Congrats 'Mericuh, we're officially an Oligarchy!

  On 4/18/2014 at 10:09 PM, eugene said:

limpy, how fucking humorless do you have to be to actually take my first post in this thread seriously (if that's what you're referring to) ? there's really something wrong with watmm if that kinda stuff needs to be explained.

 

/last post, seriously, this is all just tedious and irritating.

(1000th post, can I have an opinion now, or is that my 'silver' anniversary when that happens?)

EDIT: c'mon man, have the balls to pull the trigger on the /last post you fucking drama queen

well duh? money and power beget money and power just because our popular mythology hypes the underdog, does anyone really believe it? it was kinda inevitable, it's lock in to an embedded system. although, while not mutually exclusive, it does surprise me the number of people that don't think of the us as a republic, so maybe people really don't get it.

i would love to go back to 1 person 1 vote and strict term limits, which i think would fix a lot of the problems with bribery and corruption. my understanding of the original idea of representative government in the states is that it was to be more like a lottery or jury duty where you came did your job and got out. politician is one of those jobs where the people that want to do it are the ones that aren't qualified.

on the other hand, i live on next to nothing by us standards, im super rich compared to other parts of the world and life isn't that bad. in fact, i'd rate it as pretty good by any measure. i have tons of time to make music and art, think about life, and i can afford good food. i laugh every day. thanks, daily show. granted, i "steal" university level ebooks (i see downloading online as setting up an interlibrary loan w/o the middle man) and shit like that because they're too expensive for me to afford, but i'm not lacking in education opportunities either.

i'd wager i'm happier than lot of people that make 100x or 1000x as much as me. (obvs i'm a white dude, lol, :) :( tbh, i think women and minorities have a hard time/raw deal economically and imo blaming white dudes is ignoring the bigger picture, but it's not my place to tell anyone what to do to attempt to improve their own life, although i do get kinda conspiracy theory in that it's intentional that people are focused on gender and color above class and wealth from time to time.)

if anything, i think the higher education system will be the ones to lose out. i mean, rich idiots already "buy" degrees at prestigious universities now, if we stopped pretending to be a meritocracy then rich people wouldn't need to fake it. the upshot is then the rich would get stupider and eventually the tide would turn. i guess this could lead to funding problems for research , but most science research isn't very good because of whom it's funded by now anyway. the education system is so broken anyway, i'm not sure this would be bad. this current generation of my peers is mostly fucked for life because of the school debt they are in w/o "proper job" prospects to resolve that. i'm thinking the next generation is going to be very interesting in terms of "autodidacts".

obvs, i'm not 100% happy with the way things are, but i haven't heard a lot of good ideas on how to change things that won't lead us back into the same situation. really, a lot of my angst comes from buying stuff made outside the us in places where the people are basically slaves or modern day miners with black lung and i try to reduce buying that, but in a way i think only the people in that situation can free themselves.

in a way i feel like i want certain systems within our system to collapse under the crappitude so they can be rebuilt better. i think that's pretty much always the way it goes. i think dystopian scenarios are overstated because at worst all the poor people die out and are replaced by machines. what the fuck do you care if you're dead?

in my estimation, it seems we're maybe actually on the verge of the end of money as we know it and so what if these people are stockpiling what will soon be the equivalent of cowry shells. so, these people have 50 jet and 10 billion dollars, well yeah, a jet would be fun once or twice, but i'd rather make my own shit or just play a video game where i can use my imagination and blow shit up, gun down people, crashing and burning spectrally is the half the fun anyway. the money on it's own is kinda worthless. when all the intellectually (ie music, book, movies, porn, videa games) good things in life are free or affordable to everyone how much money do you really need to make connections with other humans and make cool shit yourself?

imo the currency of the next millennium is going to be in data, not having it, but in being able to sort and parse it.

Eugene will end up cutting off his own penis, jumping off a two story building and surviving, but all we'll have to remember him by are his shitty posts.

  On 4/19/2014 at 1:53 AM, Candiru said:

Eugene will end up cutting off his own penis, jumping off a two story building and surviving, but all we'll have to remember him by are his shitty posts.

