China's wealthy bypass the banks

[Tyler Durden]

OK, Mr Donald. You clearly imagine the China of 2,500 years ago to operate 
like a modern 20th century nation-state. You need to rethink this, given a 
few simple facts:

1. There were no telephones during Confucious' time.
2. Several provinces of China are larger than all of Western Europe. Even a 
very high-priority message could take months to propagate.
3. "Control' of China 2500 years ago was almost nonexistent. It was a 
geographically, ethnically, and linguistically diverse set of 
quasi-nation-states. To even imagine them to be anything like a modern 
nation state indicates you are extrapolating your bizarre little 
philosophical universe well beyond the breaking point. (But then again, that 
wasn't too hard!)
4. Event the early Ryu-Jya (Legalists) were nothing like what you imagine 
modern laws to be. In fact, their activity probably centers on creating an 
established set of standardized weights (ie, for weighing food and whatnot). 
"Law" in early China was NOTHING like what you imagine it to be, and was a 
higly decentralized affair. Indeed, modern China is rapidly 'deteriorated' 
into the same.

As for...

>Which is a commie nazi way of saying that the the Confucians
>were not a heck of a lot different from the legalists - and the
>legalists set up an early version of the standard highly
>centralized totalitarian terror state, which doubtless appears
>quite enlightened to the likes of Tyler Durden.

Again, you seem to visualize me as (-1) times yourself, or basically your 
old commie self.

The point I continue to harp on (and that you fail to understand) is that, 
despite how well one may argue that one sees reality 'objectively' (and 
others don't), completely alternate viewpoints are possible and very often 
held by others throughout the world. An action like the US in Iraq 
(irregardless of what you believe the objective reality to be) is futile 
precisely because it only re-inforces the world view of the locals (ie, that 
the US is a giant, bullying oppressive regime that has stuck it's big dick 
into the holy land and needs force to remove it).

In other words, perception is often reality, and until you (and others like 
you) accept that, then we'll continue to have bloodbath after bloodbath, 
initated by 'Christian' and 'Islamic' true believers alike.

-TD

>From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd at echeque.com>
>To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net
>Subject: Re: China's wealthy bypass the banks
>Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:41:20 -0800
>
>     --
>On 12 Nov 2004 at 9:51, Tyler Durden wrote:
> > As far as I'm concerned, what Kung Tze does ca 5 BCE is
> > really consdolidate and codify a large and diverse body of
> > practices and beliefs under a fairly unified set of ethical
> > ideas. In that sense, the Legalists were merely a refocusing
> > of the same general body of mores, etc...into a somewhat
> > different direction. One might call it a competing school to
> > Kung Tze de Jiao Xun, but I would argue only because, at that
> > time, Kung Tze "authority" as it's known today was by no
> > means completely established. But in a sense, the early
> > legalists weren't a HECK of a lot different from Confucious.
>
>Which is a commie nazi way of saying that the the Confucians
>were not a heck of a lot different from the legalists - and the
>legalists set up an early version of the standard highly
>centralized totalitarian terror state, which doubtless appears
>quite enlightened to the likes of Tyler Durden.
>
>     --digsig
>          James A. Donald
>      6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
>      k9Dumf7XMAhNCRDuxNd2aKQtrN2PqD2p2l3TDcjw
>      4SMVqw0LGnr3oZKU5v0WQpooJ4tKHdZvNiokzj2e9