Onasander

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_%28social_theory%29 If you know anything about MBTI, the NT/SF axis expresses "reflectivity". I'm a very complex INTJ (conscious control over both Supplimentry Motor Areas, not just one). This effect stands out very sharply to me, as I process not just raw empirical data, but also social data, from organizations and hierarchies. ISIS takes it purely from a extroverted level, from Hierarchy and from firmly rooted axiomatic principles and structures, and use a system of presidents known as Hadiths, which are similar to presidents in common law, but are much more zealous in the use. By attacking the ruins, they are making a very economic use, under low threat conditions, of destroying sites, and thus affirming via propaganda that they are fulfilling their mission, no matter how incompetent they get in actual combat. This matters a lot to the kinds of people they recruit. An INTJ like myself will nitpick this relentlessly (see my Greek and Roman Book price thread) until every variable in cause and effect is known and I control it. Its central to my personality. Not for these guys, only aspects that encourage social inclusion are. When we in the west get in a hissy fit and start weeping over the sites being destroyed, it only encourages them, as the feed off our pain and bitching, it satisfies them, gives them a Serotonin boost, and conditions them to a superiority complex, gives them a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction, and exasperates the situation. It has become newsworthy to report relics and sites being destroyed. Oftentimes emphasizing old Jewish and christian churches. These guys want to feel superior over such people, that serotonin surge. They live in a world where Muslims feel inferior, but their religion claims superiority. So.... We need to merely collapse the market value of said sites in the eyes of ISIS. If they blow up a site, we don't bitch and whine, and act like its precious. We announce plans to rebuild.... a international call for images to allow reconstruction in the future. We remain self assured, and we heavily denounce buying artifacts, even if just to "save them". The old churches, such as the Greek and Armenian churches, have long denounced buying old crosses and murals, and other keepsakes during the 20th century, as it likely came through such destructive violence. Its something Augustus started. The emperor would collect novelties, such as books, expensive historical items, even supposedly dinosaur bones (the bones of giants) for display in his crappy little house. He reinvented what luxury was. Thomas Jefferson built on this with his private library/museum. Were now at a point where we need to examine the underlining memes underlining the psychological motivations to continue in this fashion, as Iconoclasm is adapting and is seeking out a militant destruction to it. Are we merely adapting the old mechanisms for "sacred space" in old religions and placing it on museums and archeological sites? Are we aping medieval pilgrimages and hoping for the same results in self identity and self affirmation? What is really going on in our heads? We need to figure this out quick, as ISIS already has a "Theory of Mind" developed about us. They have a admitted fascination with history, and even Rome, and given this site high Google rankings, likely came here a few times. They have a pretty good sense of us, and actively feed off our psychology. I say, its time to learn of them in the same manner, and reexamine ourselves, and process our behavior under a aggressive axis that undermines their assumptions, and seeks to trivalize and derail. Phones with holographic displays are expected to hit market next year. In academia, there is a call for papers. We should have a call of photos, and make it freely available for processing in panoramic displays. Boost the details of how we collate and process historic sites so we can better recreate them. Emphasize 3-D printing, and the principles Carnegie had of making replicas of monuments as just as valid to display as the original. Finally.... and this is the hard part, find what is still human, still valid in ISIS, and forgive them, and do outreach so they can't feel so separated and filled with hatred and inferiority. They are still human, and are acting very human in their monstrosity. A lot of young guys acting foolish. I don't recommend hanging them all. We gotta live in the same world as they do, well into old age. Their viewpoint will have to be digested and understood, even under absolute victory on our part, much like we had to absord the Nazis after the war and intellectually comprehend them. Right now, are we even seeing this? We don't have a end game in sight. Most important thing is examining ourselves, and why we are as we are. Its the one thing capable to preserving our history in the long term.

Have you seen any pictures of said sites, recently? The pillars are shot up, and the ground heavily cratered. This city is important, it was a Seleucid stronghold, and produced several Stoic and Platonist philosophers. I am prepared to feed what remains of it to the dust, in the same way the countless generations before us just didn't care enough to preserve it. Important Muslim thinkers came from there too. I guarantee you most historians don't bother with them, and tourist nitpick an era generally. They will have to be content with reconstructions. Now if you really fell otherwise, I can reactivate the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, get some thirty to forty like minded guys to join up, link up in Kurdish Jazeera with you (and you WILL be there) and we can fight our way down to the site, and entrench. We will have very little in supplies, the sun will be hot, the water will sicken us, and if the heat doesn't kill us, ISIS raping out abdomens with bayonets in our trenches will. Or.... you can learn to appreciate 3-D printed recreation of ruins. I really don't care to die for Assad. If westerners show up to protect a site of roman idolatry, I assure you, ISIS will throw everything against it without care to the consequences of their long term strategy or even effective tactics, we could kill them a thousand to one, and they would still come.... as we would represent everything they despise. We can thank movie producers, and sci-fi television shows for pioneering realistic sets. At least we know we can rebuild them. And my guts get to stay on the inside in the process. I and hopefully no one else is dying for that crap.

