History - Exterminate All The Brutes

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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby Steve James on Thu Apr 22, 2021 4:07 am

The point about the Arabic writing was only that there was contact between the two peoples. I noted the historical inaccuracy of Vikings show, but there's no doubt the Norse engaged in slavery. No news there.

OK, let's wait until you've read the book, but the film goes further. It's influenced by two other other books. One, An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and A Peoples History of the United States. Both are recommended. Let's here your opinion of them.
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby Trick on Thu Apr 22, 2021 5:43 am

Actually the cloth thing if not originally part of an political agenda it quickly became so, and the textile archeologist hooked on to that quickly calling the skeptics being xenophobes for not believing there actually are an text on the cloth.
The whole thing were quickly presented as there might/must have been Muslim vikings, all in an attempt to “depowerize” Norse symbology being used by Swedish nationalist groups...
That vikings traveled extensively to and from Saracen lands are no news.

However not much on the “writing” on the cloth anymore. It was quickly found that the timeperiods of when the cloth was supposedly made and the time when that specific Kufic writing on such objects in the Middle East came in use do not fit.

Well yes slaves was held in Scandinavia, I think you have read it, but if not here is the the eyewitness story of Ahmad ibn Fadlan on one of the “duties”of a slave(woman) https://thornews.com/2012/05/12/a-vikin ... bn-fadlan/
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby Trick on Thu Apr 22, 2021 5:57 am

Steve James wrote:
OK, let's wait until you've read the book, but the film goes further. It's influenced by two other other books. One, An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States and A Peoples History of the United States. Both are recommended. Let's here your opinion of them.

You’ll have to wait, I’m a slooow reader and I just stated reading “a dark so deadly” it’s a thick book....................no that’s not anything about slavery, It’s a crime novel set in modern day Scotland 8-)
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby Steve James on Thu Apr 22, 2021 5:57 am

Shucks, all of Europe was xenophobic of the Norsemen. Turnabout is fair play.
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby edededed on Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:11 am

Just a quick note that Mitchell's version of the Daodejing is highly unreliable (to say it mildly).
Large chunks of it are creative writing exercises with no basis in the original text.
Unfortunately, it seems to be one of the most popular versions in English (if not THE most popular), which is resulting in the spreading of many incorrect ideas about Daoism to the English-speaking public.

I would recommend any translation by a translator that does speak Chinese.


Quigga wrote:There's a passage in the Dao De Jing that goes like:


If a country is governed wisely,
its inhabitants will be content.
They enjoy the labor of their hands
and don't waste time inventing
labor-saving machines.
Since they dearly love their homes,
they aren't interested in travel.
There may be a few wagons and boats,
but these don't go anywhere.
There may be an arsenal of weapons,
but nobody ever uses them.
People enjoy their food,
take pleasure in being with their families,
spend weekends working in their gardens,
delight in the doings of the neighborhood.
And even though the next country is so close
that people can hear its roosters crowing and its dogs barking,
they are content to die of old age
without ever having gone to see it.

http://thetaoteching.com/taoteching80.html

Which translates to me as... Don't be nosy. Mind your own business. There is no true social justice for all as some might envision. If justice is enacted, there need to be those that feel they're being treated unjust. Enforcing one's perspective of justice thus only serves to create more tension in society, not less. Try to make everyone and everything equal and you'll witness stagnation for some time, then intense unrest as the stored dynamic potential break free once more.

Dao cultivated in upper dantian
De cultivated in middle dantian
Jing cultivated in lower dantian
Together they are the real way

How do you want to give each culture's history the same recognition? You can't. Not everyone's group was equally important in building our modern, globalized civilization. If one group was capable enough to exploit the other, what were the differences? The one's counting on their good hearts to survive always die first.

Every group wants to push their narrative as most important, competing with others instead of living alongside and accepting our differences.

Our peace is very fragile and it won't last much longer... All because people feel disadvantaged, feel undervalued, feel misrepresented in public dialogue.

You want to help the community? Get together and create a church of your own beliefs. What do you belief in? Killing, stealing, dealing drugs, civil unrest? Or helping one another, trying to feed one another, setting examples for each other? What would motivate people outside of your community more to help you?

I pulled these words out of my arse. Really caring about any of this is way too exhausting. Who do you think you are that you can create vast societal change? Who do you think cares about your so called cultivated, intellectual opinion of the world? Highly esteemed like steam from cow's shit raising in winter.

Explain one human and you explain the world.

