Mereja Forum

[Horus]

American just passed a $ 1 trillion $ law to stimulate the economy from collapse.

Additional 1/2 trillion is in pipes for small business. In fact the national stimulus needs another 1 trillion.

This is 2, 500,000, 000, 000. Ethiopia is 1/3 of America.

So at American rate, Ethiopia would need Birr $ 32, 000,000,000,000, that 32 trillion !!

Do you have the capacity to imagine this number? This why we say that some times poverty is a gift of God and a virtue.

All this is happening because some irresponsible greedy capitalist rent seeker ate an animal that does not belong to the human food chain.

Greed kills big time !!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... spartandhp

[Horus]

Selam here is what I was talking about

GOP senators sold off their stocks ahead of coronavirus economic crash, reports say

[Horus]

ይህን ስሙ

[Horus]

[Horus]

https://news.yahoo.com/more-half-califo ... 56523.html

[Selam/]

Greed is everywhere and it’s partly anchored in traditions and cultures. Ending wildlife market is a necessary measure that all countries should take while altering customary practices is also a must.

Poachers and traffickers in parts of Africa also hunt and trade pangolins for their bushmeat, scales, and other body parts. Some eat them as a delicacy while local healers use the pangolin as a source of traditional medicine. Remember, this tradition is being practiced next door in Nigeria and Uganda as we speak and pangolins exist in western Ethiopia along the Akobo and Omo River. And it’s common in South Omo tribes to eat all kinds of wild animals and trade them to highland dealers while Nuer tribes are known for spearing endangered animals. We are all in this together although the greed and practice in China appear too extreme.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.c ... ked-animal

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... utType=amp

American just passed a $ 1 trillion $ law to stimulate the economy from collapse.

Additional 1/2 trillion is in pipes for small business. In fact the national stimulus needs another 1 trillion.

This is 2, 500,000, 000, 000. Ethiopia is 1/3 of America.

So at American rate, Ethiopia would need Birr $ 32, 000,000,000,000, that 32 trillion !!

Do you have the capacity to imagine this number? This why we say that some times poverty is a gift of God and a virtue.

All this is happening because some irresponsible greedy capitalist rent seeker ate an animal that does not belong to the human food chain.

Greed kills big time !!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... spartandhp

[Selam/]

So what? Two greedy politicians had a prior knowledge somehow and made money out of it doesn’t tell anything else. The same was said about some Jews who sold stocks prior to September 11. But Jews too died in the incident. Give me a break!

Selam here is what I was talking about

GOP senators sold off their stocks ahead of coronavirus economic crash, reports say

[TGAA]

I agree that we shouldn't stigmatize a certain population as the source of disease just because of who they are; however if the action of the people is the source of the problem then without a flinch we have to point out the action that caused the problem, in this case, Caronavirous pandemic.
We have to recognize the limits of political correctness.

[DefendTheTruth]

Selam here is what I was talking about

GOP senators sold off their stocks ahead of coronavirus economic crash, reports say

I think people can't have it both ways: first it was reportedly said that the current Rep. President, Donald Trump, downplayed the case of Corona virus. He then started to take measures to mitigate the effects, after being convinced that it is rather serious.

Now we are being told GOP had a prior knowledge. Was that on their own as private citizens or as collection and as part of the party?

It simply doesn't add up to one

[DefendTheTruth]

We have to recognize the limits of political correctness.

Allegations and other kinds of claims should be fact based, and that is not too much to ask for, I think.

In the time of crisis, the truth will be the first victim, they say.

[opmerc]

American just passed a $ 1 trillion $ law to stimulate the economy from collapse.

Additional 1/2 trillion is in pipes for small business. In fact the national stimulus needs another 1 trillion.

This is 2, 500,000, 000, 000. Ethiopia is 1/3 of America.

So at American rate, Ethiopia would need Birr $ 32, 000,000,000,000, that 32 trillion !!

