<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Jul 23, 2010, at 6:38 PM, Jeff Davis wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><br></font>The Jews are successful because their historical coincidences<br>pushed them in the direction of mercantilism and finance capitalism.[...]</div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div>Islam has followed a course more in line with religious conservatism.<br>That this has held Muslims "back" </div></blockquote><div><br></div>I could not agree with you more, although the same ideas could be expressed more concisely as "Islamic culture sucks".</div><div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>But -- and you knew this was coming -- where is it written that<br>smartness, or wealth, or Nobel Prizes is the metric by which to judge<br>one group "better" than another?<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Well, I'll write it right here if you like, I'll write that smartness and wealth and Nobel Prizes is a pretty God damn good metric for judging one group BETTER than another, especially when it includes much more personal freedom, and I don't even need weasel quotation marks.</div><div><br></div><div>And I was wondering if your aversion in labeling one group better than another extend to all groups, would you refuse to stand up and say most groups are superior to the Nazi group?</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>rebranding the Nobel prize as the Capitalist Megadeath prize, then that 165 to 6 comparison doesn't quite feel as impressive as before.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes but who would be so anti-intellectual as to call the Nobel prize the Megadeath prize? Well I can think of one group and it starts with the letter "I".</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>the West, facilitated by finance capitalism, took up the imperialist<br>mantle, and starting in the mid 1300's, began conquering the world.<br>They tried to conquer the Muslim lands as well, but with only mixed<br>and temporary success, and with the sort of defensive pushback -- from<br>the Muslims this time -- one would naturally expect.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Who cares, that was 700 years ago!</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>It's no crime to want to live the way you and yours have lived since<br>before you can remember. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>But it is a crime to force others to live as if it were the twelfth century. I just don't get it, why do some otherwise freethinking people in the west feel they are obligated to make excuses for intellectual and moral midgets? These same people don't hesitate to point out the slightest flaw in their own culture, but they pretend they don't see the elephant in the living room, the hideous evil in Islam. <br><blockquote type="cite"><div> </div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><div>The Western world is in full-throated Muslim-hating mode</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>No that is not true, but I wish it was. Instead the western world is in full-throated suicidal self hatred mode with a vast supply of half baked excuses for the atrocities of Islam.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Demonization is poor preparation for an accurate assessment of reality.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Not if you're assessing a demon. </div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>I know it is a weakness of human nature to become<br>emotionally invested in inconsequential tribal spats,<br>but people who want to be transhumanists need to be<br>able to get past that</div></blockquote><br></div><div>If Islam wins this tribal spat NOBODY is going to become transhuman.</div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></body></html>