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You shouldn't live your life in fear, Zousha. There are terrible things that can happen, yes. There are terrorist attacks and spree killings and auto accidents and industrial accidents and home invasions and being accused of crimes you didn't commit and all of these other things.
Ultimately, you have a choice. You can live your life preoccupied with these possibilities or you can realize that life is fleeting and fragile and live each day to the fullest. If one of these terrible things happens (odds are that they won't), will you look back on years of pointless anxiety and feel that it was worth it? I know I wouldn't. I would say to myself, "Why did I waste all that time worrying about what could go wrong? I would give anything to have spent all that time creating something, enjoying the company of others, eating fatty foods, or playing Pathfinder."
Should you take reasonable precautions? Absolutely. Lock your door, look both ways before you cross the street, be aware of your surroundings. Should you promote causes that are important to you? Absolutely. But make sure you know what those causes are and why you support them before you go "all in". We all owe it to ourselves and to others to do what we can to make the world a better place, and that usually starts with our immediate surroundings.
But take a deep breath once in a while and go for a walk. Spend your life enjoying the things you are so concerned about losing. If you don't do that, what's the point of worrying about them to begin with?
Go out, have a tasty burger, and catch a movie. Then go home and make a phone call to an old friend. It will be a better use of your time and energy.
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I'm scared that no matter what I do the country's going to collapse
Don't be silly. Its not going to collapse.
We've survived over 200 years through a revolution, increasing the size of the country 12 fold, a civil war, the civil rights movement, the existential threat of the cold war... and whats facing us now exactly?
and I'm going to go down with it because I didn't buy a gun and a cabin and stock up on food and water.
That wouldn't help you much unless the apocalypse is disease or zombie based.
I'm constantly scared of losing my jobs.
We have a social safety net. if you can fill out a form you have a year of unemployment at whats probably almost your salary from one job
I'm scared of socialists
You're a sucker for equivocation.
Someone says "socialist" and they mean "society working together for everyone's benefit". What you hear is "totalitarian government regime that will kill everyone"
This isn't an accident.
There is a concerted effort by the rich to deliberately equate the two. Fox news pretty much exists for the express purpose of doing this. They simply don't want to pay taxes and its cheaper to run a propaganda machine and bribe your own politicians into office than to wind up with genuinely progressive taxation.
capitalists
We're all a little bit captialistic. We're all a little socialistic. Its a matter of DEGREES, not of kind.
Christians
Most of them are fine. Its just a well funded and very vocal chunk of them trying to push creationism in schools that are annoying...
And thats all they are. Annoying. They have been steadily loosing legal ground for the past 100 years. Even if things aren't going to get worse for them, the checks on their power now in the courts are pretty decent.
atheists
Oh no, we're going to.....take "in god we trust" off the money? MOve the nativity scene to the church?
I'm literally on the evil atheist conspiracy yahoo group and that's about as diabolical as the plans get.
libertarians
Real ones or "I don't want to pay taxes" ones?
Libertarianism has never worked. Never will. Government removes a restriction, the bad thing that that restriction was put in place to prevent happens again, and people put the restriction back.
conservatives
Are an annoying break on progress, but the progress happens anyway. Even the most right wing coo coo bird of today would be (or at least vote as) a liberal from 100 years ago.
liberals
Pick the most liberal person in congress, and tell me what they want thats really so bad.
feminists
Do those even exist anymore?
mens' rights advocates
Who want.. what exactly?
LGBT advocates
Oh no.. they're... getting married RUUUUUUUUN!
I think you've managed to soak up a sense of fear here without having any idea why.
and advocates for straight-marriage only. There's so much stuff going on in the world and it seems like the only thing that's consistent about them is that things are only going to get worse and worse. It may be a Marxist Revolution in America. It may be that conservative Christians create a Gilead-like state, making The Handmaid's Tale a reality.
I'd suggest reading a history book or two. Take in all the changes that have already happened in america. Yes, the future is going to be different.. its ALWAYS different. Are we going to have the same country we had in the mythical post ww2 america? Hell no. First of all, what was there was the result of being the only industrialized nation that wasn't half crater. Secondly is that the myth was never real. The past wasn't as nice as 50 years of revision has made it.
The future will be a mess but all likelyhood less of a mess than the present.
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Don't be silly. Its not going to collapse.
We've survived over 200 years through a revolution, increasing the size of the country 12 fold, a civil war, the civil rights movement, the existential threat of the cold war... and whats facing us now exactly?
Defaulting on our national debt and the dollar collapsing?
That wouldn't help you much unless the apocalypse is disease or zombie based.
Or economy based, because if the dollar collapses I wouldn't be able to buy the things I need to survive.
We have a social safety net. if you can fill out a form you have a year of unemployment at whats probably almost your salary from one job
It's not being unemployed that scares me. It's being unemployable.
You're a sucker for equivocation.
Someone says "socialist" and they mean "society working together for everyone's benefit". What you hear is "totalitarian government regime that will kill everyone"
This isn't an accident.
There is a concerted effort by the rich to deliberately equate the two. Fox news pretty much exists for the express purpose of doing this. They simply don't want to pay taxes and its cheaper to run a propaganda machine and bribe your own politicians into office than to wind up with genuinely progressive taxation.
Then I guess it's a good thing I ignore Fox News.
We're all a little bit captialistic. We're all a little socialistic. Its a matter of DEGREES, not of kind.
Can one simultaneously believe in unalienable rights that can never be taken away and that certain rights must be given up in the form of a social contract? The two sound mutually exclusive.
