Americans have given up by SIGNYM

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Americans have given up

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Monday, March 4, 2024 12:10
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Sunday, March 27, 2016 4:13 AM

rezident owtsidr

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

...the only thing that will change the momentum is a complete economic breakdown that goes on and on until all of the current paradigms are burned out of people's psyches.

I think youre probably rite about that. Its an integral feature uv the human sykolijikl structure.

I hav found that real solutionz usualy require fundamental chanje rather than just takking sumthing on to the existing mess, so they are rejected without consideration. For exampl, gun control activists hav actually called my GIT idea 'pie in the sky'.

It woud not be out uv karakter for a relijus group to hav a punch yourself in the face 100 timez every morning ritual. You coud tell them all about the wunderz uv not having brain damaj, broken teeth, and hideous fasez till your hair turnz gray and never stop their sacred tradition.

Quote:
How about simply seeing Hillary- that witch of international capital- indicted?

For wut? Careless emailing?

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Sunday, March 27, 2016 12:31 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
How about simply seeing Hillary- that witch of international capital- indicted?- SIGNY

For wut? Careless emailing? - JO

To put it in its correct context, JO, Hillary should get whatever Snowden should get.

See? You've got stultifying paradigms in your head too. Even tho you TALK about fundamental change, one thing you like to keep on believing is that TPTB are somehow better than us, and that they should be judged by a different set of rules.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Sunday, March 27, 2016 3:22 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I think the last time Americans had a clue was during the 1920's. But 5 generations have come and gone since then, and any insight or wisdom during that time disappeared at least a few generations ago.

What Jared Diamond pointed out - I think conclusively - is that when paradigms fail, people are extremely reluctant to give them up, even when they're facing complete social extinction: total social and economic collapse, and massive death. The evidence that people fail to adopt new survival mores is in the many, many failed societies, even empires, around the globe. Without a doubt those failed societies are a historical fact. We see them in bits of artifacts, and structures, and bones all around the globe. So to sum it up, societies fail. And they fail because survival strategies that used to work stopped working, and they didn't give up their old failed strategies and adopt newer strategies that would continue their survival.

The HOPE that we will have our propaganda burned out of our collective psyches is a realistic one because it does (rarely) happen, but not I think not a PROBABLE one because it does happen so rarely.

Here's one instance that's been on my mind lately.

We, with our current set of ideas, like to think that people are 'rational economic actors', and that a 'free market' will (somehow) create an optimal solution if we would just let 'rational economic actors' operate freely in a 'free market' system. Whole philosophies, economies, entire economic policies, even political parties, have been based on that.

At this point it's already been shown in many aspects that people aren't rational economic actors. MOST (though not all - the difference might be sociopathy) people are more risk-averse and will try to minimize losses, even when, logically, the costs and benefits of one course of action are equal to another. So, theorists are trying to account for the 'failure' of people to be true rational economic actors, to account for our risk-averse majority tendencies, the presence of 'cheaters', etc. The failure is thought to be us.

But what if there was a system where people WERE being rational economic actors, but the system failed anyway? Wouldn't it point to a failure of our basic assumptions about the role of that free market?

I think solar energy and the power grid is one such example. The electric companies sell us a 'product', which is electricity. But people with enough capital can invest in solar power and generate their own electricity, they can even have enough to sell it back at the price they would pay to buy it. They're being rational economic actors. And if the power generators buy it back, they too are being rational economic actors since they're saving on having to invest in more power generation capacity.

But what about people who can't generate their own electricity? They're left with paying off the full balance of the power company equipment investment, as well as the cost of generating the electricity itself. So maybe the investment costs should be paid down by the net consumers, the people with less money, as part of their electric bill.

And what about the grid itself? Maybe, like the telephone company, the grid should be considered a separate service.

So, the people with solar power would get a 'discounted' rebate for their electricity generating investment - they're paying a grid charge. And the people still dependent on the utility - the people with the least ability to pay - are now paying the full cost of the utility generating equipment, the grid, AND the electricity itself.

Our free market model says that the people who can't pay the increased price should be cut off; while the generators that can no longer profit due to their reduced ability to garner income (due to home solar producers and customers who've been cut off) should go under.

Is this an optimum solution as promised by 'rational economic actors' operating in a 'free market' system? And should we hold on to the free market notion if the free market impoverishes people, while a resource system - electricity generating centers and the grid - (and the considerable resource and labor investment they contain) - collapse and become valueless waste?