What? Loyal to the..... I thought they would just sign a oath to king and country? We had to swear a oath to the president and constitution. We were airborne, and many of us (including myself) tried out for the ranger battalion and so heavily accepted the Ethos behind leave no man behind. The idea caused a lot of damage to the battalion once Bergdahl left (just Google Bergdahl if you never heard of him, I know the BBC covered him). If he had been kidnapped, then every death and injury resulting to the battalion would of been acceptable and worth it in retrieving him. However, if it is true that he just wandered off and decided to low crawl to India or Russia with his travel diary, then it is an unimaginable betrayal. I spent several years looking at his photograph, learned even how to calculate a gnome afor calculating the angle of shadows, and trued funding topographical maps and botanical works to decipher his exact location in his picture. Its confusing and upsetting to me. We never had to swear however a oath to a unit. You just showed up to a base (if your a brand new infantry private, you could even show up to a base not assigned to and get accepted after getting chewed out), and the base placed you to a battalion. The battalion would ask you if you even have a preference of company, but if not, would just line you up and say in sequence "your A, your B, C, D, A, B, C, D.....". Once in the Company, I was like.... homeless for a month. I slept in the hallway and day room, and then given a room with First Platoon, but was NOT first platoon, cause the XO (assistant commander) never got around to assigning me and the others. My squad was chosen very random, the new guys to the platoon were all lined up, and the squad leaders looked us over like a piece of meat, like they were choosing guys for dodgeball. I was lucky not to be chosen for the heavy weapons squad. I wasn't so lucky I was stuck with a giant milk drinking freak from Miami who became my roommate. So saying guys were loyal to a regiment and not a battalion is a very alien concept, as I had absolutely no "loyalty" to my unit. I had it to the guys, I wanted them to live. I wanted however on a abstract level for everyone to live. They tried instituting a company esprite and superiority complex.... My best friend wasn't in the company, even not in the battalion or even infantry, he was in communications, was responsible for monitoring all computers on base to make sure people were looking at *or* or playing on yahoo messenger. I and others were told to break off our friendships and only have friends with guys in our company. I saluted, sang the Airborne Ranger Cadence in the hallway, and after work went and hung out with him.... Cause like I said, we had no real "loyalty" to the unit. We understood of course as well as all of you the basic idea of esprite de corps, but didn't want to be bothered by it after work if it interfered with our life. Some of us would put up pictures of the battalion Command Sargent Major next to our beds, making it look creepy for a room inspection. I had one of Donald Rumsfeld for a while, put it in my bathroom after getting out facing my toilet, found it helped me shit. The idea was at best a joke, experimental and awkward. Loyalty to a battalion works, say if your in a ranger battalion. Our unit, though very similar in being stacked with guys who tried our for rangers and special forces and didn't make it (the best of the worst or the worst of the best) wasn't quite that, and despite our more advanced methods and harder experiences in Alaska, being a cold and frozen parachute unit, never quite aligned on that axis as you claim the British do. The only way I can see the British doing this is from the episode of "Sharpe's" where they had several guys directly recruited by a battalion, and trained by them, then expected to join said battalion in Spain under Wellington. Instead, they were being auctioned off to the highest bidding commanders. I take from this that the English at one time had their garrisons directly recruit the locals. I further presume we inherited the Battalion /Regiment Mess, kept it up until at least the Civil War on some level, but afterwards federalized the draft process, under a central command that took men in mass, and chucked them after training in the general direction of a base, and let the base figure it out. Another part of the pentagon worked on designations, and generally made most units battalions, but sometimes regiments if they felt like it, cause who will say otherwise? Pentagon does a lot of stupid oversight and mandating. The idiots made us walk around in night vision in Alaska in the middle of summer when it never got dark. Sunny for months, and we were mandated to walk a obstacle course to familiarize us with squad and platoon movements wearing the crap. I had to keep mine crooked off to the side so I could see. I had a platoon Sargent catch me and shake his finger at me, and place the stupid thing back over my eye so I couldn't see when walking., crashing into stuff. Obviously no loyalty to the pentagon. A lot of rank and confusion in there, and its better for all if they just stay in there and not come out or issue such orders. Less is more.