Most of them are fine. Its just a well funded and very vocal chunk of them trying to push creationism in schools that are annoying...
And thats all they are. Annoying. They have been steadily loosing legal ground for the past 100 years. Even if things aren't going to get worse for them, the checks on their power now in the courts are pretty decent.
It's not the creationists that bug me. They're strawmen that are relatively easy to ignore. It's more mainstream Christians that upset me. To put things in perspective, I grew up Catholic. Went to church every Sunday and gradually understood it more and more until I became confirmed and went to college at a Catholic university. I gradually went to church less and less during college, even though I remained on good terms with my fellow Christians. I started viewing religion more in an academic sense, taking religion classes and stuff on Franciscan Values (something the school required). But after I left college and returned to my old church, things got increasingly snobby at my own church. I used to sing in the choir at the 6 'o clock Mass with my siblings, but we were eventually phased out of the group because we didn't cater to the right demographic (the 6 PM mass was intended to be a hip youth Mass thingy to get more young people in the church, but instead it attracted more middle-aged and elderly people). And the final straw came when the gay marriage nest of hornets got stirred up this year. One of the priests, a newer, younger guy who'd just come from being an army chaplain, said "If you don't vote yes on the upcoming constitutional amendment to restrict marriage in Minnesota to one man and one woman, you're not a Catholic." So I left. Now the only times I go to church are for funerals.
Oh no, we're going to.....take "in god we trust" off the money? MOve the nativity scene to the church?
I'm literally on the evil atheist conspiracy yahoo group and that's about as diabolical as the plans get.
First off, originally the text that was printed on our money was "Mind Your Business" something I think most Americans in this day and age should do more often, but I digress.
I understand that there's not some grand atheist conspiracy. But there are a lot of atheists I've encountered that could more properly be called anti-theists, seeing it as a personal mission to debunk and argue against religion, like they have a moral imperative to destroy religion. You see these kinds of atheists on YouTube all the time.
Real ones or "I don't want to pay taxes" ones?
Libertarianism has never worked. Never will. Government removes a restriction, the bad thing that that restriction was put in place to prevent happens again, and people put the restriction back.
Real ones, the kind that are more interested in unalienable rights and John Locke and stuff like that. Plus, there's a whole host of degrees within that label. You've got the anarcho-capitalists who believe the state could be completely abolished and all its functions replaced with private enterprise, the minarchists that believe the state is still needed in some form, but in a limited fashion so its responsibilities and jurisdiction are clearly marked and can't be crossed, covering things like the military and the courts, but staying out of private, voluntary things, and you've got the Objectivists, who get kind of a bum rap due to their founder being a mediocre writer with a massive ego, a cruel streak in regards to the less fortunate and irresponsible behavior in personal relationships, but who nevertheless have some good ideas like the idea that there are objective values and freedoms that can be observed in nature (Ayn Rand herself actually hated Libertarians. She didn't think they went far enough. But then Ayn Rand practically hated everyone.).
Are an annoying break on progress, but the progress happens anyway. Even the most right wing coo coo bird of today would be (or at least vote as) a liberal from 100 years ago.
No arguments here, though there are some compelling reasons to look at traditions and values and utilize them. Too much progress can be a bad thing too in the hands of extremists.
Pick the most liberal person in congress, and tell me what they want thats really so bad.
I don't know WHO the most liberal person in Congress is. I know who my own senators and reps are for my state, but I honestly can't speak much on their issues. Congresspeople tend to just say what their constituents want to hear anyway.
Do those even exist anymore?
Sure they do. Here's one.
Who want.. what exactly?
Generally speaking, they want to address discriminatory practices and beliefs against men in areas like reproductive rights, divorce settlements, domestic violence laws, and sexual harassment laws.
Taken directly from the Wikipedia article. There's a concern that they're basically becoming a male version of feminism, more concerned with power than equality.
Oh no.. they're... getting married RUUUUUUUUN!
I think you've managed to soak up a sense of fear here without having any idea why.
Oh, I know why. I have no problem with them getting married. What's problematic is pushing their model and their wants and needs over the concerns of other familial models, or even vilifying them to support their own purposes. The kind who'd demand special consideration for adoption even when the child has capable and responsible biological kin who are willing to take them in, the government ignoring the fact that these are the best equipped to raise the child due to kin altruism.
I'd suggest reading a history book or two. Take in all the changes that have already happened in america. Yes, the future is going to be different.. its ALWAYS different. Are we going to have the same country we had in the mythical post ww2 america? Hell no. First of all, what was there was the result of being the only industrialized nation that wasn't half crater. Secondly is that the myth was never real. The past wasn't as nice as 50 years of revision has made it.
The future will be a mess but all likelyhood less of a mess than the present.
I know that post WWII America is idealized and stuff. But it's not returning to an ideal that concerns me. It's avoiding totalitarianism. Because honestly, I feel like no matter what ideology comes to power I'm screwed. To the Soviets or Nazis I'd be impure due to my mental ilness, and to the Randians I'd be a parasite because I've directly benefited from government programs to help me overcome the symptoms of my mental illness to be able to function somewhat normally among regular people and be employable by them, instead of just hiding in my room living in my own little autism world.
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You shouldn't live your life in fear, Zousha. There are terrible things that can happen, yes. There are terrorist attacks and spree killings and auto accidents and industrial accidents and home invasions and being accused of crimes you didn't commit and all of these other things.
