2013.09.25 07:00 - World Peace and Skiffle

The guardian for this session was Zen Arado. All comments are by Zen Arado. The session was held at Kira Cafe because the region was down.

Uns Mistwalker: Hello, Zen
Zen (zen.arado): Hi Uns :)
Zen (zen.arado): how are you?
Uns Mistwalker: I'm doing well, appreciative of these PaB interludes.
Zen (zen.arado): well it's quite an easy topic this week :-)
Uns Mistwalker: Yes? What's the topic?
Zen (zen.arado): world peace
Zen (zen.arado): that shouldn't take us long :-)
Uns Mistwalker: /me laughs.
Uns Mistwalker: i'm for it.
Zen (zen.arado): actually to me that's just another name for political philosophy
Zen (zen.arado): because that's how you define it
Zen (zen.arado): political philosophy is searching for the best ways for people to live together in peace and harmony
Zen (zen.arado): thinking about how it might be achieved
Zen (zen.arado): the problem is we have starting assumptions
Zen (zen.arado): what would that kind of world peace even look like?
Uns Mistwalker: Would there be no economic competition?
Uns Mistwalker: no struggle over resources?
Uns Mistwalker: no haves and have-nots?
Zen (zen.arado): exactly
Zen (zen.arado): should everyone be equal?
Zen (zen.arado): Should everyone be allowed to travel and live wherever they want?
Zen (zen.arado): I think us humans have a built-in competitiveness
Zen (zen.arado): I read a book about early humans living in small tribes of about 150 people
Zen (zen.arado): and the idea was to compete for resources with them
Zen (zen.arado): whatever way was necessary
Zen (zen.arado): and maybe we haven't really changed that much
Uns Mistwalker: I've heard that number, 150.... has social significance.
Uns Mistwalker: Actually is named after someone, but I forgot the name....
Zen (zen.arado): I don't know where they get it from though
Zen (zen.arado): hi we lived in the distant past is pretty hazy
Zen (zen.arado): how
Uns Mistwalker: apparently it is the largest number of people you can actually have close relationships with....
Uns Mistwalker: yes it is.
Zen (zen.arado): yes I read that too somewhere
Zen (zen.arado): a lot of theories about how to live together depend on an idea of liberal individualism
Zen (zen.arado): that we are atomistic individuals who can choose our own destiny
Uns Mistwalker: (and that we should)
Zen (zen.arado): when it can actually be argued that all of our values and ideas actually arise from the culture we belong to
Uns Mistwalker: while other societies see family as the unit.... or even clan.
Uns Mistwalker: yes.
Zen (zen.arado): I wrote a dissertation on this one time
Uns Mistwalker: ooo! did you?
Zen (zen.arado): liberalism versus communitarianism
Zen (zen.arado): but I finished up looking at the foundations of both of them
Zen (zen.arado): so many different ideas of government
Zen (zen.arado): old philosophers like Thomas Hobbes thought that what you needed was a strong ruler
Zen (zen.arado): because otherwise there would just be chaos with people not knowing what to do
Zen (zen.arado): you still find that idea lingering don't you?
Uns Mistwalker: absolutely.
Zen (zen.arado): People want someone strong to dominate them
Uns Mistwalker: It is the position of those who have something to lose.
Zen (zen.arado): even in democracies they want the president or prime minister to look strong, to have strong policies
Zen (zen.arado): especially not to look weak to people in other countries
Zen (zen.arado): perhaps there is a lot to be said for having a benevolent dictatorship
Zen (zen.arado): it's what humans are used to isn't it?
Uns Mistwalker: There's a French intellectual whose work I like, Jacques Ellul...
Zen (zen.arado): Tribes always had a chief
Zen (zen.arado): yes?

Uns Mistwalker: he says that nowadays.... the function of the ruler ...
Uns Mistwalker: is simply to make palatable to the masses the decisions that the technical system has imposed.
Zen (zen.arado): I see
Zen (zen.arado): technological determinism
Uns Mistwalker: Yes.
Zen (zen.arado): there's a lot of truth in that argument I think
Uns Mistwalker: You certainly can see it in the way political campaigns work in the US.