You know.... you bring up a good point. I never read the trade agreement between Carthage and the Romans, I don't actually know what Rome exported of value in the early days. Slaves. Yes, later on, but how many slaves in the beginning? I'm trying to imagine what a merchant in Carthage would want to trade to Romans with? Its a bootleg Greek, bootleg Etruscan town, with the real deal just north and south of it. Pottery? Lemons? A ritual urn or badly sculpted sculpture and fancy wicker worked baskets? A little wine? If I recall, the Romans used untreated copper nuggets as currency. Not evidence of a great trader culture. I guess the port existed less in the beginning for international import and export than.... the need for a central port of capital trying to keep in contact with its farther estates, and to shelter its fishing vessels (nearly said fleet, but didn't want to involve that collectively organized implication). At some point it made the switch. I can't recall the name of the Roman Law, it "survived" into the middle ages, banning local lords who held a coastline from claiming the goods of shipwrecked ships as well as any survivors as slaves. I recall the catholic church getting upset the practice was still going on at times. Gives a insight as to how officials would of originally seen passing ships, personal and their goods as fair game, and how this mindset would have to be modified over time so as to encourage commerence, and regularly receive cargo. I can't imagine a international port of call sitting in the middle of such a backwards society.

It said for the English, a regiment was like a battalion but purely ceremonial. I was stumped in the American system, the difference between Regiment and Battalion myself. My unit was a parachute battalion (some 600 guys), but for a while we had a PIR attached it it (Parachute Infantry Regiment). I remember reading old field manuals on making booby traps, and it said everything had to be approved by the regimental commander (which killed my weekend plans), but I couldn't quite figure out who the regimental commander was back then. The battalion CO, or the Brigade Colonel? I didn't know then, and just a tad bit uncertain still now. Does said person exist only in the pentagon, or do they have a office in the larger Alaskan command, or even larger pacific command? Exist in another dimension perhaps, communication with our realm via ham radio? Honestly, I doubt had I known, they would of let me test out all the booby traps, or let me build a random guard tower on the roof of our building to manual specs. Leadership tends to be a bunch of killjoys. "Oh no, we can't dig a punji stake pit in the woods, what if a moose falls in" sort of replies. Its why if your gonna dig a death pit, just do it, and don't talk about it. Words can only hurt any creative burst of creativity and inspiration. Who needs regimental approval.... I sure don't, not even sure if such things even exist. I could really use a shovel right now.