Ultimately, you have a choice. You can live your life preoccupied with these possibilities or you can realize that life is fleeting and fragile and live each day to the fullest. If one of these terrible things happens (odds are that they won't), will you look back on years of pointless anxiety and feel that it was worth it? I know I wouldn't. I would say to myself, "Why did I waste all that time worrying about what could go wrong? I would give anything to have spent all that time creating something, enjoying the company of others, eating fatty foods, or playing Pathfinder."
Should you take reasonable precautions? Absolutely. Lock your door, look both ways before you cross the street, be aware of your surroundings. Should you promote causes that are important to you? Absolutely. But make sure you know what those causes are and why you support them before you go "all in". We all owe it to ourselves and to others to do what we can to make the world a better place, and that usually starts with our immediate surroundings.
But take a deep breath once in a while and go for a walk. Spend your life enjoying the things you are so concerned about losing. If you don't do that, what's the point of worrying about them to begin with?
Go out, have a tasty burger, and catch a movie. Then go home and make a phone call to an old friend. It will be a better use of your time and energy.
I did have a burger today, and went out and exercised afterwards. I forgot all about the whole totalitarianism thing while I was working.
But am I just ignoring the problem, and letting the evil of totalitarianism spread without opposition?
Can one simultaneously believe in unalienable rights that can never be taken away and that certain rights must be given up in the form of a social contract? The two sound mutually exclusive.
There's no such thing as inalienable rights and everybody knows it. Life? How often do people actually die at the time and in the manner of their choosing? Liberty? We have prisons. Property? The easiest of all things to take away.
People believe in rights they would prefer not to have alienated under various circumstances and if they were honest about it they'd sound less like lunatics when they started holding forth on the matter. They'd also fit nicely into the same political continuum with the rest of us.
But yeah, fictions are often incompatible with reality. When that conflict arises, guess what always wins?
Or economy based, because if the dollar collapses I wouldn't be able to buy the things I need to survive.
And then you and your one gun are completely screwed when 10 people with their guns come by.
Your best investment for your longterm survival would be a good garden with lots of corn, and a yearly BBQ get together with your entire neighborhood so you know each other well enough to group together for your mutual protection.
But thats not going to happen. Other countries have GDP to debt ratios more than twice ours. We have more than enough food for everyone and the absolute worst case is we vote to nationalize the farm industry (even more than it already is)
If the banks try to toss everyone out of their homes they'll hit the point where law enforcement stops helping them (they're already close) or people will put in politicians who will vote to stop them. Even at the loony fringe of possibilities its not like democracy can't adapt to make things better.
It's not being unemployed that scares me. It's being unemployable.
We've gone through worse. they're not going to let people starve. Starving people are VERY bad for the society they make money on.
Then I guess it's a good thing I ignore Fox News.
You're picking up their views from somewhere: case in point...
We're all a little bit captialistic. We're all a little socialistic. Its a matter of DEGREES, not of kind.
Can one simultaneously believe in unalienable rights that can never be taken away and that certain rights must be given up in the form of a social contract? The two sound mutually exclusive.
Quote:
Which of the tenets of socialism are incompatible with inalienable rights? Just because some models that claimed to be socialism (but were actually totalitarianism) denied people freedom of speech religion etc. doesn't mean that thats what socialism is, any more than capitalism requires the wholesale slaughter of indigenous people because thats what the us did.
I'm all for genuine capitalism, but the top needs to chip in something here too. Romney pays a lower percentage in taxes than we do. Its not a radical change to teh system and its not anything new, but the second someone calls it socialism then it suddenly finds an upwelling of opposition from people like you voting against their own best interests.
It's not the creationists that bug me. They're strawmen that are relatively easy to ignore.
Just because a strawman of creationism and creationists are neigh impossible to separate does not make the creationists strawmen.
And the final straw came when the gay marriage nest of hornets got stirred up this year. One of the priests, a newer, younger guy who'd just come from being an army chaplain, said "If you don't vote yes on the upcoming constitutional amendment to restrict marriage in Minnesota to one man and one woman, you're not a Catholic." So I left. Now the only times I go to church are for funerals.
Religious thinking and traditionalist thinking go very well together. Its not surprising that there's a lot of overlap.
I understand that there's not some grand atheist conspiracy. But there are a lot of atheists I've encountered that could more properly be called anti-theists, seeing it as a personal mission to debunk and argue against religion, like they have a moral imperative to destroy religion. You see these kinds of atheists on YouTube all the time.
There is an enormous push in society to get people to believe. Its so pervasive that it often goes unremarked: its simply considered how things are. Why does it worry or surprise you that some people would want to push back?
I think the internet may have helped alleviate this problem, but I became an atheist around the age of 8. I NEVER met another identified atheist until late in high school. I didn't even know what to call myself until i saw some maury povich esque show with an atheist complaining about the dollar bill.
Fundamentalist atheist: LOOK OUT HE HAS A BOOK!!!!
I mean.. whats the worry? Someone's on youtube----? something happens----> something bad happens. Its like garden gnome economics: there's a huge step in there that doesn't make any sense to me.
Real ones, the kind that are more interested in unalienable rights and John Locke and stuff like that.
I really wouldn't worry about it. They only get the platform that they do because they're funded by the no taxes kind. Actual libertarianism would be bad for the people making oodles of money directly from the government and indirectly because of the US and its military acting abroad in their interests.
People want fire departments, sewers, garbage pickup and social security. They're going to keep it.
No arguments here, though there are some compelling reasons to look at traditions and values and utilize them.
Reasons such as....?
Most traditional values that last a while seem to be an adaptation to the environment rather than any actual morals.I don't know WHO the most liberal person in Congress is.
Find them! you're worried about these nutcases but you don't even know who they are.
