[Technosoul]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready Technosoul said: As everywhere you got workers and leaders who do the thinking for most everyone else, so you end up with people who are economically not as wealthy as others. I say: I disagree as to the reason that occurs. I want someone to explain a classless society to me, and how it could work. I do not think it can. Even in small groups, this just isn't possible for an extended period anywhere I have seen. Every person must "earn" life itself, through food and shelter. These are not free. They cost labor, or a trade of a valued "essential", which in our society usually is money or credit. I contend that there never was, nor probably ever could be a classless society, at least when speaking of humans, and not machines. I am open to debate this, but I have many times, and have seen no valid proof or extendable logic. Technosoul said: But money and materialism is perhaps not the correct standard to use to determine equality. It is possible that it has to do with respecting one another for our individualistic contrabutions (or whatever). To respect people from all walks of life the same, rather then by how much money they have. I say: I agree. Equality is measured by "ability" of the individual, with regard to law. Equality does not mean hand-outs and "starting money" to play the game of life. Charity does this for valid causes, but it should not be governments duty or expense.

The first question is a bit tricky because it would be difficult to find any advanced culture in the past that was substainable. Like Rome they became great and then flopped, we can see ups and downs in nearly every type of governmentally (and likewise run by religion) run culure as well as chnages taking place to alter its orginality, such as the reduction of power of the King and Queeen in England, etc. Tribalism seems to be the most substainable and we can find pagan tribes deep in the jungles of South America that have not changed since who knows when. In Native American cultues they had a chief, and holyman, a warror, and so forth and everyone was treated economically the same, all sharing the rewards of the hunters and gatherers. Their religion (in parts of Ameirca) was founded on a goddess called the White Buffalo Calf Woman. Their religion stressed the importance of equality and respect, even between males and females, as well as gays. They had no system of money or written laws. (sometimes sea shells were used like an I-O-U).

But to say - "show me a substainabe culture" - well good luck with that for they all rise and fall no matter how they run the show.

In Athens they redirected tax money that was earmarked for military purposes and used it to hire the best artists they could find. The city was a showcase for art, sculpture, music, and other such creative undertakings, and as well they allowed philosophy to gain acceptance. But when someone else attacked them from outside, the place was nearly distroyed. None the less we cannot blame them for not developing the right kind of culture, it was the war makers who were runining everything

Now you are correct that most we cannot prove a lot when it comes to anicent cultures or kingdoms, for the reasons you stated. History books are not our most trustworthy sources and likewise books like the Bible could be missleading in how they documented history. But if they dig up a whole city that is thousands of years old and find no weapons of war, that would be a fairly good indicaton that they lived a peaceful life. But perfectionists are always demanding absolutes in proof and such you can never get, only interpretations of the little data we can patch together. We can say the same thing about dicatorships and capitalism.

Using the Bible we know that Babylon had a three party system of rule, and when Daniel was taken as a slave he was about 15 years old, he was treated with "tender love' by his first supervisor, was well fed and housed, he was provided with advanced education and learned the skills of dream interpretatons, and learned how to interpret the ancient words of Sumer. Although he had been abducted into service from a defeated Jewish village he ended up getting promotions in Babylon and became the ruler of certain districts of that kingdom. In that biblical story we see equality in action relative to what you would call the slave and master environment. Also in that story we see how the women would often step in and direct the king about what he should do, and their words were respected and acted upon. The kingdom of Babylon lasted for a long time and was once one of the most dominate centers of trade and so forth. Their favor for honoring the Goddess of Love resulted in John (Revelations) giving them the nick name "mother of whores". Can I prove it? Well I do not have a time machine to transport you back to those days, so if you are only seeking absolute proof then you are out of luck, but if you are seeking "a better idea" for the future then you came to the right forum topic.

In your last statement you gave the opinon that a government should not provide charity, and such would not be needed if our many religions did what they preach instead of getting into more matealistic projects like gobbling up real estate. However the government is not realistically a seperate identity form the will of the people. Idealistically it should be the will of the people to work collectively to insure that everyone has a fair chance and that those who cannot compete on equal status and for that reason are lacking that they should be taken care of out of love and compassion, no ifs and or buts about it. Anything short of that is just pure meanness.