Submariner said...
My admiration for China isn't based on a specific policy proposal. It is because China is a vivid example of devalued and subjugated people with a proud but remote past coming together and entering into global partnership on mutually acceptable terms.
Like I said earlier, I know a thing or two - meaning I don't purport to have intimate encyclopedic knowledge but I certainly know more than what is discussed on TV.
Everyone is dependent on someone else for their understanding of the world around them. Only the most egocentric would state that personal subjective experience constitutes the core of understanding. And there is a world of difference between spin and the works of scholars who've dedicated their whole lives to a subject. As Fisher has averred and a casual wikipedia search will show, Schurmann and Fairbanks are well respected in Asian studies.
For a certain political persuasion the argot of k-gamer and r-gamer is readily accepted. But what Byrdeye is peddling is a stereotype elevated from its lowly origin but not much higher than a bee on its knees. Consider the following examples from real life:
-a millionaire Mormon with thirteen kids by three wives
-a housewife who turns tricks from her suburban home
-a drug addicted son of a former Vice-President of the United States with yet another police encounter
-a cartel whose members traffic in narcotics from their college campus
Which one is an r-gamer and which is a k-gamer? And why?
As for the presumptive military dominance of the global North, I would direct you to read up on Korea, Vietnam, Kenya, Namibia, and Cuba. Plus check Al Jazeera for an unfiltered view of Afghanistan and Iraq. In none has the popular will ever succumbed to military might of the West.
Moreover, to limit the successes of China and India to demographics is a display of hemianopsia. These folks are winning in the boardrooms. China's future military supremacy is the stuff on nightmares and novels. It's not just me saying this but insiders like Richard Clarke. A military schism, highlighted by dismissals of CINCPAC, Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff in a span of a few months, has occurred because while Bush and company are focused on repelling insurgencies in the Middle East, military elites are horrified by the erosion of our might against the Chinese.
28 comments:
Have you ever been to China, Submariner?
Alas, no. This summer I'll be watching Beijing from home.:(
As an aside, Michael, I'm currently reading Return to the Middle Kingdom, a memoir of Eugene and Jack Chen, father and son pivotal figures in Republican and Maoist China, respectively, who were born in Trinidad. The father was the son of a coolie immigrant and the son was born to a creole mother.
The author cites J.A. Rogers as her conduit to this overlooked history and intermittently references him throughout the story-a literary Bandung Conference.
China is going to have a very hard time indeed this century. They are getting ready to start their "South to North" water project owing to the fact northern cities are running out of water. China is polluting itself out of business and it's just dumped on the majority of its citizens who are desperately poor. E waste, fetid water, desertification, in short an environmental nightmare.
false dichotomies are the crutch of many especially the weak and ill informed
Sub,
I don't mean to dismiss your avowed Sinophilism, but how can one know a thing or two about China if you've never been to the country, probably don't speak the language and rely upon the impressions and spin of "Franz Schurmann and John K. Fairbanks among others" for your understanding?
And, although I haven't read Birdeye's detailed discussion of r-gamers v. k-gamers (so I'm going on the assumptios I pick up from reading the back and forth), I am not so sure that the history of international relations since WWII has evidence r-gamers kicking ass. Or at least it does not seem his theories can be so quickly dismissed without defining what kicking ass is.
If success is reproduction, then China and India and the rest of the colored world win hands down. If success is control of resources, and military/economic dominance, then the K-gamers in the U.S. and Europe get the trophy.
What is success? Is success permanent, is it dynamic?
Who determines what success is?
Is it a childless couple with a seven figure income ? Or a couple with four children making 10,000 a year. with enough food to eat etc.
Is happiness related to success?
Are rich people happier than poor people?
I wonder.
Actually Schurmann and Fairbanks are pretty good II. And I visited China in 1979 when it wasn't exactly a popular place to go to yet. It was fascinating.
Dang, Sub. That was tight. I understand that China suffers from the "humiliation" thing, that is, that they feel they are showing the world what they are really about after long periods of humiliation. You put it in good context. Post some links.
My admiration for China isn't based on a specific policy proposal. It is because China is a vivid example of devalued and subjugated people with a proud but remote past coming together and entering into global partnership on mutually acceptable terms.
Like I said earlier, I know a thing or two - meaning I don't purport to have intimate encyclopedic knowledge but I certainly know more than what is discussed on TV.
Everyone is dependent on someone else for their understanding of the world around them. Only the most egocentric would state that personal subjective experience constitutes the core of understanding. And there is a world of difference between spin and the works of scholars who've dedicated their whole lives to a subject. As Fisher has averred and a casual wikipedia search will show, Schurmann and Fairbanks are well respected in Asian studies.