Do you have the capacity to imagine this number? This why we say that some times poverty is a gift of God and a virtue.

All this is happening because some irresponsible greedy capitalist rent seeker ate an animal that does not belong to the human food chain.

Greed kills big time !!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... spartandhp

That's a real lofty position you're holding from the comfort of life in the wealthiest, most capitalist country on earth. The same wealth and capitalism that conceived and built the device you're typing on. Something is deeply wrong with you if you think God deprived Ethiopians of achieving such things as some sort of a gift but he thought it was okay for you to have it.

You should just be honest about needing someone to blame for your 401k going up in flames instead of making it seem like some lesson about the virtues of culture or the pitfalls of greed. Now that would be not mincing words.

[opmerc]

I agree that we shouldn't stigmatize a certain population as the source of disease just because of who they are; however if the action of the people is the source of the problem then without a flinch we have to point out the action that caused the problem, in this case, Caronavirous pandemic.
We have to recognize the limits of political correctness.

Which actions by which people? And what part of such conversation helps to stop the spread at this moment?

There were endless campaigns to stop flights to China as if they were deliberately infecting people and then loading them up on planes. Turns out the virus arrived from everywhere else but China, but it hasn't stopped people from trying to maintain this blame game.

There is a difference between pushing political correctness and stopping prejudice motivated by fear.

[Naga Tuma]

After reading your short reply here I had to ask myself about what is the base (the foundation) on which the other may stand?

Is it the material foundation that stands on the moral foundation or the moral foundation that stands on the material one?

DefendTheTruth,

I wish to ask you back if you have a clarity of value system of your own that points to an answer for your question. I wish to also add if there is any lack of clarity in the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s often quoted expression that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." When your value system is that clear, a clear answer wouldn't be lacking.

Naga Tuma,

let me put it this way: I think there was ( and most probably there is still) a demand that was/being raised by the late Dr. Martin Luther King and other people who see him as their role model and there is also a demand that a young Ethiopian man is raising today (or has been raising for a while), as another example.

Do you think the two are the same, if not, then why do these demands differ, seen qualitatively, in their essence?

I think that it is not about disowning this or that value system, perhaps about setting a priority of the different value systems.

DefendTheTruth,
When you have a foundation, you have a direction, an upright one. When you have an arc, you have a trajectory. When you have gravity, you have a center of gravity. When you have a well developed culture, you see the direction of civility and subsequently civilization. I would argue that a well developed culture has a center of gravity. That is why we have renaissance. That is why humanity has shown progress and has progressives. That doesn’t mean you can’t become wealthy while being footed on the foundation for which you see a clear direction. You can have parameters for them, and there have been observed and learned parameters for a long time. We don’t need to be dealing with imagined hypotheticals when we can stay on clear parameters.

[Naga Tuma]

This is Horus. I hate to mince words. In this age of twits, I say my point in less than one paragraph. As the poet said,
Tell me quick,
And, tell me true;
Otherwise sir,
To hell with you.

You can go ahead and discuss the etiology of Corv19. One can trace the cause of every event to the big bang. This particular virus travelled from the sea to human in Wuhan China. But, the point of my post is that all of this drama happens as a consequence of a particular human behavior - human culture. There is a reason why we don't eat donkeys and other strange sea and land creatures. There is a reason why we have values, moralities, code of conducts and sense of boundaries. ስድ ካልቸር አሁን ያለውን ኩሉ አለም ጥፋት ያስከትላል !

Hmm...

Obbo Horus,

Please note that I am not writing for you but for the benefit of the general public on the public forum.

Sorry but the whole talk sounds to me as red neck's self centered bragging and empty talks. For your information cultures, moralities, social codes and values are dynamic and relative but not static and deterministic. All ethnocentric rednecks think that their cultures, values, moralities, and social codes are the only single best in the world while others' cultures, values, moralities and social codes are of the lowest rate.