Zen (zen.arado): it's as if whatever can be made or achieved by new technological discoveries must be immediately adopted
Zen (zen.arado): and the bottom line is that the technologies produce wealth?
Zen (zen.arado): And help our country to compete with others
Uns Mistwalker: Ellul believes that there is a kind of internal logic to the technical system....and it trumps other values.... including human values.
Uns Mistwalker: Your statement.... if it can be done, it must be done... and just as soon as possible.... is part of that logic.
Uns Mistwalker: Now, in the US.... they talk about "creative destruction"
Zen (zen.arado): but what would happen if a country decided to concentrate on people's happiness rather than developing new technologies?
Zen (zen.arado): Creative destruction?
Uns Mistwalker: Yes.
Uns Mistwalker: For example... "Craig's List"
Uns Mistwalker: (do you have that in the UK?)
Zen (zen.arado): What's that?
Zen (zen.arado): Nope
Uns Mistwalker: free classified advertising online.
Uns Mistwalker: has completely gutted the Print Newspapers.
Zen (zen.arado): Ah yes that's true
Zen (zen.arado): but new technologies always abolish the old ones
Zen (zen.arado): I think printed books are dying out as well
Zen (zen.arado): though many like to think they won't
Uns Mistwalker: well, I think the capacity to read them is going fast.
Zen (zen.arado): that's another problem
Zen (zen.arado): I see that happening to myself
Uns Mistwalker: because online reading is so different.
Zen (zen.arado): yes
Zen (zen.arado): so many books I start and don't finish
Zen (zen.arado): and I notice I'm reading less and less except for short articles on Facebook
Uns Mistwalker: Nicholas Carr has a book about this, called "the Shallows"
Zen (zen.arado): when I look at the pile of books around me in my apartment I wonder how I ever got time to read them
Uns Mistwalker: /me grins. I know what you mean.
Zen (zen.arado): yes it's a widespread idea
Zen (zen.arado): I've probably said before about a TV programme I watched where they researched the effect of social networks on young people
Uns Mistwalker: /me listens
Zen (zen.arado): University professors were astonished when the young students asked if they had to read a whole book
Zen (zen.arado): they had never done that before
Zen (zen.arado): :-)
Uns Mistwalker: /me nods.
Zen (zen.arado): I have found that even in Second Life
Zen (zen.arado): one of the guys who came to PAB had an expression for it
Uns Mistwalker: people who've never read a whole book?
Zen (zen.arado): tl;wr
Uns Mistwalker: tl;wr ?
Zen (zen.arado): if you gave him an article about something
Zen (zen.arado): too long won't read
Zen (zen.arado): even an article, he wouldn't read
Uns Mistwalker: My boss tells me that the Board Members of the organization I work for.... who are businessmen,.... won't read past the second line of an email.
Zen (zen.arado): we get so used to skimming don't we?
Uns Mistwalker: they are soooo action oriented.
Zen (zen.arado): When I did creative writing last year they told us that publishers won't read more than the first paragraph if the punctuation isn't perfect
Uns Mistwalker: well, hurrah for that!
Zen (zen.arado): of yes you see so much bad punctuation these days
Uns Mistwalker: although.... I'd be in trouble!
Zen (zen.arado): most of us would
Zen (zen.arado): so many people don't know how to punctuate s's
Uns Mistwalker: its it's....
Zen (zen.arado): yes
Uns Mistwalker: I don't understand why it is....
Uns Mistwalker: that I can learn the distinction many times, over and over.... and never remember it.
Zen (zen.arado): or when to use colons, semicolons, commas or full stops
Uns Mistwalker: same with lay layed laid...... I've no clue.
Zen (zen.arado): it's is only used when it is short for it is
Uns Mistwalker: Yes, that's it! The contraction is the longer one!
Zen (zen.arado): I remember that one but I had to learn about apostrophes after a's
Zen (zen.arado): anyway, people have been thinking for centuries about the best ways for people to live together

Zen (zen.arado): I remember reading Machiavelli
Zen (zen.arado): his idea was that when the Prince conquered a neighbouring region the best plan was to slaughter the ruler and all his relatives because they would only give trouble in the future otherwise
Zen (zen.arado): very brutal
Zen (zen.arado): that gives me optimism though because I think the human race is gradually becoming less brutal
Zen (zen.arado): we don't boil people in oil for stealing sheep anymore
Zen (zen.arado): so perhaps world peace will only be achievable as people become more civilised
Uns Mistwalker: They say that the proportion dying due to warfare is decreasing, long-term.