Generally speaking, they want to address discriminatory practices and beliefs against men in areas like reproductive rights, divorce settlements, domestic violence laws, and sexual harassment laws.
So they want to see their kids, don't think external plumbing disqualifies them to be a parent, don't want to be hit in the head with a frying pan and think that if they can be fired for slapping a womans rear that a woman can be fired for slapping a mans...
This is a problem because.... ?
Taken directly from the Wikipedia article. There's a concern that they're basically becoming a male version of feminism, more concerned with power than equality.
Most people have a funny idea of "equal" that favors them or their team.
Oh, I know why. I have no problem with them getting married. What's problematic is pushing their model and their wants and needs over the concerns of other familial models, or even vilifying them to support their own purposes. The kind who'd demand special consideration for adoption even when the child has capable and responsible biological kin who are willing to take them in, the government ignoring the fact that these are the best equipped to raise the child due to kin altruism.
Funny thing about biology>: its a numbers game on a massive scale. A general rule of thumb applying 50.001% of the time rather than 50% tends to be a big deal.
If a court put a kid in with a gay couple its probably because they didn't trust the biological relatives with a gold fish.
It's avoiding totalitarianism. Because honestly, I feel like no matter what ideology comes to power I'm screwed.
Of course you're screwed. Power exists to preserve power and you're not it.
But this isn't new. Thats how it works NOW. Thats how its ALWAYS worked. Its like you're freaking out "oh my god how am i going to survive when we have nitrogen in the atmosphere!"
To the Soviets or Nazis I'd be impure due to my mental ilness, and to the Randians I'd be a parasite because I've directly benefited from government programs to help me overcome the symptoms of my mental illness to be able to function somewhat normally among regular people and be employable by them, instead of just hiding in my room living in my own little autism world.
And to our capitalistic galactic squid overlords its far cheaper to send you a check and a free bottle of happy pills than to have you get so desperate that you either shoot up one of their offices or join in the goblin pyromaniac socialist revolution to collapse the system they're enjoying.
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And then you and your one gun are completely screwed when 10 people with their guns come by.
Your best investment for your longterm survival would be a good garden with lots of corn, and a yearly BBQ get together with your entire neighborhood so you know each other well enough to group together for your mutual protection.
But thats not going to happen. Other countries have GDP to debt ratios more than twice ours. We have more than enough food for everyone and the absolute worst case is we vote to nationalize the farm industry (even more than it already is)
If the banks try to toss everyone out of their homes they'll hit the point where law enforcement stops helping them (they're already close) or people will put in politicians who will vote to stop them. Even at the loony fringe of possibilities its not like democracy can't adapt to make things better.
That makes sense.
We've gone through worse. they're not going to let people starve. Starving people are VERY bad for the society they make money on.
That's true, I suppose.
You're picking up their views from somewhere: case in point...
Largely from a Welshman descended from Cypric Greek immigrants, a devoted husband and father, and licensed music teacher. Who makes videos on YouTube once a week promoting men's rights, rationalism and minarchy.
Which of the tenets of socialism are incompatible with inalienable rights? Just because some models that claimed to be socialism (but were actually totalitarianism) denied people freedom of speech religion etc. doesn't mean that thats what socialism is, any more than capitalism requires the wholesale slaughter of indigenous people because thats what the us did.
I'm all for genuine capitalism, but the top needs to chip in something here too. Romney pays a lower percentage in taxes than we do. Its not a radical change to teh system and its not anything new, but the second someone calls it socialism then it suddenly finds an upwelling of opposition from people like you voting against their own best interests.
The tenet that you must subordinate your individual rights for the good of a collective. And once you give one right, you set the precedent that your inalienable rights can be given or taken, and you surrender your individual sovereignty, the most important thing any human has. No one has the right to make decisions for another individual, restrict or direct their agency, or to decide whether you live or die. I don't deny that the tax code is a problem and needs reform. The whole economy does, but it isn't about money. It's about agency, the ability to make choices. Once you go collectivist, you give up the ability to live life on your own terms. Everything becomes prescribed by the majority, even when you may disagree with their decisions, like if a corporation decides to bulldoze your house even though you are living in it, and the city council says it's okay. Because the collective will says it's better to bulldoze the house, you are now rendered homeless through no fault of your own.
Just because a strawman of creationism and creationists are neigh impossible to separate does not make the creationists strawmen.
But all scientific evidence points to the existence of evolution. Even the Pope believes in evolution, even Muslim scholars. Large numbers of religious communities acknowledge and believe in evolution. Creationists are almost always Biblical Literalists, wanting the Bible to be unchanging and infallible, when there's significant amounts of compelling evidence to the contrary.
Religious thinking and traditionalist thinking go very well together. Its not surprising that there's a lot of overlap.
Yep. But there's a lot of scientific evidence that these traditions have biological origins.
There is an enormous push in society to get people to believe. Its so pervasive that it often goes unremarked: its simply considered how things are. Why does it worry or surprise you that some people would want to push back?
I think the internet may have helped alleviate this problem, but I became an atheist around the age of 8. I NEVER met another identified atheist until late in high school. I didn't even know what to call myself until i saw some maury povich esque show with an atheist complaining about the dollar bill.
Fundamentalist atheist: LOOK OUT HE HAS A BOOK!!!!
I mean.. whats the worry? Someone's on youtube----? something happens----> something bad happens. Its like garden gnome economics: there's a huge step in there that doesn't make any sense to me.
It exacerbates the tribalistic tendencies we've been falling into. We should be cooperating rather than fighting.