I call dibs on the penis.

  On 4/18/2014 at 6:58 PM, luke viia said:

what do you get out of trolling a thread like this? you're either the son of titt romney or you just want to suck dicks wrapped in dollars. either way please let us have a discussion about america without waving your shitty fingers all over the thread for once, it would be much appreciated.

This is the most disgusting post in this entire thread.

Do the dicks REALLY have to be wrapped in dollar bills?

  On 4/19/2014 at 2:30 AM, OneToThirtySix said:

 

  On 4/18/2014 at 6:58 PM, luke viia said:

what do you get out of trolling a thread like this? you're either the son of titt romney or you just want to suck dicks wrapped in dollars. either way please let us have a discussion about america without waving your shitty fingers all over the thread for once, it would be much appreciated.

 

This is the most disgusting post in this entire thread.

 

Do the dicks REALLY have to be wrapped in dollar bills?

lol

  On 4/19/2014 at 2:30 AM, OneToThirtySix said:

 

  On 4/18/2014 at 6:58 PM, luke viia said:

what do you get out of trolling a thread like this? you're either the son of titt romney or you just want to suck dicks wrapped in dollars. either way please let us have a discussion about america without waving your shitty fingers all over the thread for once, it would be much appreciated.

 

This is the most disgusting post in this entire thread.

 

Do the dicks REALLY have to be wrapped in dollar bills?

 

They do at a Bryan Singer pool party !!

Ok, here's my desparate attempt to prove that we still could get something out of this thread.

First, a piece by Berny Sanders about the influence of the Koch brothers:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/who-are-the-koch-brothers_b_5165995.html

  Quote

In 1980, David Koch's Libertarian Party platform stated "We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes ... We support the eventual repeal of all taxation ... As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately." Thirty-four years ago, that was an extreme view of a fringe party that had the support of 1 percent of the American people. Today, 75 Republicans in the House have co-sponsored a bill that Paul Ryan has said "would eliminate taxes on wages, corporations, self-employment, capital gains, and gift and death taxes in favor of a personal-consumption tax."

Even though there is no scientific proof that it was the money which essentially drove their extreme views towards the political center, it does look like it could help a lot. Added point of the article is that some things don't need scientific proof to raise valid concerns.

Interesting about this piece, as far as I'm concerned, is that it presents a nice summary about those damned Koch brothers. The previous quote is the summary of the summary.

And another interesting article is about research by a French economist named Piketty who predicts that if current developments continue, our Western society will return to a Victorian state where wealth is basically something you inherit.

http://www.vox.com/2014/4/8/5592198/the-short-guide-to-capital-in-the-21st-century

In his work he shows the importance of the distinction between income inequality and wealth inequality. And that the growing wealth inequality might be the bigger issue, because income inequality might actually present an underestimate of the actual problem: the skewed distribution of wealth. (Eg.: Steve Jobs earned 1 dollar for being the CEO of Apple, but he was obviously quite wealthy. So there could be some extremely wealthy individuals with extremely low income).

Interestingly, the wealth inequality issue is shared amongst many Western countries, so when looking at wealth inequality instead of income inequality, it stops being a US dominated problem. And might even be a built-in feature of our Western economy.

The argument is quite simple as well: if you plot the growth of income against the growth of wealth, the latter grows faster consistently throughout the entire current western world. So, arguably the wealthy get more wealthy at a faster rate than the people with high income get a raise.

It feels like some nuances are missing, but the point that it's not enough to look at income seems obvious. And that current developments might lead to a return to some Victorean society doesnt seem far fetched.

Euhm... And a happy easter.

  On 4/19/2014 at 1:53 AM, Candiru said:

Eugene will end up cutting off his own penis, jumping off a two story building and surviving, but all we'll have to remember him by are his shitty posts.

if he does that being a neoconservative might actually be cool again

  On 4/19/2014 at 2:12 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 4/19/2014 at 1:53 AM, Candiru said:

Eugene will end up cutting off his own penis, jumping off a two story building and surviving, but all we'll have to remember him by are his shitty posts.