Zen (zen.arado): perhaps we need to evolve more
Uns Mistwalker: Hello, Riddle.
Zen (zen.arado): Hi Riddle :)
Riddle Sideways: Hi Zen, Uns
Zen (zen.arado): we are planning world peace
Zen (zen.arado): should be finished shortly :-)
Riddle Sideways: did the world end and start again yet?
Zen (zen.arado): Ah yes my little world of PAB pavilion ended
Riddle Sideways: good, please publish the plan
Zen (zen.arado): many plans have been concocted
Uns Mistwalker: They seem to work better in people's heads.
Zen (zen.arado): armchair philosopher ideologies
Zen (zen.arado): yes exactly
Zen (zen.arado): but I guess we still have to think about what would be the best way for people to live together
Zen (zen.arado): rather than just blindly hope for the best
Zen (zen.arado): and give into our most brutal instincts
Zen (zen.arado): perhaps most of it is a process of trying to use reason rather than our brute instinct to exterminate people who don't agree with us
Uns Mistwalker: Seems to me it is an issue highly sensitive to cultural, geographical, historical factors.
Zen (zen.arado): yes but don't humans have some basic needs and drives?
Zen (zen.arado): If we could only concentrate on all the things we have in common
Zen (zen.arado): I find in myself racism and distrust of people from other religions and races
Zen (zen.arado): is this a natural evolutionary protective thing?
Zen (zen.arado): I know it shouldn't be there and I definitely try to overcome it
Zen (zen.arado): but I still see it
Zen (zen.arado): perhaps it was a survival mechanism when we lived in small tribes
Uns Mistwalker: I wonder if it has to do with the overall mental health of the tribe.
Zen (zen.arado): we had to be suspicious of the other tribes
Zen (zen.arado): yes

Zen (zen.arado): we were talking about self image and disability in another group last night
Zen (zen.arado): and of course I'm not too happy about self-image
Zen (zen.arado): a self-image is something that has to be protected isn't it?
Zen (zen.arado): Perhaps that applies to whole nations as well
Riddle Sideways: sorry, need to go do RL peas stuff
Riddle Sideways: by
Zen (zen.arado): kk bye Riddle
Uns Mistwalker: I think one's sense of one's place in the world is pretty important in a lot of ways.
Zen (zen.arado): yes one's own country seems to be the centre
Uns Mistwalker: Freud had a contemporary, Adler.... who thought that a sense of community was THE fundamental requirement for psychological health.
Zen (zen.arado): I remember when I went to live in Australia and noticing that Australians felt their country was the centre of the world
Zen (zen.arado): perhaps it's well this sense of community tips over into patriotism and thinking we are better than all of the rest of the countries in the world
Uns Mistwalker: Yes. US Citizens too. The geographical spaces are so large.
Zen (zen.arado): when not well
Uns Mistwalker: you can travel so far and still be in the same cultural mileau.
Zen (zen.arado): perhaps the solution is just in more communication
Uns Mistwalker: Yes.... the whole notion of "other"
Zen (zen.arado): perhaps the Internet will solve a lot of the ideas of other people being alien
Zen (zen.arado): you notice how difficult it is to make decisions about what to do in Syria
Zen (zen.arado): whereas in the era of World War II the enemy was so much easier to identify
Uns Mistwalker: I certainly think that these ideas get chipped away at here in SL..... we are all immigrants here!
Uns Mistwalker: yes.
Zen (zen.arado): we can't just see people in such black and white terms anymore
Zen (zen.arado): good guys and bad guys
Zen (zen.arado): yes Second Life is opening us to talking to people of different nationalities
Zen (zen.arado): and you start to find that other people don't think that much differently to yourself
Zen (zen.arado): unlike the national stereotypes

Zen (zen.arado): I went to a wedding in Second Life last week
Zen (zen.arado): I posted some photos of it on Facebook
Zen (zen.arado): one of my real life friends remarked that it looked like "Disney World meeting Dallas'
Uns Mistwalker: /me nods. I've been interested to note the ways in which different Sims are like different cultures.