I've been following this war very closely.... hate to say it, but at thus point this site really isn't worth the effort. Most of the historic sites in Syria not firmly within Assad's core areas have already been potmarked by shovels digging left and right, and our own people- archeologists, art history and historians needing some extra money have gone around "Authenticating" artifacts. I can't say deep down inside that I really care for the actual statues or walls any more than future facsimilies based off of photographic reconstructions. Sorry.... been one too many times to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, saw the old plaster casts, know 3-D printing can pull it off. My big issue is this archeologist in Syria trying to change the nature of "Just War Theory" by adding historical preservation as a collective cause of war. I've thought about it over the last few days, and as much as I appreciate the romanticism of defending a "historic site", its pretty much for bullshit reasons. Assad.... he really, really screwed up. He inherited the problem in large part, but botched his international alliances. His family took Syria from being in a Arab Union with Egypt to a purely ethnic-partisan tyranny of a minority, power playing, obstructing, and committing at times genocide against a majority population kept economically and politically disenfranchised. His dynasty played the game stupid, its a trait the Ba'athist all carry. Shitty poor political outlook, with a remarkable capacity to pick fights with countries and organizations they really, really shouldn't get in fights with. End result is, this.... ISIS is iconoclastic. It has access to basic construction and demolition tools, and it keeps them busy. Every time they waste their breath on blowing up a shrine or digging in a field looking for treasure is planning and operation time off the table for their genocide. Furthermore, had Assad instituted permanent roaming patrols in his bases, between the outer parameter and his garrison and HQ, his forces wouldn't of lost Idlib, or experience the sharp contraction in Aleppo. They have been using unorthodox stratagems to get around the outer parameters, wiping out Assad's intelligentsia.... his military thinkers. A few guys regularly patrolling from a secondary operations center could of sniffed these infiltrations out in advance and organize a resistance. Assad didn't. End result is high attrition, a dumber kind of leadership, and far, far down the list of concerns, increased damage to already damaged sites. The US will not be doing a massive air campaign to save this site, as it would be counter productive on several fronts. Our bombs have very, very high explosive yield and can take out half a block. I don't think this would do any good if the goal is to preserve said site. All we would be doing is saving Assad. However, the greater ethical complication is, the genocide threat. I doubt ISIS will try to assimilate the Alawite community, at least not meaningfully. Five minutes of lip service, urging to convert.... then dead. Short of introducing new tactics and ad hoc modifications to basic infantry weapons that will allow them to hold ground, fundamentally morphing the tactical synthesis between Assad and ISIS, they won't be able to hold on their own. At least not without significant air support and supplies. I'm deeply loathed for the former, as ISIS and every aspiring militant group on the planet would quickly likewise adopt the weapon mods and MOUT tactics, using it against conventional forces, or the US (and a couple of planes from a handful of European and Arab countries amounting to a rather pityful supporting force) will have to defend Assad as he tries to cover his ass and save his regime. Though they are responsible and culpable in making the situation as it is, have very bloody hands.... I'm not so sure I can tolerate genocide. We might have to defend Assad's people, but we are unlikely to do that short of his regime outright collapsing. As for the art and history.... archeology itself will have to adapt to the circumstances, a new subfield. Using in the long term over the next few up coming decades, databases searching out background images of supposed art, seizures by national customs, and old fashion sloothing will have to arise and merge in novel ways to bring all these artifacts, these "pagan artifacts" being destroyed and sold oftentimes to even rich middle eastern buyers (ironic) in Arabia and Qatar, into a meaningful timeline. Once Syria calms down.... and one way or another it will someday, even if ISIS conquers the world, we can replicate these sites. 3, 10,100 generations from now, this will just be another chapter in the history of said sites. The pillagers undoubtedly missed a few artifacts, we will still have discoveries. Just not comfortable with historic sites mattering more than people. This holds for future wars, should we keep the Swedes from blowing up the Riffle Tower, or should the Chinese stop Jamaica from razing the memorials in Washington, DC down centuries from now, minus considerations of what brought on the tragedy in the first place? Were talking about just willy nilly adding rules to international law that will cause a lot of treaty complications. I've been rather sourface with the UN Secretary General talking about war crimes and crews against humanity because some rock got drilled in, or some old empty building got blown up. If only we had this passion and disgust when children are kidnapped, communities are raped, armies clash, etc. We'll undoubtedly will have a impassioned ICC court prosecutor getting a couple of minor commanders a few decades from now making grandiose speeches about righteousness and justice. Its all a farce on our part. Assad did a lot to do himself in, but so did just about everyone else. Nobody gave a damn. We really didn't take the idea of a UN seriously, use our diplomats better over the last couple of generations. We fucked around with two poorly thought out, yet impassioned ideologies, had our cold war, and the older cold war between the Shiites and the Sunni learned every demented, dirty lesson. In Europe and the US, our left got delusional and high minded, and our right narrow minded and entrenched. We took ideas seriously, but not people. Now, ideas get to die. Artifacts, monuments, communities.... ripped apart, mangled, destroyed. Collective sins, and no one anywhere is above responsibility. Its not going to happen just in Syria. Just in Iraq. This will be system wide, absurd, and tolerated, if for no other reason than it happens to only some, and only for a generation or two in any given location. A mass hysteria contained. I'm not for medicating it with more aitstrikes, just to "stem the flow" in a particular direction or front while leaving the larger mechanisms and political organisms intact.

Wait, so no units in the Navy? What about Seal Team 6?