I really wouldn't worry about it. They only get the platform that they do because they're funded by the no taxes kind. Actual libertarianism would be bad for the people making oodles of money directly from the government and indirectly because of the US and its military acting abroad in their interests.
People want fire departments, sewers, garbage pickup and social security. They're going to keep it.
True. I'm one of those people, as one of my first jobs was created with federal stimulus money that paid my salary. When that money ran out, the job disappeared. I also was assisted by the Minnesota Workforce Center to develop strategies for seeking employment as well as my rights as an employee and weighing the pros and cons of disclosing my Asperger's Syndrome to employers.
Reasons such as....?
Most traditional values that last a while seem to be an adaptation to the environment rather than any actual morals.
Kin altruism, to name one example. Biological parents experience an increase in oxytocin that allows them to bond with their child. This process doesn't happen in adoptive families, and that increases the risk of instability within the family and the chances that the child won't bond. There IS a reason many adopted children decide to seek out their biological parents later in life. The traditions of monogamous, heterosexual marriage evolved because of this vital concept, as well as so a parent could identify his or her own children more readily. It's all about passing on genes to the next generation. Religion just sort of dressed the concept up as something sacred and inviolable. It's not. It just works better.
Find them! you're worried about these nutcases but you don't even know who they are.
It's not so much the people in ACTUAL power so much as the people influencing them. Interest groups demanding specific measures or protections, professors in colleges radicalizing their students, and such. Take a look at some of these videos featuring former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov. In them he details the Soviet process of "ideological subversion," which is a big component of this whole "Cultural Marxist" thing.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/HCrjf8khilV7k?feature=relchannel
It's pretty scary.
So they want to see their kids, don't think external plumbing disqualifies them to be a parent, don't want to be hit in the head with a frying pan and think that if they can be fired for slapping a womans rear that a woman can be fired for slapping a mans...
This is a problem because.... ?
Because in modern society, mostly due to the agitation of feminists, men as a gender have been vilified, to the point where some believe in a kind of Schrodinger's Rapist, an idea that all men are just waiting to sexually assault or abuse women. And many feminists will interfere when men seek these rights, claiming it's not an issue. Like you say, many peoples' definition of "equal" is more about the supremacy of them or their team, and this is certainly true in the case of feminists like Valerie Solanas and Andrea Dworkin, whose influence on the modern movement cannot be understated. That there are people like that teacher Meatrace described allowed to serve in public education and get away with blatant sexism and irresponsibility like what he described is an outrage. And it's also in other industries, like the nurse over in the UK who publicly stated that she'd abort all the male babies in her maternity ward if she had the power to, because they'd just grow up to be more oppressive monsters.
Funny thing about biology>: its a numbers game on a massive scale. A general rule of thumb applying 50.001% of the time rather than 50% tends to be a big deal.
If a court put a kid in with a gay couple its probably because they didn't trust the biological relatives with a gold fish.
Or because of the advocacy of an androgynous parenting model that ignores kin altruism by feminists and LGBT advocates. In France they're seriously considering revising the law to ban all use of the words "father" or mother" in custody papers, referring to the entity as "parent."
Of course you're screwed. Power exists to preserve power and you're not it.
But this isn't new. Thats how it works NOW. Thats how its ALWAYS worked. Its like you're freaking out "oh my god how am i going to survive when we have nitrogen in the atmosphere!"
Nitrogen isn't going to subordinate my rights as an individual to the will of a collective. Nitrogen isn't going to say I'm a walking abortion just because I have a penis. Nitrogen doesn't agitate for equality while actually promoting conflict meant to demoralize a society so the totalitarians can swoop in like an angel and claim to have the answer.
And to our capitalistic galactic squid overlords its far cheaper to send you a check and a free bottle of happy pills than to have you get so desperate that you either shoot up one of their offices or join in the goblin pyromaniac socialist revolution to collapse the system they're enjoying.
I'm NOT that kind of mentally ill! I don't want to hurt anybody! I just don't want anybody to hurt me!
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Not going to happen. While possible, so's an asteroid killing all life on Earth. It's all political theater. Or an attempt to sell dodgy investments.
So...what now?
Really? Almost all of what you're about are standard talking points to scare their audiences.
But Fox News covers mostly American stuff. The people I watch mostly live in Britain.
Seriously, this forum is not the place to address your anxiety issues. You should seek help about them because being constantly worried about some nebulous them coming to destroy the world is not healthy.
In the meantime, stop watching right-wing propaganda.
Well, I can't discuss it on Giant in the Playground. They have a ban on talking politics and religion. And I've already recieved two infractions there for talking about my feelings. Talking about how terrible a person I am because I live at home, don't have a driver's license, fantasize about women in sexual situations and wasted my money on D&D books I never get a chance to use doesn't really sit well with the mods there. I don't see my therapist until the end of the month.
I feel like I have to be paranoid. You don't see the knife coming to stab you in the back if you never look over your shoulder.
I'll unsubscribe to that one YouTuber, but I don't think that'll make my newfound fear of collectivism, ideological subversion and such go away.
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Zousha, your concerns ARE mostly valid. There are shady political deals being made, civil rights are being taken away, decisions are being made for the purpose of supporting a profitable societal model rather than giving us a better future... what is not valid is your reaction to it. I understand that if you have Asperger's syndrome, it can be very difficult to deal with the kind of feelings you have about it, but the fact remains: You are in no position to change things in any kind of radical fashion. It is bitter, but the truth. Cabins and guns won't change this.
As an individual, you will only ever manage to change things in one way: If you can get others to act on what you want. To do this, you can work on influencing people through books and various propaganda (Yes, that's ideological subversion), or you can find a role representing others (making you one of those in power that you fear).
