

I wasn't supposed to write this much. I'm supposed to be doing a maths assignment that I've left to the last minute

Ben.

Edited March 24, 2007 by rowly

[Luke Williams!]

I think I understand

I think you could be right but maybe not? I would say that it depends on exactly what is going on; the other processes of a society that are operating at the time we changed our usage or morals and laws, etc. What I'd say is imagine a society where they taught morals or guiding principles but at the same time they also taught you what principles and morals actually represented. That they are constructed concepts/ideas existing only in your mind. Additionally, that concepts are fixed and general and they don't neccesarily make sense to every situation because the world, at least to me, appears to be ever changing; each moment is never the same as the next. The concept that made sense last year may not make sense this year regarding its differences.

When somebody says "this person should be deported, they are 'illegal'", they miss out the actuality of that person. Who is this person? What is their life? It is easy to make quick judgements about people when all they are to you is a concept. Especially if that concept has negative connotations to you; consider racism. If we are locked into viewing the world through ideas or concepts we can become blinded or distorted by them and mis-judge situations. If, however, you dispose of or are cautious of your concepts, you may be able to view a situation how it actually is, with its uniqueness. In doing so you might find that you react to it in a choice that is your own instead of areacting to it on a reflex regarding how you have generalised it with your concept. You can still consider morals or principals but you have an alternative view as well. This can be quite frightening though and I think that perhaps people are scared of this. Consequences we don't like don't seem to bad when we can say, consciously or not that society says it was the right thing to do. So perhaps morals and our misunderstanding of them is a good thing in that we miss out on some fear but it can defintiely work on the converse. The old lady that sees me walking down the street towards her and gets scared and crosses over the road has most likely done so because she steretyped me. Perhaps because I am young, I have a beard (the main cause I suspet), I wear a hoodie, etc. she has generalised me and is percieving me as a threat that is consequently scaring her. Maybe she was hypnotised by the tv. If you watch the news each day you get the impression that the world is falling to pieces and maybe you develop an idea that distorts your experience of the world. When I walk around I think that 99.99% of people don't want to hurt me. I think this beacuse 99.99% of my time I've never been hurt by all the people ive come close to, walked past etc. Maybe I've been hypnotised by some unknown source though?

A really good way of thinking of concepts is the quote, "the map is not the territory". It's from a discipline called general semantics. It basically states that our perception and all of our ideas are just maps and they aren't the thing they represent; they just help guide us around the thing they represent. This can help you seperate your concepts from your most basic and material perception of the world. Basically consider your map as something which is useful in certain ways at certain times but not always. So then if you are in a new place you might need a new map (new concepts). Or perhaps something changes in the place you were already at then your map might need updating. Either way, you need to stop looking at the world through your current concepts and view the world without concepts so that you can register what its actual condition is. Your concepts are only ever guides, they never tell you anything exact about the world, they just help tell you about things that might be; that seem likely. Realise the limitations of your concepts and you probably won't rely on them quite so much and in turn you might gain some additional freedom. Perhaps though people don't want freedom in this sense.

So then perhaps if we dropped all guiding principles and stopped communicating with one another then we might well fall into anarchy but if instead we understood what are guiding principles do and their limitations, we might use them differently and allow ourselves to think alongside them. Thus we have a suggestion and a choice. If we do not know about the nature of guiding principles we might think that we 'should' react to them in this arbirary way that we have arrived at from the peculiar development we experienced. Most likely as a child when we were most vulnerable to suggestion.

Just remember, the most constant thing is change. The most constant thing about concepts is that they change. The models of science are just the same. Change is usually an updating; perhaps the making of a more accurate map regarding our external or internal environemt. It's much more difficult to update your map if you're not aware you are using a map and perhaps you think your map is THE map.

"Why do I need air when I've got water?" - Probably not as extreme but maybe your map is like that and maybe society made it that way.

I hope I've answered your question somewhat and not gone off on a tangent.

I wasn't supposed to write this much. I'm supposed to be doing a maths assignment that I've left to the last minute

Ben.

dude you speak a load of shit, rules are rules which people follow and are there in place for everybodies safety and benefit if you dont follow these rules your basically an emo, plus i'm sure the queen owns this land we live on, the politicians just run it for her but have subsequently taken over thats all. just relate it to the bible no one knows its f**king real but it controls people an makes alot of people, nicer so who gives a crap if someones retarded enough to be a Christian, its just rules an if you dont follow them your in the shit aka jail or deported or whatever so stop trying to go against the flow of england an deal with your minor issues on pointless things!