On the other hand cultural relativists think that they do have good cultures, values, moralities, social codes etc., some of which are good values as well as some of which that are bad practices and value orientations. As far as cultural relativists are concerned other societies just like their own societies also possess some good cultural patterns, values, moralities, social codes, etc., as well as also some bad cultural patterns, values, moralities and social codes. In this sense all societies and cultures are similar in some ways, different in some ways but equal in all the ways.

Last but not least every society likes its culture and its values just like you love your culture and your values. Loving and respecting own culture is ok. But hating and condemning the cultures and values of others is nothing more than lunatic fascism as has already been clearly testified by the dwarf mad dictator, Adolf Hitler. Live and let live is the best approach in a world where he own the same ball jointly. For that even the Chines are good examples because just yesterday the Chinese government sent full plain load of experienced medical doctors, medicines, nurses, medical equipment, etc.,supplies to the devastated and overwhelmed Italy. If it were some you red neck guys you have only sat flat on your asses blaming cats, rats, dogs and other humans instead of taking your redneck bickering baboons and helping others during such catastrophic historical situations.

Thank you China and God bless you for your wisdom and kindness in coming out and helping Italy far away from your country.

"The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings." ~A. Schweitzer

sun,
Do you read a distinction between what you wrote and what you quoted? Do you see a distinction between direction and lack of direction? If I may give you a clue, every step taken necessarily has a direction.

[DefendTheTruth]

After reading your short reply here I had to ask myself about what is the base (the foundation) on which the other may stand?

Is it the material foundation that stands on the moral foundation or the moral foundation that stands on the material one?

DefendTheTruth,

I wish to ask you back if you have a clarity of value system of your own that points to an answer for your question. I wish to also add if there is any lack of clarity in the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s often quoted expression that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." When your value system is that clear, a clear answer wouldn't be lacking.

Naga Tuma,

let me put it this way: I think there was ( and most probably there is still) a demand that was/being raised by the late Dr. Martin Luther King and other people who see him as their role model and there is also a demand that a young Ethiopian man is raising today (or has been raising for a while), as another example.

Do you think the two are the same, if not, then why do these demands differ, seen qualitatively, in their essence?

I think that it is not about disowning this or that value system, perhaps about setting a priority of the different value systems.

DefendTheTruth,
When you have a foundation, you have a direction, an upright one. When you have an arc, you have a trajectory. When you have gravity, you have a center of gravity. When you have a well developed culture, you see the direction of civility and subsequently civilization. I would argue that a well developed culture has a center of gravity. That is why we have renaissance. That is why humanity has shown progress and has progressives. That doesn’t mean you can’t become wealthy while being footed on the foundation for which you see a clear direction. You can have parameters for them, and there have been observed and learned parameters for a long time. We don’t need to be dealing with imagined hypotheticals when we can stay on clear parameters.

Naga Tuma,

let me also put it this way: I do agree that we have a superb culture that we adore and wish to protect and keep it. I didn't deny that. It is our asset. Keeping the asset requires the foundational support that should be able to sustain and keep it running. If the foundational support gets shaky, then there is no guarantee that it can sustain the overlying asset (value).

Don't you think that our superb (objective or subjective) culture is standing on some shaky foundation in the recent past? Why was that?


Shouldn't you and Horus, who are two examples of part of the foundation and the carriers of the good culture (our value) contributing and reinforcing its supporting base from where you should have been, if the base was not shaky for some reason? In this case I am simply trying to call your attention to the phenomenon now commonly known as brain-drain, to avoid a misunderstanding here.

[TGAA]

I agree that we shouldn't stigmatize a certain population as the source of disease just because of who they are; however if the action of the people is the source of the problem then without a flinch we have to point out the action that caused the problem, in this case, Caronavirous pandemic.
We have to recognize the limits of political correctness.

Which actions by which people? And what part of such conversation helps to stop the spread at this moment?