For a certain political persuasion the argot of k-gamer and r-gamer is readily accepted. But what Byrdeye is peddling is a stereotype elevated from its lowly origin but not much higher than a bee on its knees. Consider the following examples from real life:
-a millionaire Mormon with thirteen kids by three wives
-a housewife who turns tricks from her suburban home
-a drug addicted son of a former Vice-President of the United States with yet another police encounter
-a cartel whose members traffic in narcotics from their college campus
Which one is an r-gamer and which is a k-gamer? And why?
As for the presumptive military dominance of the global North, I would direct you to read up on Korea, Vietnam, Kenya, Namibia, and Cuba. Plus check Al Jazeera for an unfiltered view of Afghanistan and Iraq. In none has the popular will ever succumbed to military might of the West.
Moreover, to limit the successes of China and India to demographics is a display of hemianopsia. These folks are winning in the boardrooms. China's future military supremacy is the stuff on nightmares and novels. It's not just me saying this but insiders like Richard Clarke. A military schism, highlighted by dismissals of CINCPAC, Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff in a span of a few months, has occurred because while Bush and company are focused on repelling insurgencies in the Middle East, military elites are horrified by the erosion of our might against the Chinese.
You make some good points Sub, but that won't mean anything if they have no drinking water and a Chernobyl like environment. Global environmental degredation is going to play a huge role in global politics in the coming years.
No doubt, but pseudointellectual designations like r-gamer and k-gamer should be rejected out of hand.
I'll agree with you on that one.
"No doubt, but pseudointellectual designations like r-gamer and k-gamer should be rejected out of hand." Submariner
Au Contrare Mon Frere.
I submit "pseudointellectual designations" are critical to the discourse. We can learn as much from a lie as we can from truth.
As we cannot experience day without night, or up without down we cannot experience earnest intellectual appellation without "pseudointellectual designations".
Summary dismissals of sinister propaganda in this War of Memes is problematic.
Like a virus that swims through blood, memes surf the endless lapping waves of suggestion.
Ultimately people believe that which makes them comfortable.
Which is why you can tell a lot about a person by what makes them comfortable. But that's another story.
Anyway - I suggest intellectual judo as opposed the O Tolerance policy.
I say take a meme like K-game R-game - Wii-game whatever... grab it in it's digital collar. Elbow to it's digital temple. As it slumps reach into it's digital pocket. Take it's digital money. Don't want it. Just rob him to punk him.
Smack up it's digital girlfriend. Send her back pregnant with your counter memes.
Counter-Meme: (Peep game)
1) The Ability To "Breed" Is Not A Liability.
2) The Inability To "Breed" Is A Serious Problem.
This self-serving K-game R-game interpretation of the development of humanity is actually quite entertaining.
It's like a group of people on the Titanic - The ones who ran the boat into the iceberg - making a case for why they deserve first access to the best life boats.
Or ... Or a group of eastern Europeans claiming Holy Land in western Asia belongs to them exclusively, because their God says so in a book written by them.
But that's another story.
That was superb. LOL! Too bad Byrdeye hasn't made it to the dojo recently.
Sub,
You are one bad ass writer.
Of course we all rely on others for our understanding, but something seems missing from the analysis. Indeed, you seem to distinguish the rise of China from the insurgencies of the Middle East, but I would humbly posit that all of those things are the same issue.
Saddam Hussein had entered into contracts with China to explore and exploit oil fields around 2000. First (or second) thing Brenner did as head of the Colonial Provisional Authority was to declare all existing contracts void.
Other theories posit that the current rise in gas/oil prices has nothing to do with quaint notions of supply and demand but, rather, with putting the squeeze on China. Because without oil, it cannot rise.
Sure, the popular will can withstand military might, but what represents the "popular will". Isn't even that an abstract concept that gets manufactured when necessary for control?
DV,
Well done on the K-gamer/R-gamer analysis.
Thanks.
While DV can skillfully navigate through the fog of r-gamer/k-gamer constructs, the harm is that it allows the opposition to frame the debate. For example, one of Barack Obama's early missteps which haunts his campaign came when he responded to the question about Louis Farrakhan. By failing to reject the validity of the question, Barack remained vulnerable for future attacks designed to separate him from the black community. Certainly a DV or Obama can overcome such dirty tricks but that inadvertently allows their interlocutors to maintain a veil of integrity. It doesn't matter if it's Byrdeye or Juan Williams, such ostensibly benign categories cover up a malevolence of spirit on the part of their advocates.
Au Contrare Mon Frere,
The Louis Farrakhan associations, like the Reverend Wright fiasco - WAS THE BEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO BARACK, and further evidence of divine intervention.
Jeremiah Wright did Barack a favor.
The thousands of hours of additional media coverage proved to be a spot light on God' son as he took center stage and moon walked down the high road.
