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This world used to be plagued by wars that spilled blood. Only that now we use words instead of swords.

So who exactly is "them" that "we" are fighting against? It varies. Maybe it's a construct of the government. Maybe it's the company we get our paycheck from. Maybe it's the supermarket that we buy food from. Or maybe the MMO we play once in a while.

But it's not the people we fight against: it's the system.

The "system" is what "runs" our lives. Of course whatever affects the system affect us. Since "they" are the ones who run the system, it would seem they are responsible for its upkeeping.

Fair enough up to this point. They run the system, we whistleblow, they (hopefully) fix it.

Of course, there are flaws. I categorize them into 3 parts:

A. Firstly, there might be no system to speak of in the first place
B. There are no proper channels to call out problems
C. No action is being taken place to take care of the problem

If you asked your average Joe (subject to population mix) he'd probably say the problems lie with Cat C. After all, there is no way to stop people from complaining, short of mass censorship. (More on that later.)

Now the line gets fuzzy. Cat C may actually be distorted, exaggerated or negated by perception, bureaucracy, physical limitation, or all of the above, which is why I use a subcategory system to list its nuances:

C0: There is a real blatant ignorance of the problem
C1: Problem is acknowledged but action little
C2: Fixes considered broken and redundant
C3: Fixes to said problem exist but deemed too little to late
C4: Problem fixed with considerable delay (months/years)
C5: Problem fixed within hours/days
C6: Problem fixed almost immediately

This is assuming that said "problem" is of major importance or even exists:

P0: Critical life threatening problem
P1: Priority, unfixed will cause much trouble
P2: Important, should be done in ideal conditions
P3: Not important
P4: Optional

I'm not going to lash out on people who whine on C0P0, because they have every right to: I mean, people could die. As a matter of fact, the whole of P0 through P2 *are* important problem that the system has to take responsibility of.

Only thing is, some people distort P4 problem into a P0 and demand a C5, nay, a C6 solution. Only thing is, C6 is practically a myth. It's only doable in the most dangerous of P0 problems (think A&E) but other then that C6 is very impractical - you can't have people on call all the time.

Which brings me to the last part: resolution percent. It fits onto a bell curve with Cat C: At the ends, resolution is the least. Meaning C6 is merely the band aid that leads into C5 and so on.

Therein lies one problem: No C6 response in hopes for a C5 to solve the underlying problem leads to people getting angry - the knee-jerk reaction.

Knee-jerk is what makes being "them" so hard. On one hand there is a legitimate problem to be solved. On the other hand the masses must be pleased. And since you can't please everybody you either get stuck pleasing everybody or stick to your principles and get blammed.

To be continued...

Sorry, I'm all debated out for the decade. Refer to the Boom-Ba-Yada thread in the Media section for all of your worldly answers.

That video was full of win.

Back on track, one last problem is the the minority is louder then the majority, making them seem more important - confusing both sides of the argument. We can't really know what is better in a grayscale situation.

Granted if there were clear divisions on what is acceptable and not (by the public) and if no action were taken the masses would have every right to be angry. But pressing one's opinion where there is no clear cut consensus (yet) is annoying. At the very least, it's a waste of my valuable brain space.

Maybe I should just take a leaf out of DC and love the world for all its crazyness. Yea, that might actually work.

This thread really makes me want to get high and listen to Dark Side of the Moon...

Or Buffalo Springfield...

Or CCR...

...Can't think of any other corruption/conspiracy songs...

just listen to some beatles songs backwards.

I hear if you listen to Neil Diamond backwards it details the recruitment rules for scientology.

That was my first thought when I saw the title.

Me too...best album ever, imo, though not my favorite band...

I disagree with this thesis. These wars still exist all throughout the globe. It's true, democratic civilizations rarely engage themselves in them, but one needs look not far from democracy to see these same hatreds and battles and bloodshed played out, day after day, with a terrifying brutality.

I was just trying to say people can be violent without arms.

I am in the belief that wars aren't just fought for the sake of fighting (too much effort), but sparked off by differences in opinion (whether it be land, resources, or in the cases of coups, government). Ergo, words precede fighting - even truer now with higher media proliferation and the global economy.

While harsh words can cause fighting, the opposite is also true. Trade embargoes is merely a Mutually Assured Destruction in disguise - while words may inch us closer to war, they are ironically the ones preventing us from entering WWIII. For now.

In short- words can draw blood as effectively and any sword can. (They are complementary, and not mutually exclusive)

Hope this clears up some of my thoughts.

I agree. Quadriplegics can be deadly if rolled into a corner!

here is a corruption/conspiracy song

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_Ou8SYngIvA&feature=related

Auronblades redeems himself with Little Nicky reference. +100 points.