There were endless campaigns to stop flights to China as if they were deliberately infecting people and then loading them up on planes. T but it hasn't stopped people from trying to maintain this blame game.

There is a difference between pushing political correctness and stopping prejudice motivated by fear.

The action I am talking about it bring in wild animals from every nook and cranny into human consumption. Most of the domesticated animals we consume have been with us for thousands of centuries, and we, humans, have been able to develop treatments to treat them from various kinds of diseases. Keeping ourselves from consuming every crawling and slithering animals and insects is not just only a cultural bias issue, but we haven’t studied them enough to know what kind of bacteria and virus they can be a host of . if one opens up a market to accommodate the exchange of these wild animals, with a market incentive add to it, it is an invitation for trouble. If what you call a campaign against flights to china is being done at this moment in the countries, you are blaming of campaigning then you have to concede there's more to this than meets the eye. The California governor locked down the whole state with its 40 mill people. I hope you don’t believe the greedy capitalist perform a stint to lose a hundred billions of dollars a day for propaganda purposes. I assure you they are not that dumb. I am not privy to“turns out the virus arrived from everywhere else but China” information so share it with us. What we know is the epicenter of this pandemic is china. This is the second time this kind of epidemic and pandemic originating from the same country. where there's smoke (twice) there's definitely a fire The only foolhardy airline that has shown a kamikaze political loyalty to China, despite the danger of a pandemic, has been Ethiopian Airline. All the underpinning arguments presented are relativistic in nature This relativistic argument though useful in certain circumstances it is disastrous if we are prone to deploy it to all circumstances.

[DefendTheTruth]

Defend the Truth,
I think you are using materialist philosophy a bit wrongly. Let us say you are a full blown materialist, objectivist or positivist. Here is how you would narrate the case in hand. In the beginning there was nothing. Then the big bang happened and physics was born. Physics gave rise to chemistry. Then, chemistry gave rise to biology. Then, biology gave rise to neurology (the brain), then neurology gave rise to mind (consciousness). Today you can be a positivist (materialist), a constructivist (idealist) or in between (a pragmatist) - in all cases, you are dealing with mind and consciousness. Our values, culture, ideas, knowledge and more are functions of the mind and our consciousness. This is in fact one area that science and religion are coming to a common point. Whether mind is a product of matter or a creation of God, its job is to guide the material body, the mass, the matter. You may be a rational animal and expert economist,
but please don't leave home without it (mind). In fact, it is precisely when you are a physics driven materialist that you most need the service of consciousness. If not, how on earth could we be distinct from material object, plants and nonhuman animals none of which have any known culture.

Horus,

I do need my mind, I didn't negate that, it is the core of my existence and that makes a meaning to my very existence. It should be protected and sustained. To sustain it I do also need the foundation (the nourishment, if you like) on which it can be kept well.

Don't go much before you can just think about your own self: compare two simple days of your daily life. When you are running the streets empty in stomach and the day when you are doing the same thing but this time full (well satisfied) of your stomach.

You can claim something different but in my case it is that when I have my stomach full, then my mind get stimulated to think further and inquire more about its surroundings.

Is this difficult to understand?

[DefendTheTruth]

Someone can correct me if I presumption (memory) is wrong, but I am pretty sure that when I was young and stayed with my parents, I was always told by my parents to get home on time (before it gets late and becomes dark outside) and avoid any possibility of coming close to a bat (የሌልት ወፍ)። A bat comes out and start flying after it gets dark outside, for whatever reason.

This memory came to my mind after I read here and there that the current corona virus might have started (or transmitted) through a bat.

If this is indeed the case then people definitely need to go to Ethiopia nad start researching the cure of this devastating virus and rescue the world.