Reverend Wright set the stage for Obama's defining speech which Obama used to introduce himself to the world.
There would be no Barack Obama without Jeremiah Wright. Bra took a lemon, and made lemonade.
It is a dangerous precedent to summarily reject any meme because of a presumed 'malevolence of spirit' exhibited by it's author just as it is a mistake to entertain any meme because of a presumed benevolence exhibited by it's author.
Good ideas require little argument. They prove themselves.
Denmark Vesey is Marlow Stansfield hustling metamemes on internet street corners. Do about a brick a week.
Byrdeye hustles a brand of methamphetaMEME known on the streets as "K-game theory", trendy little drug popular in the suburbs, college campuses and trailer parks with internet access.
May not like his product but gotta respect the game.
If "K-gamers" are the embodiment of human intelligence ... we'll see.
Personally, I'd be skeptical of any superiority theory that didn't end with me.
K-Game can't fuck with DV-Game.
That's it. Game over. Light's out. We don't even need to argue.
We can just observe.
1) The Ability To "Breed" Is Not A Liability.
2) The Inability To "Breed" Is A Serious Problem.
I think you are taking these to extremes.
Where yes, the problem is unhealthy breeding - which means BOTH either too much or too little.
Whereas, r-gamers breed too "much," and K-gamers too "little." This is even by r-gamers' own standards - as they often don't like the squalor and poverty this induces for them.
Ecologically, there is an optimal amount (balance) to ensure survival, while minimizing your ecological footprint. And it is just as irresponsible to the rest of the world for r-gamers to "overbreed" as it is for K-gamers to "overconsume."
Both are problems. Again, this world would all be better off if we both consumed and bred less at this point. Which is not going at a sustainable rate.
I mean, with 7 billion at this point, even if 80% suddenly died off - we'd still be in good shape. That would probably just push us back to our global population in the 1940s or 50s. So, we're nowhere near danger of extinction - but other diverse lifeforms on this planet sure are due to us.
But hey, I guess you can always feel free to put your money where your mouth is and encourage both your son and daughter to pop out as many babies as they can ASAP! Raise them to be good r-gaming fast-breeders, if you truly believe that is the true measure of success in this world! ;)
Which one is an r-gamer and which is a k-gamer?
Maybe we should make one of those, "You know you're an r/K-gamer if..." self-surveys: :D
1) If you can be accepted as a guest on Jerry Springer - you're an r-gamer.
2) If you've never had to buy a Father's Day card - you're an r-game kid.
3) If you have not had a kid by 25 and under 3 kids total - you're a K-gamer.
4) If you have not had sex with more than 1 person in the last month - you're a K-gamer.
5) If you live past 70 - you're a K-gamer.
6) If you reach puberty before junior high - you're an r-gamer.
7) If you're not a grandparent by 40 - you're a K-gamer.
8) If you have more than occupants than bedrooms in your home - you're an r-gamer.
9) If your car payment costs more than your rent - you're an r-gamer.
10) If you spend more than you make - you're an r-gamer.
Ed McMahon, r-gamer and k-gamer. Now that's game!
Please forgive my ignorance... what is a k-gamer and r-gamer?
exactly
byrdeye...
"I mean, with 7 billion at this point, even if 80% suddenly died off - we'd still be in good shape."
Since you are a white guy, who do you mean by us, byrdeye?
White people?
byrdeye...
"I mean, with 7 billion at this point, even if 80% suddenly died off - we'd still be in good shape."
Since you are a white guy, who do you mean by us, byrdeye?
White people?
"who do you mean by us, byrdeye?
White people?"
Why no...only non-White people, of course! *eyeroll*
Look, what I mean is - look at this chart.
Most people don't realize this, but our global population has DOUBLED since about 1970. And just in the 1940s, there was only about 1 billion. And at the turn of the 19th century, half that.
So, the world isn't going to end even with some MASSIVE depopulation. Cuz even if we dropped back down to 1 BILLION - that would simply be the same as it was only about 60 years ago!
So, you have these fear-mongers worrying about "negative growth" rates, and breeding enough to survive...when in fact, those aren't remote problems except in a few isolated industrialized nations. And even then, they're not, because if their populations drop - so what? They'd simply be sliding back down their population curves to what they were just a few decades ago.
"military elites are horrified by the erosion of our might against the Chinese"
LMAO - yea, real huge "erosion" there.
We're only spending 5X as much as them on weaponry, despite having only 1/4 the population. Which is about 20X per capita.
As usual, just more Pentaganda to play up straw bogeymen (Al Queda, WMDs, etc)...to drum up phatter defense budgets.
And DV already posted about the Al Queda farce - a handful of scrubs at most that our propaganda machine magically turned into a global armada hiding behind every corner waiting to strike. Wow, Americans really are DUMB AS ALL FUCK.
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