I've been thinking about this because it's a very near-term problem. Those equations - charging a grid fee, discounting solar energy sell-back, cutting off customers, utilities going bankrupt - are the equations being discussed TODAY by producers and regulators, as they struggle to fit the problem of home solar into a market-based formula.

But to me it seems our free market model - the one that our politicians hold as an ideal, the paradigm we're all accustomed to - is missing --- something. It's a something that would make it work long-term for the power generators, home solar generators and the traditional users; a something beyond the hand-waving abracadabra of the free market magic that's supposed to solve our problems. A free market magic we cling to even when that free market is so clearly already failing us, and even as everyone is being a rational economic actor.

Maybe that missing unaccounted thing is the 'public good' factor, the one proposed by Amartya Sen, and which gained him the Nobel Prize. Smarter people than me will have to work that out.

But what I see is that our ideas don't work and can't be made to work RIGHT NOW to solve the home solar problem. So, the question is, what are our chances of giving our failed ideas up and adopting new workable ones?

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Sunday, March 27, 2016 3:48 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

IMHO, people in THIS culture (even TPTB) are short-term thinkers who only focus on their immediate and individual gratification: the very antithesis of a society. So assuming that you're asking about "all of the above", the only thing that will change the momentum is a complete economic breakdown that goes on and on until all of the current paradigms are burned out of people's psyches.

Then all you have left is the people's psyches. What is inside those psyches? Religion and their personalities? I saw this lovely quote today: "Atheists, the researchers found, are most closely aligned with psychopaths—not killers, but the vast majority of psychopaths classified as such due to their lack of empathy for others."
http://phys.org/news/2016-03-conflict-science-religion-lies-brains.htm
l

Then I google: How many psychopaths are there in the United States?
It is a large number. Maybe large enough to explain what has gone wrong with the USA, assuming the psychopaths want to be in charge and healthier people aren't willing to disobey orders and ignore the psychopaths.

The richest 1% of the US population do appear to lack empathy for the poorer people they lord over. If the same kind of people, even if they are a new batch of younger people lacking all empathy for losers as did the older generation, are in charge of the USA after your hypothetical nation-wide economic breakdown, the US will have the same problems. But it will be a far poorer place to live.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, March 27, 2016 4:59 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I read your link that lines up atheists with everyday sociopaths and the religious with the humane.

While I do read these kinds of studies I have a very large dose of skepticism. They tend to be EXTREMELY poorly reproducible BETWEEN labs, even (especially) the ones using fMRI, PET, MRI and/or MEG measurements. The problems have to do with technical limitations: spatial resolution, signal strength, signal processing, individual variations and presumed population averages, statistical misuse etc.

Here's one very specific example: signal strength tends to be very weak, very brief and very limited to a small number of neurons. To get more signal, people tend to collect signal for a longer time (which washes out the brief, meaningful excursions), or from a larger area (which washes out anatomical variations and the role of specific neurons), and/ or use different signal weighting and/ or averaging (signal processing) routines (which can skew the data and create meaningless artifacts), or they subtract out population averages to try and find the extremes (which adds the additional problem of anatomic variation). Small differences between labs in any or all of these inapparent purely technical factors can lead to inability to validate an entire study. On top of that researchers tend to select the conditions that allow them to see SOMEthing and ignore everything else that gives them inconclusive noise; without delving too deeply into whether or not what they're seeing under very limited conditions is overall meaningful on a broader scale.

And that puts many of the purported conclusions into the 'unproven' category.

So, while I find those kinds of studies interesting, I don't put a lot of trust in them until I see more independent validation.

I know there's been discussion already about how few research papers can be replicated, so this is just one more facet of that whole issue.

I do have more to add about some of the logic behind the conclusions, for example I believe they falsely equated certain words, but I need to get on with things here. With luck I'll come back to this later.

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Sunday, March 27, 2016 10:09 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
IMHO, people in THIS culture (even TPTB) are short-term thinkers who only focus on their immediate and individual gratification: the very antithesis of a society. So assuming that you're asking about "all of the above", the only thing that will change the momentum is a complete economic breakdown that goes on and on until all of the current paradigms are burned out of people's psyches.- SIGNY

Then all you have left is the people's psyches. What is inside those psyches? Religion and their personalities? I saw this lovely quote today: "Atheists, the researchers found, are most closely aligned with psychopaths—not killers, but the vast majority of psychopaths classified as such due to their lack of empathy for others."
http://phys.org/news/2016-03-conflict-science-religion-lies-brains.htm
l

First of all, it's a stupid conclusion. The percentage of atheists in any society rises and falls with social trends, and varies from society to society. The number of psychopaths is like the number of schizophrenics: it tends to stay the same.

