Government

[Haykakan]

Re: Government

Here is a possible step in limiting special interest power

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mandatory-voting-obama-says-it-would-be-transformative/ar-BBipf2F?ocid=LENDHP

It could make a difference if accompanied by other equally powerful steps but I would not hold my breath on any of the steps becoming reality.

[Haykakan]

Re: Government

Democracy is being promoted by western states in today's world without regard for pretty much anything. You either have democracy or you are backwards, inefficient, tyranical, stupid.... This form of government is being hailed as the savior of humanity, the only way to go, the best form of government ever...as a matter of fact if you do not have democracy there is a good chance that a foreign powerful democratic government will force it upon you regardless of what you think or want. To understand democracy(much like understanding anything else) you have to look at its history. The truth is that there are huge problems with democracy and they some times take a while to appear but they always do appear and they always bring about unprecedented levels of corruption for that country along with unprecedented levels of inequality. Eventually these problems lead to the collapse of the country with the lucky ones being subjected to a revolution by the people who try to set things straight or a prolonged decline into oblivion. By looking at the history of Greece we can learn a lot about the situation modern day democracies are in. When Greeks first invented and adopted Democracy they saw unprecedented levels of economic, intellectual, cultural growth-not only unprecedented for Greeks but unprecedented for the whole world. Yet for the wonders that the Greeks achieved their Democracy soon evolved into hostile police state which was always at war with its neighbors and decent of opinion became not just frowned upon but punishable by death(Socrates). The underlying theme of democracy went from the will of the people to the will of those who can afford it. Greece has been in decline since those days and has gone from an imperial power to the bittch of imperial powers. It has lost much of its lands and is in a constant state of decay. The revolution against this corrupt system never took place in Greece thus it is still in a state of decay and still loosing territories(Cyprus) and wealth. We are seeing the same thing happening in the USA where Democracy brought the same type of boost in all spheres of development for a couple hundred years but as was the case in Greece, corruption became the overwhelming theme in american democracy as well - along with gross inequality, unending wars, a state of decline..all of the same things Greece went through when it started its long and tragic decline. It seems Democracy has an expiration date (seems to be 200 years or so) and like expired milk if you keep using it past its expiration date it will make you very sick. We see the symptoms in today's USA with the unending stream of wars, unprecedented levels of corruption(special interest groups, super pacs..), gross inequality. We are also seeing the war against decent in this society with the USA becoming more and more of a police state where criticizing the state is against the law(Snowden, Manning). We have even seen the hints of revolution(occupy movement) which was expediently crushed by the passing of laws making legitimate forms of protest illegal with severe punishments. After the break up of the Soviet Union many of its former members embraced Democracy but in these countries the boom was almost completely skipped over and corruption immediately set in and became the overwhelming theme. This leads to the question why are powerful democratic states so hell bent on spreading democracy? The reason is easy to explain but is never mentioned. A utterly corrupt democratic system such as the USA would like nothing better then reproducing its corrupt system everywhere it can so that the same forces which benefit from corrupting it will benefit by corrupting these other democracies as well. Hell these newer democracies will never even see the rise that Greek and USA societies saw because they start off corrupt to begin with. The spread of corruption is the real appeal of democracy and it is done under the guise of the peoples will which is manipulated and flat out laughed at by those in power. You will not find this information in textbooks nor will the truth about democracy be revealed to you via the media because all of these sources are corrupted. You will not get answers to this problem from government because government is utterly corrupt. This paints a gloomy picture without much of an answer anywhere in sight. There is no fixing such a problem because all the powers in government are completely corrupted. The likely hood of a successful revolution is also remote because authorities have gotten much better at suppressing, manipulating, destroying.. So what then does the future hold for o lets say the USA? To answer this question again we refer to history and we see decline, growing inequality, wars,oppression...and all that regular stuff inherent to democracy. The USA has been dealt a temporary get out of jail card with the discovery of vast natural resources but this is just a temporary boost the benefits of which will be absorbed by the very few and the progressive decline will be that much more painful once this source is depleted. As i tell my students-i wish i had better news for you but reality is what it is. You can pretend it does not exist and delude yourself into your own reality but reality will always catch up to you no matter how much you try to escape it.