Every human society has people in charge, making decisions for others... AND for themselves, or they don't survive as "person in charge". There have been legendary leaders who acted selflessly, but guess what? They have become victims of their own legends. The truth is rarely as impressive.
Collectivism is a plague on humanity, no two ways about it. Still, the issue is one of degree. Sweden in the 80s was intensely collectivistic, and I survived that. It did teach me why it's not a good idea, though.
Again: Read up on things you want. After what you write, I would suggest Hayek and Popper, two of my favourites. Feel free to PM me.
You might want to look at Asphere's response to my post. Also, the functioning brain comment is a sterling example of what I'm referring to with respect to disdain for others.There's more than one way to show disdain for someone. Thus far, you have implied that because they are bad at math, they haven't learned how to think, which is another way of calling someone stupid. If you said that they hadn't learned how to think critically, I'd feel differently, but this is sounding more and more like the general disdain people who are good at math reserve for others not so gifted.Standing with Asphere, then.
You don't have to be good at maths to understand that a cellphone doesn't weigh 2000 pounds and that you must have made a mistake somewhere.
It just takes a functioning brain, switched on.
A student who answer that a cellphone weighs a metric ton, or that an eagle flies faster that Mach 8 is clearly not using all his brain cells, not just the math processing ones.
All my (maths and physics) teachers insisted on the necessity of double-checking results through our own experience to root out such aberrant results. It's basic scintific thought : hypothesis, experiment, check.
Sorry about that. I don't mean to antogonize you, but truly can't find in myself a shred of admiration for a student who can answer gross absurdities to his teacher because he couldn't be bothered to think about what he was about to say before uttering it.
No, it's not a question a mathematic skill. Just plain intellectual laziness. You can be very bad at calculus and still realize that you somehow and somewhere goofed, just at looking slightly hard at an aberrant result.
The tenet that you must subordinate your individual rights for the good of a collective. And once you give one right, you set the precedent that your inalienable rights can be given or taken, and you surrender your individual sovereignty, the most important thing any human has.
There's two errors here.
First off, socialism vs capitalism is an ECONOMIC system. It just decides how people are going to spend the money. It doesn't determine what rights someone has. There's no reason that socialism and individual rights aren't compatable. (and i'll say again, I'm all for as much capitalism as the system will handle) There's no reason you couldn't have both the bill of rights and say an 80% taxation rate with the government paying for food, medicine and housing.
Secondly,
Slippery slope
ANY government, in order to be effective, is going to take away some of an individuals right to act. I may want to hit my neighbor in the head with a baseball bat for being a mets fan (and seriously, doesn't he deserve it?), but the government limits my ability to do that by punishing me if i do.
You cannot divide any government into purely socialistic and capitalistic categories. Governments are always a mix of the two: it only matters where you set balancing point between the two. Same with rights.
No one has the right to make decisions for another individual
restrict or direct their agency
Children, the metnally incompetent, raving psychopaths...
It's about agency, the ability to make choices. Once you go collectivist, you give up the ability to live life on your own terms. Everything becomes prescribed by the majority, even when you may disagree with their decisions
Which happens to some extent with ANY government. You're taking the fact that it happens at all as some horrible thing when it really is nitrogen in the air. The question is is it happening too much?
like if a corporation decides to bulldoze your house even though you are living in it, and the city council says it's okay. Because the collective will says it's better to bulldoze the house, you are now rendered homeless through no fault of your own.
1) Doing this is rare. Its bad press
2) When it does happen, they have to cut you a check.But all scientific evidence points to the existence of evolution. Even the Pope believes in evolution, even Muslim scholars. Large numbers of religious communities acknowledge and believe in evolution. Creationists are almost always Biblical Literalists, wanting the Bible to be unchanging and infallible, when there's significant amounts of compelling evidence to the contrary.
A strawman is when the attacker sets up a false persona to attack because they can't deal with the real thing. If the "Strawman" is an accurate representation of the real thing, then its not a straw man (even if he really, really, really does need a brain)
Yep. But there's a lot of scientific evidence that these traditions have biological origins.
The generals yes, the specifics no.
It exacerbates the tribalistic tendencies we've been falling into. We should be cooperating rather than fighting.
Meh. People are going to fight. Thats a relatively tame one in the western world.
Kin altruism, to name one example. Biological parents experience an increase in oxytocin that allows them to bond with their child.
Adopted parents will pick this up as well after a while. You don't have any sort of gene detector. Your genes simply assume that anything you're raising is related to you, because thats the situation we've evolved in.
This process doesn't happen in adoptive families
Citation? From a biologist, not a music teacher.
The traditions of monogamous, heterosexual marriage evolved because of this vital concept
The "traditional" monogomous marriage hasn't been around long enough to have impacted our biology. Our species is by all indications naturally polygamous.
Interest groups demanding specific measures or protections
Thats called government.
professors in colleges radicalizing their students
Oh come on they can barely get them to the voting booth.
Because in modern society, mostly due to the agitation of feminists, men as a gender have been vilified, to the point where some believe in a kind of Schrodinger's Rapist, an idea that all men are just waiting to sexually assault or abuse women. And many feminists will interfere when men seek these rights, claiming it's not an issue.
You're never going to get all the nuts out of the can, no matter how hard you shake.
Or because of the advocacy of an androgynous parenting model that ignores kin altruism by feminists and LGBT advocates. In France they're seriously considering revising the law to ban all use of the words "father" or mother" in custody papers, referring to the entity as "parent."