I'd also like an explanation for the american system as well, I still don't get our system, much less the British system. I was in the 1/501st, and most Airborne Infantry units had a X/50X number, but like, the 501st was originally in the 101st Airborne, and that unit (assuming always a division) predated the airborne.... so how that 50X rating came systematic confuses me. Likewise how companies can seemingly expand to infinity within a battalion, but a battalion can't be a brigade, even if it is hypothetically brigade size, and why some divisions like the 82nd get to be all airborne, but others gotta be mixed Stryker/Airborne with a lot of non-infantry leg support. I also want to know why the pentagon thought half the Tropic of Lightning should be in the arctic of all places, and just how the Tropic of Lightning on Division Level Leadership managed to stay in Hawaii when only one of the four brigades was in Hawaii, and most was in Alaska getting frostbite instead of tans. And I want to know why they made me spend a hundred dollars on stupid parachute books for a dress uniform I wasade to wear to a all male ball, despite my adamant claims attending a sausage fest violated Don't Ask Don't Tell for everyone who liked the idea, and why they didn't want to hang our with their wives or girlfriends, or try to get some at least in town, instead of dressing up cute with one another..... and what the hell was up with the berets.... what are we, French or something? All I needed was boots, a rifle, and a buttflap to keep my junk covered. Also what the heck was going on with all the gold threads on the flag in the base HQ, and why they didn't cut that gaudy clutter off the flag, and why some people thought you had to eat the flag if it touched the ground accidently (I'm not buying its to honor the Spanish-American War Soldiers sacrifices, I doubt they really cared much about it either- everyone was always pretending to honor it for someone else prior. You go back far enough, its Uggh the caveman with a skull on a pole, we all are just honoring Uggh's aesthetic accomplishment and never questioned why). I also want to know why my unit had all native american units..... Apache, Blackfoot, Comanche, Delaware.... but we had no Eskimo company despite being in Alaska. Also why headquarter units go by a special name and not A Company, and support units aren't given a company designation. Also want to know why there was a 1501 Apache Longbow Unit (a kind of helicopter), yet our Apache unit (pure infantry, no helicopters) never accidentally got helicopter parts in the mail, despite the postal service in the military otherwise sucking and getting stuff mixed up. We wanted our own personal attack helicopter, but noooooo, Army had to suffer a sudden fit of postal competency when it came to such things. Also.... why aren't platoons known as 1/2nd Comanche or 3/3rd Blackfoot. You get a few platoons per company, but the platoons don't follow the battalion and division patterns. Likewise, why don't soldiers wear division crests, instead of battalion? If the president wore a rank, could is rank just be a image of his face slapped on uniform? If a base announced a order on its base wide megaphone, and it gave a order, but it echoed, and the echoed bounced back in such a way that it modified the order, is everyone required to follow the echo as a lawful order modifying the first order, or just the first? Also, what the hell was up with all the music coming out of the Ft. Benning HQ building outside of Airborne School? I only knew what a few of the sounds were, it sounded like the had a Merry Go Round Carosal on the roof, and the General Staff was was riding wooden horses and eating cotten candy in circles. Neither us or the guys over in Officer Candidacy School could figure out what those tunes were possibly about at times. They need to knock that stuff off. Army left me confused about some stuff. Mostly doesn't make sense. I just don't know. British army just looks more confusing with its merged lineages.

This reminds me of when Max Berry was selecting his image art for the book cover of his book "Company", a doughnut with a bite in it, and he had several different doughnuts pictured, and everyone was debating the merits of which doughnut, and the one selected was too similar to another book with a similar doughnut bitten into it. There was legal threats and all, so finally he went for a soggy glazed doughnut, and I refused to read the book as a result cause he gave in. Pussy.

They are not barbarians in regards to their mosaic restoration practices, it looks like they are doing what you expect.... fix chipped and cracking pieces, and remove the dull top layers to add the new top layers. Turks have been coming around the last two generations, embracing their earlier Greek heritage. Its quite easy to forget they have alot of Greek blood in them, nearly a thousand years of not so consensual marruage/harems. A educated Turk knows of the Roman heritage of their region. I wouldn't necessarily rank them higher than, say, Indonesia or Malaysia in terms of tolerance and cosmopolitan outlook, as well as their willingness to preserve the past. Still better than a lot of nations.