Quote:
Then I google: How many psychopaths are there in the United States?
It is a large number. Maybe large enough to explain what has gone wrong with the USA, assuming the psychopaths want to be in charge and healthier people aren't willing to disobey orders and ignore the psychopaths.

Then they're not healthy. HEALTHY people wouldn't ignore the drivers that are directing their society into the shitter.

Quote:
The richest 1% of the US population do appear to lack empathy for the poorer people they lord over. If the same kind of people, even if they are a new batch of younger people lacking all empathy for losers as did the older generation, are in charge of the USA after your hypothetical nation-wide economic breakdown, the US will have the same problems. But it will be a far poorer place to live.

People who become rich lose their empathy. Wealth itself is a causative factor for lost empathy.

As far as I can tell, economic collapse won't cure the problem that we have, but it will "change" the momentum, and that was the question. Those societies that have longer-term goals (other than immediate individual gratification) will survive. That's assuming that we manage to avoid nuclear Armageddon.

In another thread, I did detail what I thought were the "energetics" of the situation: Groups which harness the most "power" (literally BTU per second) grow faster than those that don't, in the short run. But like the male red deer in Scotland, rate of growth isn't always consistent with energy availability. The biggest, fastest=growing male red deer starved in a blizzard. That seems to be consistent with the history of societies: the sustainable ones (like the First Nations across North America) geo overtaken by the ones that harness more energy, which then go on to gobble up most of the rest of the world.

What then?

If you're looking for reassurance that there's a happy ending waiting at the end of this evolutionary process, it's not coming from my direction. You can count on happy endings from fairy tales and television sitcoms, but not from real life.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Sunday, March 27, 2016 10:56 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr

The conclusion iz that the work for pay system finally windz down to 0 and 99/100 uv the human rase bekumz unsupportable ded wate, then AI makes education obsolete, the few ramaining humanz are immortal playthingz for Skynet. Eventually, Skynet gets bored and starts a new planet sumwhere with racoonz az the dominant speciez.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.nooalf.com

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Tuesday, March 29, 2016 7:35 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

Do you keep your head in the sand, in order to remain oblivious to those taking away your rights like Dingell?
You mean your right to die without health insurance. Because that is the right you're talking about. I have gotten to see that death up close and personal with people who had no insurance. The Emergency Room can't save them in the last few hours of their life, even though I have heard repeatedly from Republicans that nobody needs Obamacare when there is always an ER that must take the indigent patients. Medical science does not work the way Republicans keep claiming it works and doctors can't save them at the last second, when they haven't been to a doctor in years because they had no money.

For that quote from Dingell, Dingell was being questioned in 2010 about why Obamacare would not cover anybody until 2014. I can remember the Republicans in Texas in 2010 claiming that Obamacare would destroy American Medicine. Didn't happen, did it? I apologize to AURapture and JewelStaiteFan (by which I mean I feel sorry for you) if this is too hard for either of you to understand . . .

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Is that why Obamacore is postponed (again) until 2020? The part that any reasonable person knows will do as you quoted - the funding part. The tax on your Health Benefits from your employer, the largest Tax increase in American history, and you seem oblivious to it.

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Tuesday, March 29, 2016 11:14 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

Is that why Obamacore is postponed (again) until 2020? The part that any reasonable person knows will do as you quoted - the funding part. The tax on your Health Benefits from your employer, the largest Tax increase in American history, and you seem oblivious to it.

It is the ‘Cadillac’ tax and it is $9 billion over two years, half one year and half the next.

And why would anyone believe your claim of suddenly being a reasonable person concerned about funding Obamacare? You are incapable of ratiocination.

This is your usual “The End of Obamacare is here!” What set you off this time is a tax isn't being collected.
www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20151218/NEWS/312189999

Have you ever noticed that Republican predictions of the End of the World never come true? I’ve noticed your prediction failures, over and over, yet you can't stop making predictions. But there is certainly a mountain of very real corpses dead because they couldn't go to a doctor. It is a mountain that Republicans cannot be bothered to notice because their own corpse has not been tossed onto the pile.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, March 30, 2016 9:42 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Silicon Valley and its lowest paid employees have given up on the American Dream.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/30/what-we-know-about-the-
people-who-clean-the-floors-in-silicon-valley/

These increasingly prevalent business relationships, which are part of what's come to be known as the "fissured workplace," put workers in a tough position. Companies that have outsourced their non-core functions seek the provider that can offer the same services at the lowest cost, forcing subcontractors to keep wages as low as possible in order to compete.

