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[NT] Dreams of Power

Lark

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Who else dreams of rising to power and transforming their country and possibly even the world for the better?

I know I do, RCs are officially debarred from high office in the UK, at least the office of PM and there are not any RCs in line for the throne, although I'm not immodest, I'd like to be PM but someone else can be King.
 

Jaguar

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No one needs to "rise to power," to make a positive contribution to the world.
 

/DG/

silentigata ano (profile)
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Is that what you NT's dream about? World domination? :laugh:

I would rather have money than power.
 

Moiety

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Not since I was like 12, when I wanted to be a politician.

I just want to have power to not have anyone bossing me around, nor to have to boss anyone around. Now that's true power.
 

LunarMoon

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No one needs to "rise to power," to make a positive contribution to the world.

In order to make a large-scale contribution you generally do. Even adopting a child is ill-advised if you're completely poor and powerless.

Is that what you NT's dream about? World domination? :laugh:

I would rather have money than power.

Money is power. The only reason money even possesses any value is because it represents 'control over labor'. Without that level of value added it's nothing more than worthless paper and metal.

"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
 

Metamorphosis

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I would credit more large-scale contributions to scientists that people in power. Unless you are putting no ethical/moral/helpful requirement on "contribution."

Compare TED speeches to CSPAN speeches.
 

LunarMoon

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I would credit more large-scale contributions to scientists that people in power. Unless you are putting no ethical/moral/helpful requirement on "contribution."

Scientists do possess a large degree of power. The career path is highly respected, they are regarded by the public as an authoritative source of information, and are generally paid anywhere from an upper-middle class to a blatantly upper class income. Due to the above circumstances they are also able to dedicate less of their time to meeting ends meet and staying alive and more of it to performing cutting edge research. Those possessing a Phd and with a healthy reputation are allowed even more funding and freedom in their research in order to make said contributions and especially within their circle, are very influential. This is quite the financial and social backing considering the fact that intelligence and ability in itself, lends a non-too-inconsiderable degree of power. Intelligence, physical strength, and social charisma are the original measures of power that predate all else.
 

Lark

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Scientists do possess a large degree of power. The career path is highly respected, they are regarded by the public as an authoritative source of information, and are generally paid anywhere from an upper-middle class to a blatantly upper class income. Due to the above circumstances they are also able to dedicate less of their time to meeting ends meet and staying alive and more of it to performing cutting edge research. Those possessing a Phd and with a healthy reputation are allowed even more funding and freedom in their research in order to make said contributions and especially within their circle, are very influential. This is quite the financial and social backing considering the fact that intelligence and ability in itself, lends a non-too-inconsiderable degree of power. Intelligence, physical strength, and social charisma are the original measures of power that predate all else.

Aye but do they really, Ursula Le Guin's book The Dispossessed is brilliant on this point, the hero character is a scientist, to a less extent he's meant to be an everyman intellectual too, and he experiences the epic fail to two entirely different world systems (politically left wing and right wing) and how they seek to exploit him and his ideas.
 

Coriolis

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I like to think that I transform my corner of the world simply by example, by living the way I do. I seem to give other people ideas about how to live more sensibly, manageably, and in keeping with one's own principles and wishes.
 

/DG/

silentigata ano (profile)
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Money is power. The only reason money even possesses any value is because it represent 'control over labor'. Without that level of value added it's nothing more than worthless paper and metal.

"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

Mmm. Well, let's all hear it for power! :devil:
 

Shmooooooooo

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I often fantasize about ruling or altering completely the world, though invariably through unorthodox means.

I recall my latest vivid fantasy was the creation of something akin to the matrix, wherein the entirety of the planet's resources were used to create an array of supercomputers on which resided conscious beings - the inheritors of humanity. These beings could live like gods, living out every fancy in worlds of their imagining, completely unfettered from physical needs and the burdens of "reality" as it exists now.
 

Vie

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Sometimes I get really fed up with the corrupted and incompetent people that seem to fill my country's government -- but I feel as though I can make a better impact in the quality of someone's life by the career path I chose rather than rising to power within that particular PART of the government. Although, in a way, I'm still leading it is not nearly on the same scale. I feel as though I couldn't handle not going crazy on the corrupt as I scale my way up, I would just explode on them.
 

MacGuffin

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I know I do, RCs are officially debarred from high office in the UK, at least the office of PM and there are not any RCs in line for the throne, although I'm not immodest, I'd like to be PM but someone else can be King.

What does this mean? I don't understand.
 

Lark

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What does this mean? I don't understand.

The office of prime minister in the UK parliament is debarred to Roman Catholics, during his time in office Tony Blair courted controversy because he attended Roman Catholic mass services with his wife and received holy communion, he did not announce his conversion to Roman Catholicism until after he had left office and taken a teaching job in the US in some interfaith faculty, although it is rumoured that in one of his meetings with the Pope after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that he asked for absolution from sin.

The Monarch in the UK is "Defender of the faith" which since the reformation, Cromwell, the jacobite rebellion, williamite wars and act of union between Scotland, Wales and England (I probably dont have them all in the right order) has been the protestant Christian faith, John Knox who schooled the future Monarch James in Scotland who was the architect of Britain was a firm believer in the protestant ascendency.

One of the great, and forgotten, ironies of history has been that while people suppose that the reformation sowed the seeds of seperation between Church and State, was a harbringer of toleration and even secularism in the UK it was exactly the opposite.

The establishment churches in England, Scotland and Ireland all have or had the emblems of state and politics in their sacred spaces, often flags of state, even regiments of soldiers where adorned on alters, lots of the older churches which are now visitable as tourist attractions have got tombs, rolls of honour, inscribed monuments to Christian soldiers.

The dissenters who did practice more democratic church governance who did exist in England and Scotland and elsewhere where used as shock troops in plantations in Ireland or went to the US or elsewhere. Its not really remembered that while Guy Fawkes was aprehended trying to blow up parliament and immediately identified as an RC this occasion was also used to attack the Scottish within England and it was believed to be a Scots plot also.

I find it funn that these things arent remembered because similar schisms and betrayals and intrigue have marked not just religion but most ideologies since then.
 

MacGuffin

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The office of prime minister in the UK parliament is debarred to Roman Catholics, during his time in office Tony Blair courted controversy because he attended Roman Catholic mass services with his wife and received holy communion, he did not announce his conversion to Roman Catholicism until after he had left office and taken a teaching job in the US in some interfaith faculty, although it is rumoured that in one of his meetings with the Pope after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that he asked for absolution from sin.

That's... strange. Is it only Catholics, or just any non-Anglican?
 
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