I'm looking to Caldrail or someone else to answer this more in depth as it has befuddled me as well. Romans had an archaic classification for land sales in Italy, as well as on Italian Donkies, stuff like that. I'm not sure when and if it was ever phased out, but the state definitely viewed Italian land titles differently than non-italian possessions. By default, money is going to change hands. I doubt they had banks, but you could likely do credited land swaps between roman intermediaries if there was a roman colony nearby who had a patrician or wealthy pleb who owned land, or new guts in the area you desired. I'm not sure when passport restrictions came into play, if it even had effect in the west. Know it existed later on in the east.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32656743 Now I know why cats reproduce so fast, we likely breed them for the culling this way Basically, the Egyptians had a fascination with killing and mummifying animals, and offering them to the gods, cause the Gods clearly needed 2 million wild birds fluttering around them, and a billion cats, in the afterlife. But the demand outstripped supply, and only a third of mummies are authentic, in the sense of a full animal being mummified, another third have parts, and the last third are fake as it gets. I'm now going to go over the concept of supply and demand and market forces in Austrian Economics and figure out what went wrong here. Its hardly the case there was a international dearth in cat carcass.... Yould think their merchants would be braving the seas in gallies, offering gold coin for dead cat in bewildered yet ready to comply ports around the Med, the ships sailing back bravely with 2 thousand cats hanging from their tails in the ships, laughing ferociously when some idiot pirate boards and discovers his booty consists purely of dead cat carcass. Yet this didn't happen. Capitalism failed. I don't know why. There is obviously something wrong with our modern theory of economics. The Cat Ship..... Meow!

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkeys-culture-ministry-denies-claims-of-botched-restorations-of-ancient-mosaics.aspx?pageID=238&nID=82105&NewsCatID=375

Opening up a graphite research facility hardly counts. Just about any country can produce ceramic engineers. You make the graphite as thick as a atom, and it becomes a superconductor. However, its going to be extraordinarily hard to patent legally any discoveries, as graphite is internationally accessible, and easy to toy with, and different countries merely gotta show they have a unique way of making a certain array of molecules to get around patent infringement. This strategy never works in the long term. You end up socializing everyone else's scientific endeavors. I really am unaware of anything, outside of firearms and graphite, the Brits are being innovative at.

I looked the two pictures over stone by stone, it looks like most of the damage came from cleaning, and not rearranging. In art (as well in how we see) they have "form lines", they managed to erase this effect. We now know this was a important aspect of Roman Mosaics. Secondly, color. I'm guessing someone cleaned the image a little too well. This is sad, but not irreversible.

I know how to make books, both hard cover and paperback. I even own a industrial papercutter, and spent a lot of time in the sixth floor of the San Francisco public library- the rear room is dedicated to western and eastern calligraphy and uniquely bonded books. Also learned how to sew from a French leather maker, was sent to the US by a really, really fancy French luxury store to make repairs for the US population on the west coast, I was a security guard, but got to see how he selected leather, prepared the needle and thread, and techniques in sewing. I'm fairly certain I could make a book on aged parchment, sew it up myself, and do the calligraphy and it would by no means anywhere near approach the cost of some of these books to make, counting my labor costs.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/110702840X/ref=mp_s_a_1_114?qid=1431019202&sr=8-114π=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=neoplatonism+and+christian+thought&dpPl=1&dpID=511CuE1P2qL&ref=plSrch#mediaMatrix_secondary_view_div_1431019251946 Politics and Tradition Between Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople: A Study of Cassiodorus and the Variae, 527-554 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series) Kindle: $99.74

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00M75O52U/ref=mp_s_a_1_69_twi_2_kin?qid=1431018099&sr=8-69&keywords=neoplatonism+and+christian+thought Interpreting Proclus: From Antiquity to the Renaissance Kindle price $88.00

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00URS6GK8/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&sr=8-16&qid=1431017753 Aesthetic Themes in Christian and Pagan Neoplatonism For the kindle version $107.99

Ever since Viggen pointed out a massive price decrepency between what I was told by amazon.com and what he was being told by amazon.com what the cost of books were, I've become increasingly paranoid. Take this link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0860780856/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1431011282&sr=8-2π=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=neoplatonism+and+christian+thought&dpPl=1&dpID=51uIRd4RnzL&ref=plSrch Its telling me this book is going for $991.10 What price do you actually see? Obviously I couldn't and wouldn't buy that, my job is a few cents above minimum wage, and it likely is just a dissection of Porphyry and Aeneas of Gaza. I can do that on my own. But I've noticed the farther I get into Roman Philosophy, the higher the absurd costs get. The basic arguments of this era are advanced but simple enough to grasp, Star Trek more or less tackles the argument in their Transporter Gone Amock episodes "Can a transporter create life"? Pretty much the same theme. But it appears this area of the Roman world is reserved only for absurdly rich people. Or, Amazon.com thinks I'm absurdly rich. I own two teeshirts, two pair of pants, and have been saving up for a used cargo van the last year, I really am not. I think this is utter bullshit trying to charge me a thousand bucks for a book published in 1981. I recall a book seller in Alaska owns a first edition of Newtons Principles of Mathematics for $10,000 (which I think is justifiable), I severely doubt ten copies of this text can ever possibly equal one copy of that. Amazon.com seems to think I do though, which is retarded.