Uns Mistwalker: Oh! That's interesting.
Zen (zen.arado): because it was a man from Alabama and a woman from Holland
Zen (zen.arado): you know them Uns :)
Uns Mistwalker: This was Sonja and Brad.
Zen (zen.arado): yes
Zen (zen.arado): but I thought that was a very ignorant and unkind description
Sunshine (szavanna): hi peeps :)
Zen (zen.arado): and I hoped they didn't see that message because it was a very tender and a moving moment
Zen (zen.arado): for them
Zen (zen.arado): Hi Sunji
Zen (zen.arado): :)
Sunshine (szavanna): °͜°
Uns Mistwalker: hi Sunji
Sunshine (szavanna): hi Zenji and Unsji :)
Zen (zen.arado): but it made me realise that people who never experience Second Life can distance themselves so easily
Zen (zen.arado): it just looks like some kind of cartoon thing to them
Uns Mistwalker: /me nods.
Zen (zen.arado): I was talking about the wedding last week Sunji
Sunshine (szavanna): I fished out another peep :)
Uns Mistwalker: Hi Xirana.
Sunshine (szavanna): I see ;))
Sunshine (szavanna): hi Xiri °͜°
Zen (zen.arado): hi Xirana :-)
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): hello Zen, Udo, Sunji! :-)
Sunshine (szavanna): it was very cowboyish
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): I went to the fountain before ...is it still restart time today, Zen?
Sunshine (szavanna): I even went to the bachalorette party
Zen (zen.arado): yes one of my friends said it looked like Disney World meeting Dallas and I thought that was quite an unkind comment from someone who had never been in Second Life obviously
Zen (zen.arado): it still looks like it is down to me Xirana?
Sunshine (szavanna): ah someone in RL?
Zen (zen.arado): I can't be bothered moving now anyway
Zen (zen.arado): yes on Facebook Sunji
Sunshine (szavanna): ah ok
Uns Mistwalker: There was a bachelorette party?
Zen (zen.arado): but we were saying that perhaps Second Life can promote world peace because we are learning much more about people who live in other countries
Sunshine (szavanna): RL people will always see SL pictures funny
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): nooo that's perfect here :-)
Uns Mistwalker: /me smiles.... that's lovely.
Sunshine (szavanna): yes there was
Sunshine (szavanna): I had to ride a bull ;p
Uns Mistwalker: hahaha....
Sunshine (szavanna): lol
Zen (zen.arado): :-)
Uns Mistwalker: very Texas!
Sunshine (szavanna): and then had to do line dancing
Zen (zen.arado): I really enjoyed that wedding
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): it takes time to get 'immersed' and catchedby SL ...at least for me it was
Uns Mistwalker: yes!
Zen (zen.arado): I love the line dancing

Zen (zen.arado): I'm going to do some country music this Friday
Zen (zen.arado): country rock that is
Uns Mistwalker: Are you!
Uns Mistwalker: Do you know Lyle Lovett?
Sunshine (szavanna): I don't :)
Zen (zen.arado): I will look them up
Uns Mistwalker: really amusing, smart lyrics.
Sunshine (szavanna): I have this thing about country lol
Zen (zen.arado): I prefer it be more rock than just country though
Zen (zen.arado): zz top, Allmans brothers
Uns Mistwalker: They have blended quite a bit nowadays.
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): I like both... it depends on the mood
Sunshine (szavanna): I used to work in a family camp in LA
Uns Mistwalker: You don't like country, Sunji?
Zen (zen.arado): I love researching music because I find new singers and groups I never thought of before
Sunshine (szavanna): I mean Sequoia national park
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): but...to tell the truth..I always listen to classical music
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): :-)
Uns Mistwalker: Ah.... that's a beautiful place!
Sunshine (szavanna): and we used to make breakfast
Zen (zen.arado): lots of those American groups are quite unknown in the UK
Sunshine (szavanna): and the chef there loved country
Sunshine (szavanna): when he left the kitchen ...the guys kept changing the music
Uns Mistwalker: Did it drive you nuts?
