[Marxism] Forwarded from bob

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(This bounced because of excessive length. Bob, you included *all* of
Carlos's lengthy post in your reply. I removed it. You and everybody else
should be reminded to clip excessive text.)

Carlos

Your impressions of Microsoft flight simulator are not at all accurate.

You wrote "The physics, flight dynamics, control systems, and unforgiveness
of real  flight in MS-FS series has been matched only by real flight since
the late 1980s." Maybe this is how they hype it on the box but it's not true.

Actual flight training does make use of simulators. They cost considerably
more than the $69 or so for Microsoft Flight Simulator. There are
essentially three types: 1) they type used by most flight schools,  a
relatively inexpensive set of controls connected to a computer and a
screen, 2) a complete copy of the cockpit and controls connected to a
computer and  3) full motion simulators that cost between $10 million and
$100 million each. They are designed to match up with the cockpits and
flight dynamics of one and only plane. They cost a couple thousand dollars
an hour at companies such as Flight Safety which does training for
corporate pilots. A normal training program is for a pilot who already has
a thousand hours or more of experience flying planes, including substantial
experience flying similar planes, going to a Flight Safety location for
about 3 weeks of classes and simulation time in preparation for actual
flight lessons on the particular plane he's being trained to fly.  Playing
a computer game is simply not the same.

The site you refer to is not for the use of Microsoft Flight simulator,
it's for technology that costs between $6,000 and $20,000, with duplicate
input controls. It clearly lacks the complexity of a real jet airliner or
even a real simulator. Even small corporate jets have so many control
systems, switches and dials that they would confuse any amateur trying to
use them.

Even though the equipment you refer to  is like a tiny toy compared to a
real simulator costing up to 5000 times as much, it is still quite a bit
more sophisticated than that which you would likely find in a small flight
training school and much more sophisticated than a program you can run on
your home computer for under a hundred dollars.

You wrote "Landing and taking off a plane is hard, but  controlling it in
flight, in particular putting up a preprogramed flight  path into
auto-pilot, is relatively easy. And crashing it into a target as  huge as
the WTC towers is a piece of cake after that. Pilots learn
similar  manuevers (ie approaching a landing strip) in a week in most
flight schools" I'd believe you if you had actually done it but I tend to
think that you didn't. What's very funny is that people who play with
Microsoft Flight Simulator really think that it's just like flying a plane,
that whole suspension of disbelief -- virtual reality thing!

You wrote "Or if you want an independent assesment, the AOPA, Aircraft
Owner's and Pilots Association, which groups over half of the more than
800,000 pilots  in the USA, recommends it as a teaching aid:
 <http://www.aopa.org/>http://www.aopa.org/"; Although, I'm one of the
400,000 members you referred to, I still decided to look at your citation.
It didn't have anything to back up your assertion.

You made a series of other assertions regarding flight training and offered
this URL as your proof:
<http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2004_articles_fs_training.asp>http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsimulator/fs2004_articles_fs_training.asp
It turns out that it's a piece of Microsoft Advertising copy. It was
written by Bruce Williams, the Business Development Manager for Flight
Simulations at Microsoft. This is truly an amazing concept. Microsoft
Advertising Copy trumps reasoned analysis at Marxism mailing list.
Why is it that you think that you have to accuse me of racism for not
agreeing with you? You wrote "shows a racism similar to that of French when
faced with the Haitian revolution, something along the lines of "those
towelheaded  sand-niggers couldnt have done that, on account they are too
dumb".

No where in any of my posts did I say that anything that could even
remotely be seen as racist. You make up your own statement and try to give
the impression that I wrote it. Fact is, I didn't write it I didn't write
anything similar. Perhaps it's just a 'left' thing -- when you disagree and
you want to show that you really really disagree, then call the person a
racist.

I haven't been subscribed to this list for very long, so I wonder whether
this is typical and acceptable behavior. Maybe so, since there have been 3
or 4 such attacks so far and one other person quoted your attack and then
blew off a little steam of his own aimed in my direction.