I think there's a LOT more impact from the allegedly traditional family model where the mother takes care of the kids while the dad works.
Nitrogen isn't going to subordinate my rights as an individual to the will of a collective.
Nitrogen isn't going to say I'm a walking abortion just because I have a penis.
Ok, stop and think for a second.
You don't want the government to control your actions. But you don't want crazy people saying bad things about you. Do you see a bit of a contradiction there?
Nitrogen doesn't agitate for equality while actually promoting conflict meant to demoralize a society so the totalitarians can swoop in like an angel and claim to have the answer.
Don't attribute to malfeasance what you can easily attribute to incompetence. Have you considered the possbility that instead of being part of some ridiculously circuitous,Saturday morning esque plot to destroy america that in a country of 300 million people there are a few nutjobs out there?
For a closer look at some of those nutjobs, I REALLY recommend the climate treaties from Copenhagen, Durban and Rio. Download and read... it would be hilarious if there weren't quite that many zeroes in the numbers and quite so little concern about democratic procedure in determining who gets to handle all those zeroes.
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ANY government, in order to be effective, is going to take away some of an individuals right to act. I may want to hit my neighbor in the head with a baseball bat for being a mets fan (and seriously, doesn't he deserve it?), but the government limits my ability to do that by punishing me if i do
damn government keeping us from punishing met fans!
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damn government keeping us from punishing met fans!ANY government, in order to be effective, is going to take away some of an individuals right to act. I may want to hit my neighbor in the head with a baseball bat for being a mets fan (and seriously, doesn't he deserve it?), but the government limits my ability to do that by punishing me if i do
They're already punished enough.
Bwahahaaaa! If I go to a FEMA camp, I will have tons of little commie goblins to keep me company. Could be worse...
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Call me stupid, I had never even considered getting FEMA funding for the goblin kennels; live and learn . . .
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Close, LazarX. I am white, and I am male, but I'm 24, and I'm more scared than angry.
I've got no problem with so-called "minorities" of any kind. I know a few gay people, but I don't really see them as "gay people." I see them as people. I'm unconcerned with a person's sexuality. That's none of my business. Just because I'm a white male doesn't mean I'm out to be autocratic over anybody. I think it's a GOOD thing that other people are being allowed to help dictate society's course.
What I'm afraid of are people that claim to be advocating for equality, but their rhetoric and behavior makes it seem more like they want revenge on the white male, to marginalize them as they believe they had been marginalized.
And isn't there a better way than laws backed by armed forces and rule by strongman? What about positive-sum trade?
And isn't there a better way than laws backed by armed forces and rule by strongman?
Nope. But if you come up with one, be sure to let us know so we can see if it works as advertised. I suspect it will not, but I've been wrong about things before.
Pro tip: an essential part of every social order is managing people who refuse to be bound by its strictures. Get rid of that and you no longer have a social order.
Pro tip: an essential part of every social order is managing people who refuse to be bound by its strictures. Get rid of that and you no longer have a social order.
I think that's the basic message of The Matrix movies.
4) No one here, with the possible exception of Doodlebug and he's only asking you to back up the stuff you're saying, is trying to turn you into a Marxist. (In fact, I think Doodlebug is the only Marxist on the boards.)I have in fact, discovered one other fully-bloomed commie (and a Stalinist, to boot!) on these boards, but he's not a politroll, so I won't divulge his name.
Also, there's Metamorphosis, who only lurks. I'm not sure if s/he's really a Marxist, but s/he sure favorites a lot of my posts, so I'm assuming so.
Vive le Galt!
Find me another lapsed Fabian Socialist.....
My Tuesday night Rise of the Runelords game got cancelled--AAARRGGHHH!!!
Alright, here's the thing, Archpaladin Zousha: The international proletarian socialist revolution is coming, whether you want it or not. We may be small now, with nothing going for us but a couple of gay professors and striking ILWU clerks, but one day, a real rain's gonna come and wash the scum and the filth off of the streets and the name of that rain is the GLORIOUS PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP to wield a REIGN OF TERROR!!!
Plutocrats? We're gonna shoot 'em. Capitalists? Off with their heads! Petit-bourgeois dorks who were snide to me on Paizo like Citizen Meatrace? To the Fun-Timey Reeducation through Labor Supercenter!
After the remnants of capitalist power have been smashed under the IRON HEEL of the CLASS-CONSCIOUS PROLETARIAT, those of you who come over to the side of the dictatorship of the multi-racial working class will be well rewarded with lifetime jobs loading trucks, free weed and a full living stipend for every PFS Game Master. We'll even get you laid.
Yes, it will all be rainbows and bunnies and drug-fuelled orgies in a land of material abundance, but only if you come with me, Archpaladin Zousha, only if you come with me.
Won't you take my hand?
Cool... How do I apply?
Take my hand.
You're just going to bite my hand, aren't you?
No, but I'm still not wearing pants.
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Drunken and drugged orgies in a gobbo FEMA camp sounds much better than the deal the galtian with the hood offered me. Let's go!
Bwahahaaaa! If I go to a FEMA camp, I will have tons of little commie goblins to keep me company. Could be worse...Hahahahaha!
The goblins run the FEMA camps!
If you knew anything about Evil Presidency your drone armies would feed on human flesh.
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Capitalists? Off with their heads! Petit-bourgeois dorks who were snide to me on Paizo like Citizen Meatrace? To the Fun-Timey Reeducation through Labor Supercenter!
Labour. Centre. Marihuana.
Commie.
RCMP Officer at Headquarters: I don't know what you're talking aboot, eh?Kabral: Aboot! It's ABOUT! And what's with this 'eh' business?