[hagopn]

Re: Government

My friend, whoever you are, you are an intelligent individual who deserves thoughtful replies.

For today, since my mind is again preoccupied with a 1000 projects, I will only say that, whatever model is adopted, the only one I can live with is a nationalist model without the nonsensical leftist "internationalist" pretensions that can only default to some sort of imperialism. There is, for a large group of people like, nothing else that can work except a nationalist government that cares for its own lot. Everything else is a lie.

[Haykakan]

Re: Government

Yes genetics does matter in many ways about many things. Sure they can possibly influence our preferences for structure (government, family..). What is also true is that this factor is only one of many which influences these and other complex behaviors. The more complex the behavior the more environmental factors become more important. Considering the complexity of government and various family structures it would be a safe assumption that genetics has a minor role(if any) to play in this equation. I pointed out some research years ago on this forum which showed strong evidence that natural human behavior leads to serial monogamy and you can see this in people who are wealthy. Once you are not dependent on your spouse for survival people choose serial monogamy (ie. movie stars, atheletes, rising divorce rates..) Monogamy and polygamy are based on materialist possession and only became popular with the concept of ownership which was rather limited in human nature to" this is our tribes territory" and became "this is my cow, my house, my woman..". The last of these types of communal societies was observed in the 90s and people in such societies were far happier then the psychotrauma inducing society we live in now. What was striking about this research was that money was introduced into this previously isolated society and the transformation was observed with possession of things and even people becoming more important and fighting and unhappiness on the rise. This was just one example of what natural human society is vs human society influenced by materialism. There is a lot of interesting work done on human psychology to with interesting results on how motivation works and does not work. Human behavior is rather complex and deals with many issues which we are not necessarily aware of. Yes genetics is indeed a factor when it comes to governing human behavior but it is one of many and often it is a minor factor especially in more complex behaviors which relate to governing or sexual relations.

[hagopn]

Re: Government

It's fascinating stuff with many ethno-cultural theory implications. For example, the idea above is that the female represents stability, in essence, while the male represents variety and adaptability. For (ancient) cultures that are polygamous, it is often the female who is the determinant for familial/clan heredity, even in patriarchies with polygamy as a long term dominant practice. Polyandry would result in the reverse. In a more liberally managed urban culture that has a balance of monogamous, polyandrous, and polygamous behavior (I don't speak of marriage laws, but of accepted behavioral norms and percentage of resultant offspring), like it was in Sumer (and possibly ancient Armenia/Asia Minor as well in urban settings), and like it is today increasingly in "western" oriented societies, you theoretically have actually faster evolutionary development than you do in a strictly patriarchal and polygamous society. In strictly monogamous cultures (at least majority consensual monogamous), you have yet more acceleration. Can you imagine the implications?

[hagopn]

Re: Government

http://geodakian.com/en/20_Sex_Chromosomes_en.htm

In 1965 V. Geodakyan theoretically predicted that “In the chromosome set, the roles of sex chromosomes and autosomes (A) is in effect, respectively, the short-term and long-term memory; that is why sex chromosomes, primarily the Y-chromosome, serve as a gateway into heredity for variation”. Y-chromosome does it primarily for mutations induced and directed by the ecological differential rather than of spontaneous mutations.

and later...

Sex chromosomes are short-term memory structures, the experimental subsystem of the genome (a male sex analogue), and provide for genome modification. As a new character does not appear in the female genotype without prior testing in the male one, a new gene is not transferred to autosomes without testing in sex chromosomes.

The main role of sex chromosomes is not reproductive — determination of sex — as believed earlier, but evolutionary, i.e., the creation of dichronomorphism for economical evolution, even at the cost of reproduction. Sex chromosomes change and regulate the sex ratio rather than maintain it at 1:1 level.

http://www.geodakian.com/en/ETS/30_Sex_Theory_en.htm

For the case of sexual differentiation, the sequence of arrival of the controlling information from the environment to the subsystems is as follows:

environment → male sex → female sex.

