Why Australia must embrace Asia

[Albion]

Try not to be so butthurt about Russia, it's obvious why you're out to prove America to be so bad.

Worldwide gas reserves right now are 400 years or something.

Estimates probably not including shale gas.

Its really not worth it for small countries. Americans just want to sell the technology for much money and move on.

It is worth it, Americans are extracting as much as they can. Resources are finite, current gas reserves will only last for so long without shale gas. The UK is small geographically but that doesn't matter, it is able to extract the gas, it isn't some poor country that can't afford to.

[RussiaPrussia]

Try not to be so butthurt about Russia, it's obvious why you're out to prove America to be so bad.

i dont care abut russia. Again the biggest losers are europeans

[Hoca]

RussiaPrussia, you seriously should take some basic economics class. Only measuring via GDP is not a good yardstick.

[Sarmatian]

This is irrelevant to what I said to begin with. ...

Very interesting.

You're correct, I've made my statements without arguing to support them. Wanted to see your reply and quite pleased with result.

Before we argue about value of intelligence or any other thing we have to define what intelligence is. It is still a subject of debates among philosophers and there is no final conclusion on the matter. At the end everyone is free to understand it as they see fit.

The way I see it intelligence is an ability to collect and process information in all forms, logically judge it and make conclusions. It is an important part of our consciousness but not exclusive to humans as some may suggest. As I said before to me it's just a tool I use to measure and judge things I encounter in this world. And here we have the first problem with intelligence: is it possible to form judging criterias and measure absolutely everything we encounter in our lives? Our everyday experience says 'No'.

The other not-so-obvious problem with intelligence is it's tend to split the information it's working with into smaller details for more precise analysis. It is sure allowing us to learn facts very deep, build and sustain large statistical evidence but at the same time it is always possible to lose connection with the original system from which the small detail came from, take things out of context in which they can only exist and claim them to be an independent entity. Too often we witness intelligent minds arguing on little matters simply because they've long lost the view of the big picture.

Another problem with intelligence is its ability to boost ego of an individual. Once recognized intelligence as the most valuable thing and then objectively judging himself as intelligent person comparing to others, one logically coming up to conclusion of being more valuable than others. It's self-propelling logical chain that produce extremely arrogant individuals with strong belief that they can decide about lives of others. They appeal to vague general terms like common good, prosperity of society etc knowing very well that they can come up on top of an average mass if this mass has no face, no identity, no self-value. Such arrogant intellectuals often stomp on people around them just for the sake of it, just to gain additional boost to their ego.

I've never claimed wisdom and intelligence being mutually exclusive terms. Wisdom overlaps with intelligence greatly but it's not simple understanding. In fact some define intelligence as understanding. Wisdom is more than that, it's an ability to perceive world and life in it as a whole indivisible system, ability to see purpose of things including your own purpose and place in this life. Wise man is a man who knows what he is and where he belongs before anything else. Don't have to be overly intelligent for that. Notable part of wisdom is emotional maturity and perception of emotions and feelings to be as important part of the picture of life as strict logic. Intelligence lack this quality.

Now about value of things. To me it's strictly subjective matter. There is no universal value in anything, everything is judged individually, the things that are valuable to me has little or no value to you and vice versa. And here intellectual minds can get into trap of arrogance. They trying to find common details in data obtained on the matter, for them result is valid only if it can be reproduced in other instances. It's not a big deal if we looking at some research in natural science but in our case we deal with matters that can shatter the validity of life of these intellectuals themselves. No matter if you want it or not but every human being will choose to justify his own life over anyone or anything else. As result we can see a bunch of intellectuals convincing others on the value of intelligence simply because it will boost value of their own lives within society. They arrogantly dismissing anything that doesn't fit or threatening their proposed system of values as petty, primitive and uncivilized.

But at the end all this mental masturbation is irrelevant to my values, my life and my blood are the most important things to me. I don't have to justify it with intelligence or anything else, it's innate feeling natural for any living creature. I only care for good of society as long as it's fit my good and good of my people, thus all these conclusions about Asians being better for building a society are irrelevant.

PS: And who's talking about Nietzsche? That emotionally handicapped philosopher spending his life on mental masturbation on the matters he had no real experience with is little authority to me. He had a few bright ideas but nothing really important. He didn't pioneered the concept of will, it's naturally existed in many cultures long before him, including my culture.