Roy Boy: [pointing a gun] We have ways of making you pronounce the letter O, pal.
You're white and you're male, which means you grew up in a position of relative privilege
Oh hell no. Its about the green, not the black and white.
A general trend being true is not the same as the trend applying to every individual.
I don't know what you're talking about; it's not easy being green.
No, but I'm still not wearing pants.Careful Doodlebug, the poster is right wing and complaining about 1980s sweden? Make sure they are not a former cop or you could end up like Olof Palme.
Citizen Sissyl, where were you in 1986?
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Ignore Anklebiter by the way, he's not a radical, just a parody of one.
Ignore me all you want, Citizen X, it won't stop the bumrush.
Citizen Sissyl, where were you in 1986?No, but I'm still not wearing pants.Careful Doodlebug, the poster is right wing and complaining about 1980s sweden? Make sure they are not a former cop or you could end up like Olof Palme.
Ummm... Lovely weather we have, wouldn't you say?
Seriously, that was a national trauma. We don't have the experience that americans do getting our head honchos murdered. But... They are still running that investigation. It has cost us uncountable money so far. They f&+%ed everything that could be f%##ed up up in the investigation when it was still relevant... And now they changed the laws on making such data public at prescription time by removing prescription for murder. It used to be 25 years. They timed the law change to the week, just after another high profile case they wanted to expire had done so. It is all a bloody parody.
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I gathered Anklebiter was just a jokester after seeing some of his posts relating to Galt before I posted this thread. I think it's great that at least someone can find some humor in this. It's very hard for me to.
I hate to say it, but you're likely right about the privilege part. I'm very lucky to have an occupational therapist in the family who understood my needs and issues as someone on the Autism Spectrum, and who advocated for me in my education so I could be mainstreamed as much as possible, instead of shunted off to an isolated part of the building where my mannerisms could safely be ignored. Had it not been for my mother's hard work and insight, I probably wouldn't have gone to college, or been an honors' student, or done any number of the things I've done.
The same goes for my regular siblings too. Not every parent is willing to indulge their child when he says he wants to learn the bagpipes.
I daresay his Galt is very different from Rand's Galt.
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You're white and you're male, which means you grew up in a position of relative privilegeOh hell no. Its about the green, not the black and white.The green's probably more important, but there's definite privilege that goes with being white and male (and straight and Christian).
It may be better to be a rich black female than a poor white male, but it's still better to be a poor white man than a poor black one.
There are differences with how males and females are treated in society. I don't think its fair to assign a carte blanche conclusion that males are privileged because they have an advantage in some areas.
males
Can be drafted into the military(women can't)
Are automatically assumed to be at fault in a domestic violence dispute (de facto)
Are far more likely to wind up homeless. (Jack goes homeless, Jill gets welfare)
Wind up paying alimony and the kids in a divorce
Go through an educational system where what would qualify as assault is considered normal development.
Are far more likely to wind up in prison.
Given affirmative action you might be better off as a moderately successful black man than a moderately successful white one (outside of the south) But its going to be worse at the high and low ends.
I gathered Anklebiter was just a jokester after seeing some of his posts relating to Galt before I posted this thread. I think it's great that at least someone can find some humor in this. It's very hard for me to.
I kid, from time to time, it's true. The world's a f!+#ed up place, has been since, well, forever. You either laugh or you cry.
But we're still going to pay a living stipend for PFS Game Masters after the Glorious People's Revolution. Who's with me?!?
I finished reading Ernest Mandel's An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory at work today.
As I quipped in another thread, the irony of me reading about the capitalists' extraction of surplus-value while I am hiding in the back of my trucks is pretty awesome, I think.
Anyway, it's pretty good. Back in 1994 or so, I saw Ernie, who used to be the leading intellectual of a group of quasi-Trotskyists called the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, get trounced in a debate by Joseph Seymour of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist).
Ah, good times.
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You're white and you're male, which means you grew up in a position of relative privilegeOh hell no. Its about the green, not the black and white.The green's probably more important, but there's definite privilege that goes with being white and male (and straight and Christian).
It may be better to be a rich black female than a poor white male, but it's still better to be a poor white man than a poor black one.There are differences with how males and females are treated in society. I don't think its fair to assign a carte blanche conclusion that males are privileged because they have an advantage in some areas.
males
Can be drafted into the military(women can't)
Are automatically assumed to be at fault in a domestic violence dispute (de facto)
Are far more likely to wind up homeless. (Jack goes homeless, Jill gets welfare)
Wind up paying alimony and the kids in a divorce
Go through an educational system where what would qualify as assault is considered normal development.
Are far more likely to wind up in prison.
Given affirmative action you might be better off as a moderately successful black man than a moderately successful white one (outside of the south) But its going to be worse at the high and low ends.
Exactly BNW. I mean, if the Patriarchy exists as many feminists believe it does, why would the men who direct society for the benefit and privilege of their own sex have these kinds of issues that blatantly shoot themselves in the foot? Either Fifty Shades of Grey is on to something about the sadomasochistic nature of men, or the patriarchy doesn't exist and the people that believe it does are mistaking the circumstances that led to the current societal build to have been motivated by active malice rather than external pressures like location, or internal factors like brain chemistry.
(DISCLAIMER: I don't think 50 Shades of Grey is on to something. People are free to read it if they wish, I personally don't think it's that good of a work, or that reading it in silly voices is very funny either. I just try to ignore the series, like I did its predecessor, and read what I enjoy. I'm starting on The Divine Comedy now.)