That writer, Duane, wrote "I'm of the opinion many Americans are in
complete denial that somebody living on the periphery of the U.S. Empire
had the means and capability of organizing such a devastating attack deep
inside their own country. And this shouldn't be surprising since people
here within the U.S. have been taught to believe that their way of life is
superior to everybody else's. After all, "they" just ride camels, yes?"

Now again, I find this insulting as well as inaccurate. The writer
obviously doesn't know that I grew up with Arab-Americans, live with them
now, and, in fact included in a previous post the question of why one would
believe that white American CIA agents wouldn't commit suicide while at the
same time seeming eager to believe that Saudis would.

Duane isn't content to leave it at that. He goes on:

"Then if the Arabs are just too plain dumb to destroy
the World Trade Center, "who dunnit"? Why, one of our
own must have did it. We have high IQ's, don't we?"

The question isn't whether or not Arabs have the capability to fly planes
(which they quite obviously do), nor whether people on the periphery are
capable of planning an attack. It's which scenario is most/least believable
especially given the purposes that belief in one particular government
scenario is used for, the myriad of inconsistencies in that scenario as
well as  the requirement that 19 Arabs (many of whom still claim to be
alive) would engage in a suicide pact after having supposedly given up
their religious beliefs in order to fit in an alien society.

So what accusation is next? "But some conspiracy theories are good for the
ruling
classes because they are, by their nature, a
reactionary and conservative force. They keep alot of
people busy running around chasing after a ghosts and
phantasms and wasting away their lives speculating
about nonsense rather than engaging in work that will
make them see how the social order really functions --
perhaps motivating them to take action to do away with
it!"

Duane doesn't consider that the reality of the 911 story is just the
opposite. The continued belief in the Government's version of a conspiracy
(those 19 suicidal Arabs) is what is actually functioning to 'demoralize
the masses'. Masses of people believe the government's version, are then
fearful of Muslims to the point that they acquiesce in the imprisonment,
torture and continued killing of Muslims in numbers so large as to be
beyond comprehension. 150,000-200,000 killed since 911. More than a
thousand picked up out of their homes in the USA and jailed indefinitely
(and most of them were from the town I grew up in). Thousands more taken
prisoner in Afghanistan and placed in a specially created prison to be
tortured for years on end. Thousands more captured in Iraq, imprisoned, and
tortured for years already.

The Government's  911 story is so demoralizing that we've seen a Peace
Movement collapse into an ABB movement essentially saying "let's put a
different war-monger in the white house".  Getting beyond the 911 induced
hysteria that exists even among liberals is an essential requirement for
any movement in this country. Belief in the government's fantastic version
of the 911 events has become an almost religious belief amongst the
American people. So much so, that the expression of disbelief in the story
is met with derision, deliberate falsification, and mud-slinging even
amongst Marxists.

Duane then wrote "In addition to this, they have the potentional to
demoralize the masses. If the "powers that be" are as
powerful and omnipotent as some conspiracy theories
would like to you believe, then why ever bother trying
to change anything? If nothing the "little people" do
will ever matter because the Illuminati, CIA, or a
untouchable cabal somewhere is always calling the
shots, we should just fold our hands and give up!
Resistance is futile!"

First we have the use of the phrase "some conspiracy theories" to try to
make disbelief in the government's 911 story seem like the product of a
diseased mind. I didn't mention anything about the Illuminati. Nor an all
powerful CIA or a Cabal. The actual issue is does the ruling class rule? Do
they sit by quietly on the sidelines rooting for their team, or do they
make use of any and all tools to maintain their class rule? I happen to
think it's the latter. Some of those tools are the hardware to accomplish a
given task. And some are the control of the media to propagandize their
version of reality. And lastly is their continued attempt to make all other
points of view seem simply unthinkable.

bob

Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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