I dunno, man… have you heard his response to: “What is best in life?”
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Uh, what? This thing happens in every country in the civilized world.
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There’s probably a lot of overlap between those subcultures. “You kids stay out of that basement! It’s where mommy and daddy keep their grown-up toys!”
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That’s what it always comes down to for ultra-right-wing types around the world: feudalism, with them at the top of the heap and everyone else as slaves and serfs. King George III was closer to American ideals than this bunch of tinpot would-be barons.
I’d strike out the “civilized” part – there nothing civilized about this, and it can happen anywhere. The U.S. isn’t immune, either, as these guys and the recently acquitted Oregon militiamen and a GOP candidate who wants “deportation squads” demonstrates. Also, don’t forget the Philippines, where the “colourful and outspoken” new president is creating an atmosphere that favours extrajudicial killings.
In the West it is, I’m afraid, a regression to the “normal” that existed before 1946: extreme inequality, strongmen leaders, wars and riots (with an existential climate crisis thrown in to spice things up). My generation, Gex X, is the last one in America where a significant portion had a shot at enjoying the dregs of the postwar economic anomaly. The majority of younger people are in for a rougher ride in a much harsher reality, despite (or sometimes due to) the shiny tech veneer.
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[quote=“aLynHall, post:13, topic:88302”]I think what we are seeing around the world right now is kind of a dustup. It’s like when you are cleaning something that has been dirty for a long, long time and you get into the grime that is set up and hardened. Modernity has pushed so deeply into the connected world, it is not comfortable to be out of sync anywhere, anymore.
I fear we are looking at generations of violent pushback before we are rid of this kind of thinking. This isn’t a rising phenomenon, this is natural selection taking care of what has always been there.[/quote]…Of course, it’s always possible that they might have actually gotten it right about a thing or two, and the whole “connected world” is about to go soaring off a cliff. But best not to think about that, I suppose.
they will be the only citizens of a new country, with everyone else serving as “worker bees…down in the field growing food, gathering wood.”
Seems to me if they ever actually got what they think they wanted, they’d probably get bored pretty quickly, and casually let power slip away into the hands of those who actually know how to get people to like them, and the ol’ bureaucracy would rise again from the dead.
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Some of this reminds me of The Gulag Archipelago, the paranoia, the apparent glee in torture, the ideological justifications for their actions.
I imagine it’s just a matter of time before they do start turning on each other over some misinterpreted comment or perceived slight. "What? Your brother-in-law’s last name is Chavez? Hmmmm. . . . "
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Remind me to never dine around you…
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…Of course, it’s always possible that they might have actually gotten it right about a thing or two, and the whole “connected world” is about to go soaring off a cliff. But best not to think about that, I suppose.
I’m not a fan of the hive society thing either, but without controls on population, it’s probably going to be one or the other. Given the choice between the Borg Collective and the world of Mad Max, I guess I’d have to go with the Borg. I don’t have much confidence in the leadership abilities of Immortan Joe or the Ayatollah of Rock n’ Rollah
Seems to me if they ever actually got what they think they wanted, they’d probably get bored pretty quickly, and casually let power slip away into the hands of those who actually know how to get people to like them, and the ol’ bureaucracy would rise again from the dead.
Honestly, I think it would be a lot like the movie cliche of the tough guy, equipment fetishist. They’d get suited up and armed to the teeth and the first person they met would clobber them and take all their toys…
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I don’t recall sending you an invite… nor do I recall you trying to enslave me, so I don’t think you really need to worry too much.
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Reminds me of Cartel Land (definitely worth watching)
Which I think was meant to be about Arizona Border Recon (who are mentioned in this article), but changed focus more to the Mexican side as they made it, although the militia people are still in it.
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What with the Bundy Militia getting off in Oregon, it looks like these freaks are being allowed to run around as they please.
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The Bundy’s aren’t “off the hook yet”; they still face charges from the state of NV.
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I certainly hope you’re right.
Sometimes. I recall several frats on my undergrad campus who thought having fights with other frats was part of their culture as well.
Nope.
As soon as women get access to birth control, civil rights and decent perinatal care, population growth trends towards replacement level. Top-down controls are not required.
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Our mating and reproductive behaviors are tied very strongly to culture. In terms of current culture, and how western culture is currently influencing the world, what he is saying is probably true, but culture is determined by trends and current events. Things like religion, politics, war, all affect our attitudes toward procreation.
He’s studying the cold war era til now. He is assuming that we have plateaued culturally. He assumes we will continue being comfortable, educated, birth controlled and family planned westerners, and that everyone will eventually “catch up”. He assumes there aren’t areas over beyond the “now” on his chart where things drastically change.
First off, that’s kinda racist, honestly, or culturally bigoted, anyway. It assumes we “lead the way” and we have found the good life and we are gonna stay right here and be elevated and all the world is going to catch up to us. In reality our way relies on a whole lot of people working at low wages and supporting us. Our way relies on all those boxes down on the end wanting shoes and bicycles. How will it affect us when all those plastic tubs want high wages, cars and vacations too?
Those other cultures that are following along in little bubbles might veer wildly, too, and go their own way. They are not the same as us, it is pretty terrible thinking to assume so. They can’t be like us without all those poor boxes to support them, and we shouldn’t remain the culture we are, either.
I hope he is right about population in the future, but I don’t trust a theory based upon attitudes of cultural superiority, and one that doesn’t recognize the precipice we teeter upon ourselves.
That’s a reasonable assumption, but the data doesn’t back it up.
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People in Allepo probably assumed they had culturally plateaued, too. People get like that. Very egotistical and blind to the possibility of downward change. Religion doesn’t just change things based on it’s own mandates. There have to be factories to make birth control, doctors to prescribe it, pharmacists to distribute it, money to buy it.
Data this dependent on privilege isn’t reliable. It’s like the old picture of a man holding himself up off the ground by his own ponytail. Our lofty state relies on those other lowly states to provide goods and services we can afford. Our lofty state is destroying the environment and negating the continuation of our lofty state. People might decide our hypocritical lofty state isn’t what they want at all, and choose something different.
Nice to think about though, a nice optimistic dream.
P.S. as this is tangential to the topic I won’t continue diverting the thread.
paint
gear up
pre-op
insert
wait
walk
wait
wait
wait
make a difference
yeah