Yes, we have speed dial here too, I'm 7 on my works' speed dial, but I wouldn't identify my IQ with it. You ever seen the movie "Children of Men"? Its a British movie about this very subject. We'll finally have a place to keep all our nuclear waste and criminals. It would be a cross between Mad Max and Escape From New York, and the warden can have a omnimous dark tower overlooking Birmingham, where the flying heads from the movie Zardoz can fly about keep order by chucking the filthy natives shotguns and packets of English Breakfast Tea to keep them content. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kbGVIdA3dx0

Okay, think I know what is going on: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/lawsuit-alleges-amazon-charges-prime-members-for-free-shipping-031414.html Apparently I've been typed for the dynamic pricing (stupid amazon apparently hasn't noticed I never buy a book over $30 bucks, so the trick backfires bad, as I just never buy the book till it goes down. Only exception is when I do work for a professor and have a book sent to me as payment). Assholes think I'm paying that much.... they are out of their minds. I'm seriously considering just moving to Washington DC so I'll have access to the Library of Congress.

??? It is listing yours in dollars, not Euros, and I don't think the Euro bounced back that sharply. I don't get this. Can anyone else see a price difference in a location that isn't the US?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00WN5C7EC/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_twi_2_kin?qid=1430676757&sr=8-1&keywords=Universal+Salvation+in+Late+Antiquity%3A+Porphyry+of+Tyre+and+the+Pagan-Christian+Debate+%28Oxford+Studies+in+Late+Antiquity%29 Its not, unless your seeing it in another place. I can only find it at this link. I don't really steal stuff anymore unless its obnoxiously priced (this is borederline, but I can wait till the price goes down), and at that, its only info, but I now go out of my way to try to buy it. I had to steal a lot of food as a kid just to eat, wasn't ever too thrilled with it. I recalled reading a poem by Rumi where he was describing people window shopping in a market, enjoying the sight of artistic goods but neither buying to support the artist nor contributing their creative labor in creating such goods. Its where I break with Cynicism (which isn't much of a break, the Sufi tradition is acknowledged to of been well founded under the string influence of the Cynics). I actively contribute to discussions on a variety of forums. Can't really say I'm a showpiece model of the ideal contributor, as I don't dress myself up in conventions, but I do actively press and exchange said ideas. Try to keep in the mix. When a book costs $100 bucks and above though, its obnoxious. It doesn't do anyone any good. I understand the University Library scam.... publish a book for $200-$300 bucks and tell your professor buddies to buy it using their university book stipend. Many will release the kindle version at an affordable cost, 20 bucks area. Voltaire understood it was the cheap affordable pampletes that mattered, not the expensive, exhaustive works. When you produce absurdly priced books, it might not as well exist. Its hardly immoral beyond a Ayn Rand argument to take such absurdly priced works in their pirated form. But it is when the person was realistic, and cared enough about the topic they are discussing to make it accessible. They should benefit and be positively reinforced for their behavior. I think realistically priced book falls into that category, the link above does not. I certainly won't be buying that kindle book anytime soon. Its a embarrassing waste. Be realistic, and make it affordable. What's the point otherwise?

I've been wondering about certain countries like Britain and the Netherlands, they more or less experienced a very sharp and brutal selective curtailment of their best breeding stock due to the success of their empires and ease to immigrate away. Yes, both built large empires, but the kind of guys motivated to do as pioneers so largely just left, didn't come back. Your military population has a hugh overlap with the former, and did return, but in both countries cases, they suffered a series of devastating wars back to back. After a while, only the weaker ones who stayed behind made up the breeding stock. So I expect to see a general cognitive and physical decline of select features in such societies. Right now, they are benefitting from scientific advances that their previous generations made in food, economics, and pharmacology, but they've long since given up on this. Europe has become more socialistic, which cut down painfully on medical advances (a few universities have research staff still working on this, but numbers much lower now than before), they rely more and Kore on food imports, but insist irrationally on organics, which are more prone to the effects of crop failures and are carriers of disease, and less wholesome and nutritious, and the industrial base is being systematically undermined.... but they insist they are more "innovative". Yeah.... I think the US is set to inherit some cities rather peacefully here in a few generations, after the main European population reasons itself to death.