[Davetrials]

i dont give a shit what that says, it cant be all relevant to this post surley?

rowlys post. btw.

Edited March 27, 2007 by Davetrials

[1a2bcio8]

dude you speak a load of shit, rules are rules which people follow and are there in place for everybodies safety and benefit if you dont follow these rules your basically an emo, plus i'm sure the queen owns this land we live on, the politicians just run it for her but have subsequently taken over thats all. just relate it to the bible no one knows its f**king real but it controls people an makes alot of people, nicer so who gives a crap if someones retarded enough to be a Christian, its just rules an if you dont follow them your in the shit aka jail or deported or whatever so stop trying to go against the flow of england an deal with your minor issues on pointless things!

Rules are rules? That's a circluar arguement which I don't go for.

i dont give a shit what that says, it cant be all relevant to this post surley?

rowlys post. btw.

It was supposed to address what people said regarding what should happen to the 'illegal' man who 'faked' his passport. It has moved on from there somewhat because the discussion developed.

Do my words make some of you angry?

Edited March 27, 2007 by rowly

[Davey]

Rules are rules? That's a circluar arguement which I don't go for. I disagree with what you say.

It was supposed to address what people said regarding what should happen to the 'illegal' man who 'faked' his passport. It has moved on from there somewhat because the discussion developed.

Do my words make some of you angry?

No, well not me anyway but then very little makes me angry with the exception on Enter Shikari, waiting for people and Most Haunted!

Now I have had a chance to digest and understand what you are saying I can fully understand it. I think you have admited that you too folow cultural influence in your decision making, and if someone were to steal something from you I dont believe you'd say "Oi before you take that even though it isnt technically mine please consider how that will make me feel" I reckon you'd just say "Oi that's mine, give it back"!

But either way, culture and society are necessary and shouldn't be considered some form of brainwash. Not only are culture and society and their influence necessary for social harmony but they're also unavoidable. We are all products of our upbringing, the specifics of which are dictated by where we are brough up but there are a very basic set of accepted rules across the human race and indeed the entire animal kingdom, ownership and law being two of them.

No matter where you go these two things exist and the simple reason for this is that despite what you say about these things being a product of culture or society they are not, they are as natural as birth and death. Even if someone grows up completely outside of "society", as an orphan in a remote jungle in some far off land for example, the natural desire for lifes neccesities such as food and shelter will install the concept of ownership, the instinct to protect that which we have gained through our own hard work. Also every species of animal has some form of heirarchy or sense of order of things, a way in which things are done to ensure that everything is fair, this forms the basis of law.

Short of living entirely alone as a singular creature with no other lifeforms around you and with plentiful supplies of everything you need, it's very naive to think that you can suppress the influence of society and culture and quite un-natural to fly in the face of it, which is in essence what these people are doing by not following the human race's heirarchy of law and order and our concept of ownership through hard work (which is what money equates too).

I think that'll do for now!

Davey

[MadManMike]

Sorry rowly, I refuse to read all your posts as i'm busy - I just don't see why this debate has started.

The people that run this country have set rules, someone came here and broke those rules, they are now leaving.

Where's the complication?

[Davetrials]

i said they deserve it?

[Davey]

Sorry rowly, I refuse to read all your posts as i'm busy - I just don't see why this debate has started.

The people that run this country have set rules, someone came here and broke those rules, they are now leaving.

Where's the complication?

Well it's complex as you can tell by the length of the posts, but to summarise what I can understand of it he is saying that these people have every right to be here as this land is not owned, in reality, by anyone. The reasoning behind this is that laws and ownership are concepts which are imposed upon us by society and culture, not naturaly choice or independant thought. But really there is no such thing as independant though, as everything we know is taught to us, there is no such thing as independant though with the exception of the nautral thoughts of, say, a child. But even a child will naturally develop a sense of ownership and law so his point really doesn't hold much water.... with me anyway!

Davey

[MadManMike]

Cool theory - that means I can take anything and use it without someones permission?

I'm so glad you don't run our country Rowly!