Sunshine (szavanna): and when he arrived back he always turned on the country
Sunshine (szavanna): hehe
Uns Mistwalker: /me nods.
Zen (zen.arado): it's very funny but Northern Ireland is a very country music place
Sunshine (szavanna): it doesn't appeal to me
Zen (zen.arado): and I mean American country music
Uns Mistwalker: Country Music, NASCAR, American Football.
Uns Mistwalker: Really?
Zen (zen.arado): when I came back from Australia and started going to dances I thought I had arrived in Tennessee or somewhere :-)
Sunshine (szavanna): nas what?
Zen (zen.arado): they used to play songs like Okie from Muskogee

Uns Mistwalker: Bluegrass can be quite close to Celtic music.
Uns Mistwalker: hahaha.
Zen (zen.arado): a lot of that is derived from Scots Irish
Zen (zen.arado): especially in Virginia
Sunshine (szavanna): in hungary we didn't have country ;o)
Zen (zen.arado): groups come from America to play here and vice versa
Uns Mistwalker: But you must have folk traditions.
Sunshine (szavanna): of course
Zen (zen.arado): but they are more like Gypsy Flamenco traditions?
Sunshine (szavanna): but we don't call that country
Sunshine (szavanna): we call that nepzene
Sunshine (szavanna): ;D
Zen (zen.arado): Lots of violin music
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): :-)
Sunshine (szavanna): yes we have gypsy also
Uns Mistwalker: Country is just white rural american folk music.
Sunshine (szavanna): I used to listen to a lot of gypsy music
Zen (zen.arado): yes
Zen (zen.arado): and rhythm and blues is more black oriented
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): we call it 'cançó tradicional'..but we use also the eEnglish word, música folk
Zen (zen.arado): I was learning that in my history of rock course
Zen (zen.arado): and there is a difference between country music and western music
Uns Mistwalker: yes.
Zen (zen.arado): I find this so interesting
Zen (zen.arado): the guy was just sketching in the background to the start of rock around 1955
Zen (zen.arado): I've got as far as the Beatles :-)
Zen (zen.arado): the British invasion :-)
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): :-)
Zen (zen.arado): actually the Beatles started by doing covers of American artists
Zen (zen.arado): in Hamburg
Zen (zen.arado): Germany
Sunshine (szavanna): brb
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): peaceful incasion
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): invasion :-)
Uns Mistwalker: Yes, they put in many many hours there. Malcolm Gladwell says it was in Hamburg they became masterful as a group.
Zen (zen.arado): the author of the course says that by the end of the fifties American pop music had become very commercial and they were just looking for the next Elvis Pressley
Zen (zen.arado): but they didn't expect it to come in the form of four English guys :-)
Zen (zen.arado): yes they had to play for about six hours every day Uns
Zen (zen.arado): so when they returned to Liverpool they had become quite good and just needed to start writing songs
Uns Mistwalker: Yeah.... so much British stuff.... Stones, Herman's Hermits, Tchad and Jeremy, Donovan, the Animals... on and on.
Zen (zen.arado): one of the Decca executives turned them down because he thought rock guitar groups were going out
Uns Mistwalker: oh boy. Hope he didn't commit suicide!
Zen (zen.arado): Coursera is actually doing a course just on the Beatles
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): in Sapin we were listening to Lola Flores...Franco did not like the influences of all these kind of music... not very respectuful with the 'right' behaviour imposed by the church
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): Spain
Zen (zen.arado): sure the same thing happened with Elvis
Uns Mistwalker: yes. Spain went through its 'flower power' time after Franco died.
Uns Mistwalker: My parents HATED Elvis. he was "dirty.'
Zen (zen.arado): yes I know nothing about how rock music developed in European countries
Zen (zen.arado): that would be an interesting course as well
Zen (zen.arado): even in Britain they had a different way of developing from something called skiffle
Sunshine (szavanna): back °͜°

Zen (zen.arado): I think skiffle groups were unknown in the US
Uns Mistwalker: wb
Zen (zen.arado): Lonnie Donegan
Sunshine (szavanna): ty °͜°
Zen (zen.arado): wb Sunji
Sunshine (szavanna): :)
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): welcome back :-)
Uns Mistwalker: ooo... I don't know about skiffle.....
