: It seems that a few people want to change the world to their ideal of how we should live. A few? How many corporate CEOs have produced works of vanity publishing just to get their (usually rather narrow) worldview to the masses? (classic example: The Road Ahead by a Mr. Gates)
:So did Hitler, Genghis Khan, and Jesus and look what a mess they have left in their wake.
The first two merely took advantage of the existing system - that which encourages the masses not to take any part in their countries decision making. As for the third, I doubt he could really help what his disciples and followers did after he died, which was how a socialist hippy's ideas got turned into the Bible Belt's rants.
(I maybe an atheist, but I still admire some of the guy's ideas).
:You people don't seem to understand that we live in a market driven economy.
And you don't seem to realize exactly how little control we have over this Frankenstein's monster we created. Does anyone need candy floss?
:That means, in simple terms, that the products which are available today have been approved by a majority of consumers through the method of "voting" with their dollars.
Of course, the fact that said consumers were bombarded with advertising telling them to buy stuff, the fact that they had been brainwashed from birth to do what they were told had no effect whatsoever. Having once sat on a "focus group" (for ice cream, if you must know), I was horrified by what I saw of the process of marketing a new product. So I did my best to rip apart the patronizing way the execs treated Joe Public. To date, I've not seen the adverts we were shown or the products we sampled ;)
:If you people, who do not like it, want things to change, you must either change the way all of us think (not likely, because of your incredible lack of logic, your bizarre analogies, and plain vulgarity)
You want logic, you scorn abuse, yet you use nothing but assertion and name-calling as your argument? Logic is not assertion. Logic is a rigourous system, whose name you should not invoke unless you are prepared to use it.
From where I'm standing, I can see a sea-change in attitudes (away from something rich and strange (!)). In the UK at least, the past ten years have seen a realization in just how fragile the planet is, and how close to the brink our lifestyle (ugh!) is taking it.
: or you can try to change our system to a planned economy where the STATE (which I believe is another ENEMY of your kind) is in charge of all production, including what is produced, where it is produced, what it will cost, etc. Gee! Doesn't that sound better to you? (heavy sarcasm!)
I am not opposed to organisation - the idea of an anarchist group without some form of organisation would be laughable. What I, and many others, are opposed to, is coercion, environmental devastation and curbs on freedom. For that reason, the centralized state (which relies on implicit and explicit coercion) is my enemy.
:MacDonalds is not doing anything but satisfying a need of the marketplace.
First, they set up an idea. They run market tests on it, build ad campaigns around it. Then they hit the public with a huge advertising campaign, playing on people's insecurity by telling them they "need" the stuff. Finally, they release the product to a newly brainwashed audience and watch the money roll in. I don't see any prior "need" the marketplace had for it - people lived quite happily before Big Macs were invented.
I've said it before here. Read "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss for a summation of the situation. If it's not too hard for you, that is.
:They are not your problem. I am. Me and a couple hundred million other people do not want to be controlled by a bunch of fringe element who, if they ever got a dollar, would probably turn into the biggest capitalists ever known (history teaches us that!).
Which fringe element do you want to be controlled by? Currently, about 10% of your countries' people own about 90% of your countries' wealth. The rest of you are effectively slaves to them. They dictate what you wear and what you eat, what you watch and what you think.
: I will not demand that you eat at McDonalds and, likewise, I will not be stopped from making my own choices about what I ingest.
First things first, I'm not going to insist you don't eat there. It is your own choice. But read the information contained in this site with an open mind and see if your burger tastes the same...
: I know I'm right about my choices for me.
: Why do you think you can make choices for me! Is it devine revelation that has empowered you veggies to make choices for so many?
I've never pretended to make choices for anyone else, neither has anyone from McSpotlight. What I won't do is keep quiet about the destruction that the overconsumption of a luxury product is doing to the world.
: My daddie told me along time ago to beware of people who know they are right.
To quote your earlier comment - "I know I'm right about my choices for me." Would you accept advice from your doctor that your lifestyle was unhealthy and that you'd die if you didn't change?
If you wouldn't, you'd be consistent. Dead, but consistent.
If you would, you would be recognizing that, in some circumstances, people who have studied the subject _do_ know better than you. Which would be inconsistent with your assertion.
Either your initial statement is false - (viz there are occasions when people do know better than you), or you don't follow the normal rules of nature. By reductio ad absurdem, I have to conclude the first.
(sorry if that sounds pompous, but this guy says we're not logical...)
Oh, and did you ever stop to think that your "daddie" was sure he was right when he taught you that? Physician, heal thyself.
Hokey folk wisdom and ancient axioms are no match for a good lexical analysis. *grin*
:You little-brains fit into that category.
It would be churlish of me to make any comments about your grammatical incompetence and lack of residual brain stem activity.
: If you all want to save the animals, take a hint from the logging protestors, chain yourself to a cow. (preferably the rear end)
It's not just the animals, it's the humans and the plants as well. I don't think they make chains sufficient to girdle the Earth, though.
Gideon.
None.
