Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (87631)	3/29/2003 4:54:35 PM
From: NightOwl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

There are those rare individuals whom upon failure reconsider their strategic mistakes. I suspect even Hitler at some point in time thought that attacking Russia instead sharing the loots of war with them was a mistake. If you read diaries of Napoleon in his later days, you see that he too analyzed and accepted his own shortcomings...and not just as a matter of tactical error. You won't get an argument on this point from me ST. ...Except for the "rare individuals" part. I'd agree that the ability to identify and correct perceived "errors" is rampant in the species. ...The deficiency I was whining about was my "perception" that the "error" identified on such occasions is rarely considered as being "self-centeredness" or "conceit." Last I checked we were willing to surrender our rights to spend our money on a hitman to take care of the competing corner store in exchange for him doing the same. Nor are bodybuilders running around robbing people on the streets. True, but I could say the same thing about various of the city states of Greece circa 500 B.C. Whether you call them hitman, hoplite, hellot, olympian, cop, G-man, militia, etc. it all seems much more alike than not. We can make implements much better at practically everything than our human fore-fathers and mothers, but the "animals" who wield them today, for all practical purposes, are identical to the Greeks and Persians who "warred" with stone and bronze before us. We have not changed in any significant physical, mental or psychological sense. But because of us the world we live in has altered dramatically. These changes have made some of us more knowledgeable about some things, dumber about others. More powerful than our ancestors in many respects, weaker in others. But to think that we are (or even should be) somehow better, more ethical, more moral, more stable, nicer or even "cleaner" humans today than we were in 450 B.C. seems to be just a tad self-centered to me. Quite normal for humans mind you, but "self-centered" none the less. ...No doubt, despite all evidence to the contrary, the now ancient Athenians thought they were light years beyond their fore runners and foreigners as well. <Hoo?> 0\|0