---

End of my creative writing exercise :D
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby Quigga on Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:52 am

Ed I get what you're saying and I believe you :) I picked this version of Chapter 80 without much thinking. I read the DDJ first when I was 14/15 and remembered, it was in German. Any specific translation you have in mind?

For me the core message is that life gets very complicated when population size in a limited area gets too big :) Or it seems complicated because people let themselves get more influenced by people than by God/Heaven+Earth/Unspoken Dao
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby edededed on Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:59 am

Ach, Deutsche Sprache ist eine schwere Sprache!

I hope German is luckier in terms of its translations. In English, in general any translation by someone who understands Chinese is okay; the reverse is also true, i.e. in general, any translation by someone who does not understand Chinese should be steered away from.

Your understanding is similar to mine :)

Lots of population, big desires, and influence from others (today it's from media) makes people restlessly move about, rush to start wars, etc.
In that sense - has humankind advanced much since the 2,500 years prior when the Daodejing was written?
We know how burgeoning populations led to "exploration" and colonization and exploitation (and of course many wars in between).
Now in modern times people work and then spend all their money to travel all about - just an endless cycle.
Daoism is all about longevity and simplicity - being happy with what you have, not trying to be a hero, living a long life.
Here the point is that - having a simpler environment with less to initiate desire/conflict will lead to people having simpler and happier lives.

(The original even recommends returning to pre-writing - until sometime before 1200 BC, according to legend around 3300 BC, Chinese used knots in cords to somehow record things - so quite a strong push toward simpler, older times.)
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby Quigga on Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:30 pm

Right now I'm trying to deal with the fact that no belief I'm capable of holding can change anything in the world at large :) My beliefs are utterly and completely useless. They're what I would like the world to be - positive or negative ones - but the world is as it is. There's only cause and effect. Beliefs are tools the ego uses to navigate the world for lack of better guidance. Beliefs are prejudices about how the world is functioning.

Wuwei - doing only what God requires - merging my small will with the big will of God. No ego dissolution, that's not good, except for zombies. If I mix two liquids, can it be said that one is gone or the other vanished? No. If I mix sugar into water, is it gone? No, yes, it's dissolved ??? Does it matter? Kinda, it tastes sweet. I'd like to know if I drink Pepsi or Coke or Sprite... but the 5 tastes numb the tongue, so yeah :D Free Flow blah 8)
Last edited by Quigga on Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby gzregorz on Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:39 pm

Being that it is April 24th. Here's a good documentary on the Armenian Genocide.

Watch "The Young Turks Torture to Death 1.5 Million Armenians During WW1 (GENOCIDE)" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/Djhch-lWnpc
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby gzregorz on Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:03 pm

Posted here because it also exposes the US government's reluctance to call it geniocide due to both financial and political reasons.
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby Quigga on Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:23 pm

So? Not the first time politics, money, power and violence are intertwined...
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby gzregorz on Sat Apr 24, 2021 4:02 pm

I am talking to the professor.

You wouldn't watch it anyway.

For me debating people about videos or documentaries they refuse to watch is a complete waste of time. Wish I had the kind of free time you do but I don't or perhaps I should say I refuse to waste such time.

FWIW Ronald Reagan, yes Reagan, was the last US president to recognize the Armenian geniocide. Which had you watched the video you would have already known. Perhaps you might find it interesting to learn why Ronnie Reagan made that decision.

If you watch it let me know. Otherwise this is a completely pointless conversation.
Last edited by gzregorz on Sat Apr 24, 2021 4:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby Steve James on Sat Apr 24, 2021 5:40 pm

gzregorz wrote:Posted here because it also exposes the US government's reluctance to call it geniocide due to both financial and political reasons.


Well, fwiw, Biden did it today. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... rance-day/

Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring. Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination. We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history. And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms.
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby gzregorz on Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:13 pm

Thanks Professor,

I mentioned Reagan because I am sure the knee jerk reaction from the right will be that this is a foreign policy disaster. Ignoring geniocide seems to be a talking point for some.

I am happy to see that the US stands by principles again.
Last edited by gzregorz on Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Exterminate All The Brutes

Postby Steve James on Sat Apr 24, 2021 9:07 pm

I am happy to see that the US stands by principles again.


I'm sure someone will say that it was a bad idea.

Did you watch the latest series of Fargo? There's a scene where an Italian gangster is talking to a Black gangster. As an immigrant (like a Corleone), he says that he always wondered what people meant by "American values."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_TLN00mYo
Last edited by Steve James on Sat Apr 24, 2021 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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