. . . the tech sector isn’t an engine of middle-class growth in the same way that the auto manufacturers were towards the middle of the 20th century, because increasingly globalized tech companies don't always consider themselves integral to the communities where their headquarters reside.

“Silicon Valley has evolved from a place that saw its responsibilities fairly broadly — not only to its shareholders and customers, but also its workers,” Field says, naming companies like Hewlett-Packard among those that that once demonstrated a commitment to their backyards. “Now it is really a place that has focused primarily on its shareholders, and customers as well, and their workers are not really part of their primary considerations.”

“One thing we’re really working on is undoing this magical thinking that anyone can go to a dev bootcamp and become a programmer,” Panter says. “That’s a beautiful story, but there’s this other step: Any time a new tech job comes into appearance, four more service or low-wage jobs are created. It’s never going to be the route to fix the system.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, December 5, 2022 1:12 PM

JAYNEZTOWN

House GOP probing ‘secret’ US-Saudi oil deal

https://www.yahoo.com/now/house-gop-probing-secret-us-134216377.html

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Monday, December 5, 2022 1:44 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Silicon Valley and its lowest paid employees have given up on the American Dream.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/30/what-we-know-about-the-
people-who-clean-the-floors-in-silicon-valley/

These increasingly prevalent business relationships, which are part of what's come to be known as the "fissured workplace," put workers in a tough position. Companies that have outsourced their non-core functions seek the provider that can offer the same services at the lowest cost, forcing subcontractors to keep wages as low as possible in order to compete.

. . . the tech sector isn’t an engine of middle-class growth in the same way that the auto manufacturers were towards the middle of the 20th century, because increasingly globalized tech companies don't always consider themselves integral to the communities where their headquarters reside.

“Silicon Valley has evolved from a place that saw its responsibilities fairly broadly — not only to its shareholders and customers, but also its workers,” Field says, naming companies like Hewlett-Packard among those that that once demonstrated a commitment to their backyards. “Now it is really a place that has focused primarily on its shareholders, and customers as well, and their workers are not really part of their primary considerations.”

“One thing we’re really working on is undoing this magical thinking that anyone can go to a dev bootcamp and become a programmer,” Panter says. “That’s a beautiful story, but there’s this other step: Any time a new tech job comes into appearance, four more service or low-wage jobs are created. It’s never going to be the route to fix the system.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Oh boo hoo. A bunch of college "educated" Millennial white kids making over six figures and getting free food all day when they're not napping in their cry rooms.

I look forward to watching them bag my groceries.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Saturday, August 12, 2023 5:19 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

CBO: Biden’s 2023 Deficit Soars 131%

https://cfif.org/v/index.php/commentary/43-taxes-and-economy/6449-cbo-
bidens-2023-deficit-soars-131

Biden Gets Lost, Needs Directions Off Stage In New Mexico

https://rare.us/rare-politics/biden-gets-lost-needs-directions-off-sta
ge-in-new-mexico-video/

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Monday, March 4, 2024 6:10 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

Biden vs. Trump: The Looming Rematch Hits a ‘Kickoff’ Moment

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/us/politics/biden-trump-campaign-we
ek.html

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Monday, March 4, 2024 10:59 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
Biden vs. Trump: The Looming Rematch Hits a ‘Kickoff’ Moment

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/us/politics/biden-trump-campaign-we
ek.html

There is no way that the Democrats are going to allow Joe Biden* on a stage to debate Trump.

And could you imagine if he picks Tulsi Gabbard as VP and what a debate between her and diversity hire idiot fuckdoll Kamala Harris would look like?

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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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Monday, March 4, 2024 12:01 PM

THG

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM: Sunday, January 3, 2016 12:07 PM

What am I quoting you ask? Check out the date. Comrade signym is a Russian bot who always, and I mean always bashes America.

She is a polish Russian collaborator who spreads negative and bullshit propaganda. Ask yourself, has she ever started a thread that doesn't bash America? Ask yourself, has she ever taken Americas' side in anything? The answer is no.

T

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Monday, March 4, 2024 12:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Racist.

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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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