[opmerc]

The action I am talking about it bring in wild animals from every nook and cranny into human consumption. Most of the domesticated animals we consume have been with us for thousands of centuries, and we, humans, have been able to develop treatments to treat them from various kinds of diseases. Keeping ourselves from consuming every crawling and slithering animals and insects is not just only a cultural bias issue, but we haven’t studied them enough to know what kind of bacteria and virus they can be a host of . if one opens up a market to accommodate the exchange of these wild animals, with a market incentive add to it, it is an invitation for trouble. If what you call a campaign against flights to china is being done at this moment in the countries, you are blaming of campaigning then you have to concede there's more to this than meets the eye. The California governor locked down the whole state with its 40 mill people. I hope you don’t believe the greedy capitalist perform a stint to lose a hundred billions of dollars a day for propaganda purposes. I assure you they are not that dumb. I am not privy to“turns out the virus arrived from everywhere else but China” information so share it with us. What we know is the epicenter of this pandemic is china. This is the second time this kind of epidemic and pandemic originating from the same country. where there's smoke (twice) there's definitely a fire The only foolhardy airline that has shown a kamikaze political loyalty to China, despite the danger of a pandemic, has been Ethiopian Airline. All the underpinning arguments presented are relativistic in nature This relativistic argument though useful in certain circumstances it is disastrous if we are prone to deploy it to all circumstances.

Look there is no question that avoiding the consumption of certain types of animals is helpful in general. Flesh that you are unable to keep fresh for long once killed in particular. But whether it walks or crawls or slithers is not a determinant for how dangerous it can be to humans. Billions of people eat seafood every day and don't contract viruses capable of killing 3% percent of humanity. Natural selection decides what can exist in one being without threatening it while being deadly in something else. This organism can start to populate at any point. And this contact can happen whether one consumes them or lives in close proximity to them or there is a organism in the middle of the two (fleas, mosquitoes, lice and ticks) that transfers infected blood from one to the other. It is a well studied science.

Fixating on the origin of this particular virus like it couldn't have happened a dozen other ways and using it to feel superior about yourself is not only wrong, it's very harmful. It is creating an atmosphere among people in fear that these other people are responsible for this virus by virtue of their culture which breeds resentment and attempts at retribution.

As far as not being privy to how the virus arrived in Ethiopia, a Japanese man by way of Burkina Faso first, then a US military man who came for a conference after having contact with an infected Italian and then a UK diplomat. At no point was anyone screaming for flights to be stopped to US UK Japan or Burkina Faso which was my whole argument from the start. Once the cat is out of the bag i.e it has escaped Wuhan, it can show up from anywhere. So the best course of action was to rapidly improve ways of detecting the virus, tracking patients, isolating the known infected and treating them. Which was done.

Just blanket bans did not help Italy or the US avoid getting the virus and both countries had restricted flights to China.

So again let's leave the blame game aside and just focus on how much we can learn from everyone, Chinese or not, on how to quickly defeat this thing before it does the damage it did in Italy and elsewhere. Everything else is a waste of time at best.

[Degnet]

I am sure only a very few people will take essential lessons from the calamity that is taking over the world.

1. Humans shall not be so greedy like the Chinese.

2. Humans shall not eat everything and anything that exist between heaven and earth.

3. Humans shall practice religion, spirituality, moral constraints and civilized code of conduct.

4. Humans shall not worship blind connectivity and crass globalism.

5. Humans shall practice certain degree of ethics, esthetics, wisdom and sense of humility.

6. Humans must recognize and accept the power of one tiny germ over the fallacy of man's limitless greed and stupidity.

7. Humans shall celebrate the supreme Ethiopian wisdom of clean food, fasting, praying, fear of God and the sinfulness of greed.

8 Humans must recognize that a seemingly omnipotent material culture can be dismantled into nothingness by a single microscopic virus.

The fool can labor all his life gathering stuff only to lose it in a moment of folly !

አልጠግብ ያለ ሲተፋ ያድራል !!

Stay safe & Ker !!!

I have a dislike of unblievers(None Christians)