Sunshine (szavanna): muchos gracias
Uns Mistwalker: de nada
Zen (zen.arado): it started a lot of young guys like me playing guitars
Sunshine (szavanna): ;D
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): muchas * (feminin :-))
Zen (zen.arado): you only needed to know three chords
Sunshine (szavanna): ah
Zen (zen.arado): the Beatles started like that
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): :-))
Sunshine (szavanna): ;D muchas gracias
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): de nada :-)
Zen (zen.arado): I remember playing a tea chest bass
Uns Mistwalker: blues is often three cords, too, right?
Zen (zen.arado): I think so
Uns Mistwalker: like the Washtub bass in the US.
Zen (zen.arado): listen to Lonnie Donegan some time his most famous hits was "Rock Island line
Zen (zen.arado): they were old blues from America mostly I think with a faster beat
Zen (zen.arado): it takes a worried man to sing a worried song
Sunshine (szavanna): :)
Zen (zen.arado): won't you bring a little water Sylvie Silvey
Zen (zen.arado): just titles that come into my head
Sunshine (szavanna): I love how much we talk music these days ;))
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): I will go now....have a nice time all and see you soon!! :-)
Uns Mistwalker: bye Xirana.
Sunshine (szavanna): hugs guapina °͜°
Uns Mistwalker: (listening to Lonnie)
Sunshine (szavanna): enjoy the afternoon
Xirana (xirana.oximoxi): bye bye ..hugs guapina and guapinos :-))
Sunshine (szavanna): :))
Zen (zen.arado): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQgG98VSOs
Zen (zen.arado): bye xirana :)
Zen (zen.arado): hasta luego
Sunshine (szavanna): listening
Uns Mistwalker: .... very like American folk balladeers....
Uns Mistwalker: reminds me of Woody Guthrie.
Zen (zen.arado): yes he puts on an American accent as well although he is an English man
Zen (zen.arado): :-)
Sunshine (szavanna): really
Sunshine (szavanna): hehe nice
Sunshine (szavanna): taps feet
Uns Mistwalker: Just before the British invasion in the US.... there were these things called "Hootenannies"
Zen (zen.arado): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gynnh...D02NXQgG98VSOs
Zen (zen.arado): you can see him on that one
Uns Mistwalker: /me grins.
Zen (zen.arado): yes Woody Guthrie song
Zen (zen.arado): he it's not bad maybe there will be a revival :-)
Sunshine (szavanna): hehe funny guy
Zen (zen.arado): he gets quite excited
Uns Mistwalker: he does!
Sunshine (szavanna): ;D
Uns Mistwalker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUDtF...=TLhlsUbSIL4cw
Uns Mistwalker: that's Woodie.
Sunshine (szavanna): oo nice drum solo
Zen (zen.arado): yes Woody was great
Sunshine (szavanna): car song :)
Sunshine (szavanna): drrr drrrrr
Zen (zen.arado): that's when cars were a novelty :-)
Uns Mistwalker: When I was in college, my housemate had hundreds of hours of Louis Lomax recordings from the Deep South. Black Music.... men singing on chain gangs, etc.
Sunshine (szavanna): °͜°
Uns Mistwalker: Yeah... they were cool then, cars!
Sunshine (szavanna): hmm must go - afk time
Zen (zen.arado): yes you just went for a ride in them
Sunshine (szavanna): ty for the groovy tunes ;))
Zen (zen.arado): yes I better go too
Uns Mistwalker: But I guess still...the Beatles have "drive my car"
Sunshine (szavanna): enjoy the evening there
Uns Mistwalker: Thanks, Zen.
Zen (zen.arado): we can sort out world peace another day :-)
Sunshine (szavanna): next wednesday
Uns Mistwalker: agreed.
Sunshine (szavanna): ;p
Zen (zen.arado): thanks for coming Sunji and Uns :)
Sunshine (szavanna): hugs see you both soon
Zen (zen.arado): hugs
Zen (zen.arado): byee
Uns Mistwalker: bye!