REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

What Will It Take for Us to Get Back to Being a Decent Society?

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 19:58
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VIEWED: 11851
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Saturday, January 11, 2014 1:44 AM

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'm just tired of Byte's lies. Aren't you? Or are we not supposed to notice when people are lying about our own posts b/c that's being too focused on being 'right'?
Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Signy, I understand that you were bringing up what Byte said on another thread, but you didn't link to it or quote it, so I read through what had been argued back and forth on this thread. That is why I phrased it the way that I did.

I don't feel the need to be even handed. I support Byte's view of things in this instance more than I do yours.

I suggest that Edward De Bono was on the right track in his discourse on western debate. http://www.edwdebono.com/book/1021

As typified by this discussion.


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Saturday, January 11, 2014 1:55 AM

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.


SignyM

There are so many 'natural' decisions people come to that are completely destructive. Imagine two villages near a river. All is good until their combined populations strain resources. The answer would be for the two villages to get together and reduce their population levels so they could both comfortably continue into the future indefinitely.

But that doesn't happen. Instead they both BUILD population (even as resources become scarce) in a subconscious effort to win the upcoming conflict.

As you've proposed, the answer is not to do what comes naturally, but to decide on how we will run our societies.

I truly believe the problem is the ability to control a disproportionate amount of resources. It distorts chimp societies, and it distorts baboon societies - so why not ours? For example, there's a lot of studies indicating that for the wealthy/ powerful, the rest of us don't even make it onto their radar as being humans. I would think that's pretty good evidence of the distorting power of wealth/ power accumulation on human society.

So, I haven't worked out the how, but I think this is the essential 'what' - which is to intentionally create and maintain an extremely flat society when it comes to hierarchies of any kind.

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Saturday, January 11, 2014 2:26 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
I'm just tired of Byte's lies. Aren't you? Or are we not supposed to notice when people are lying about our own posts b/c that's being too focused on being 'right'?
Quote:



Er, I guess I just take arguments pretty much at face value. Or should that read 'typeface value'

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Saturday, January 11, 2014 2:38 AM

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.


Whatever.

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Sunday, January 12, 2014 2:47 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


MAGONS, KIKI- Pretty much my take too. So, yeah... whatever, Magons.

SECOND
Quote:

How about a smaller problem that can be solved, but hasn't because you-know-who insists that it can only be solved by their idiosyncratic methods?

The anti-poverty agenda is still all about getting those layabouts to go to work and stop living off welfare. The reality that lower-end jobs, even if you can get one, don’t pay enough to lift you out of poverty just hasn’t sunk in. And the idea of helping the poor by actually helping them remains anathema, which is to be expected of programs designed to please the wealthy with mental shortcomings and sincere peculiarities.

The most immediate solution is to raise the minimum wage.


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Sunday, January 12, 2014 4:19 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.


So, SignyM

I'm just pondering here. We've both concluded the basis of having a decent society is to (somehow) not have hierarchies. You've concluded that b/c you see it as a positive feedback system, where small differences in energy inevitably evolve into very large differences in energy (as do I, and if I have it wrong I hope you'll correct me). But I see that hierarchies in and of themselves distort human society, pervert our interactions, and both motivate and allow TPTB to inculcate us with an unhealthy model of reality.

Since we're not going to take down the hierarchies any time soon, you're looking for short-term achievable actions.

Raising the minimum wage is a good start. But getting the political steam to get that done is harder. There's a chicken-egg problem going on. If most people are content to let the rich be very rich, and to X-out the poor from their reality (see 'disposable people' http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=56957 for my take on that), how do you change that? Maybe the answer is to not depend on popular support - which doesn't exist but have a highly motivated and active political action. Maybe that means working through someone like Elizabeth Warren. I'll need to think on that some more.

ETA: Well, I looked it up - a huge majority DOES favor raising the minimum wage. So my assumption was wrong.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With momentum building at the federal and state level to increase hourly base pay, more than three-quarters of Americans (76%) say they would vote for raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour (it is currently $7.25) in a hypothetical national referendum, a five-percentage-point increase since March. About one-fifth (22%) would vote against this. http://www.gallup.com/poll/165794/americans-raising-minimum-wage.aspx


So the question becomes - what are the obstacles to making this a reality? And what will it take to overcome them?

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Tuesday, January 14, 2014 7:58 PM

JAYNEZTOWN


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Times are much tougher now than when I was growing up (which wasnt in the depression) in the way that I described in my post. My view of babyboomers is that on the whole they are an incredibly priveledged bunch, who reaped the benefits of a whole lot of keynsian policies including free education, health care, a generous welfare system, highly unionised industry, excellent working conditions and made a lot of money by buying into the housing market when prices were low.




like this vid



get into the baby making business

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