In panmictic and polygamous populations where each male can fertilize many females the number of mothers always exceeds that of fathers. Therefore hereditary information obtained by the offspring from their mothers is more representative, better reflects genetic distribution in population/preceding generation. Information obtained from fathers is more selective; it reveals the genotypes suitable for the environmental conditions.

Environmental conditions apparently have a potential to effect genetic recombination every generation.

Would that cause for ingrained patterns of behavior after many centuries of putting them into practice? This theory says yes.

[hagopn]

Re: Government

Aha, I found my source on the "genetic memory" ideas, to which I refer in the strictly biological sense, not metaphysical or parapsychological nonsense (except in the Platonically inspired "archetype" theories, which are the very foundation of the study of comparative mythology).

I recommend you read the works of Vigen Geodakian. Check out his site http://geodakian.com/ . There was a forum that expanded upon his theory of inherited biologically transmitted genetic memory.

From the most base pathological results such as fetal alcohol syndrome and like physical development issues to the most complex behavioral patterns and imprints, all organisms that reproduce by way of meiosis apparently carry on more "memory" than previously thought says this theory.

Part of the discussion was related to political structuring of societies as related to the environment in which the given culture had developed and how repeating patterns of individual and group behavior can be attributed to instinct, which in human evolution is a bigger package. C. Jung tackled the idea with the archetype idea, and the particularities of any given ethnos was also discussed. Yet, while we attempt to explain "stubbornness" in clutching onto to a certain pattern even when that patterns proves to be harmful possibly (and I say possibly) points to a more genetic instinctual source.

Now, despite the intentional out of context misrepresentations and "isolated quote collecting" above, I never made claims of attributing all (or even little) of behavioral heritage to this phenomenon.

Do I at this point even understand the science behind his theories? I'm just scratching the surface at this time, but the discussion I saw on Russian television, that was being translated live from Russian to Armenian for me, was fascinating and did deal with political behavior.

Do I believe in such a phenomenon? I don't disbelieve it.

[hagopn]

Re: Government

Haykakan, despite the parasitic noise from this maniac above, you might be on the right path. Especially after reading the latest posting on the "Is Russia an ally or foe, nowadays?" thread, I'm defaulting to what is probably the main cause and component in all of this heartache, just plain lack of knowledge, education, centralized effort of at least in the systematic propagation of Armenian history, historical knowledge among the general population, and proper understanding of just what our interests are as a people, as a collective. The level of ignorance and myopia is appalling, and the Soviets managed to sow the seeds of confusion by catering to one extreme to the other. I remember a thesis on "Gyughagrutyun" that a Russian author had written about the undulation between "populist anti-nationalism/internationalism" and "populist nationalism" depending on the mood that the central bureau needed among the masses. The Diaspora on average is more historically aware than the average citizen when it comes to the Turks. The Bleyans of this world are causing serious confusion among the totally amnesiac public.

[hagopn]

Re: Government

As to my genetic memory entry that was of course used to blow things out of proportion, not for the sake of having a discussion and explore possibilities, but to derail the discussion and discredit the entire set of proposals, I just remembered one more example from our region and genetics.

Was it Nature or Nurture that prompted the Janissary to rebel and end with their abolishment? This is a corps of orphans, totally deprived of their society of birth, their traditions, upbringing, maturation and adoption of values. They were a corps of "confiscated" orphans from Christian subjects, of which the Armenians constituted a large part in the Empire, especially Asia Minor and the Armenian Plateau. So what happened? The were obviously bred to be the "Good Ottoman Soldiers", and yet they rebelled. This was a question that Artstruni posed and Leo the historian elaborated on. Leo argued that it was their arrogance and ambition that caused for the "Auspicious Incident" to come about, their fear of losing their power to a western mercenary based military model that was being adopted. Artsruni argued that their natural inclination for independence and mutiny was the reason that the Sultan adopted the mercenary model to begin with. It's always a toss up. ("Mercenary" with the intent of eventually replacing the foreign officers with Turks)

[hagopn]

Re: Government

Where is a mod when you need one..This sounds like a Urartu history forum now.

I'm trying to keep the sail in the right direction, my friend.