 

I call dibs on the penis.

 

Damn. I'll trade you my copy of Quaristice versions for it.

  On 4/20/2014 at 7:43 AM, Root5 said:

 

  On 4/19/2014 at 2:12 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 4/19/2014 at 1:53 AM, Candiru said:

Eugene will end up cutting off his own penis, jumping off a two story building and surviving, but all we'll have to remember him by are his shitty posts.

 

I call dibs on the penis.

 

 

Damn. I'll trade you my copy of Quaristice versions for it.

 

Eh I doubt it would taste as good or fit as nicely up my asshole.

  On 4/20/2014 at 8:10 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 4/20/2014 at 7:43 AM, Root5 said:

 

  On 4/19/2014 at 2:12 AM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 4/19/2014 at 1:53 AM, Candiru said:

Eugene will end up cutting off his own penis, jumping off a two story building and surviving, but all we'll have to remember him by are his shitty posts.

 

I call dibs on the penis.

 

 

Damn. I'll trade you my copy of Quaristice versions for it.

 

 

Eh I doubt it would taste as good or fit as nicely up my asshole.

 

That depends on your taste/asshole.

Next years winner of most IDM should be something about genitalia.

  On 4/20/2014 at 8:58 AM, goDel said:

Next years winner of most IDM should be something about genitalia.

Cock/Ver10

  On 4/20/2014 at 8:58 AM, goDel said:

Next years winner of most IDM should be something about genitalia.

Good luck, it'll probably be the one everyone votes for as their third choice. heh. Garden snails or algal blooms or sea water or something. /really doesn't vote for genitalia. But then it'll be some cool insect genitalia like a reverse inside out penis or something that everyone banally deems as minorly hilarious and so votes as their third choice.

I don't know why people continually say no one in America is doing anything. Or, people often say that Americans are too content to make any changes. The truth is this discontent is universal for all Americans at this point. No one is happy with what is going on. Good things are happening all over the place. An entire system cannot be turned over in a day. We have to chip away at it slowly and do the things we can do in our limited capacity as middle and lower class individuals. I meet more "turned on" people all the time. The intellectual awakening going on is outstanding. As long people focus, and keep applying pressure then things will be a lot better down the road.

We just had an armed stand-off with our federal government over them trying to confiscate some cows. If that isn't a sign of commitment by the citizenry I don't what else it would take to convince everyone.

It's going to be bumpy. It's going to be slower than everyone wishes. Some people will make major sacrifices, but things are happening.

Would you consider that armed stand-off a good thing? Getting involved OK, but guns?

  On 4/21/2014 at 4:50 PM, goDel said:

Would you consider that armed stand-off a good thing? Getting involved OK, but guns?

It's good.

I'm not squeamish about guns. I don't think guns are a problem.

The guns are just a means to posture. When there aren't guns in other countries people just use molotovs or whatever they can get there hands on. In the situation of a citizen vs government type of stand-off the weapons keep everyone in check. Otherwise, they would have just pepper sprayed, tear gassed, and removed everyone.

But you know. It sends a message. That is the important part.

Guns send a message!? They send bullets. The stats speak for themselves. And the NRA are laughing their arses off, I can tell you that. This is exactly what they want: a society where the people are entitled to have guns and send messages to the government at their own free will.

A citizen vs government type of stand-off. WTF!?

I guess I'll never understand US-values. I hope you understand that this stand-off wont help matters in any way. This will only lead to some kind of escalation.

The guns worked though didn't they. Whereas with no guns (and opportunistic right wing political and media support) they wouldn't have won the stand off. heh ..

I'd like it if this was a watershed moment, but i doubt it will be anything more than a minor footnote. And if the matter being disputed was something that actually meant something to power, like the ability to frack a national park being obstructed by protests for example, the build up wouldn't have been allowed to happen and so the men with guns would never have had time to ferment their anger and fix to drive there in a posse. The rancher would have been arrested immediately on some bogus charge and they would have gone ahead and fracked the national park.

Both of y'alls posts entertain hypotheticals of which you cannot be certain at all.

The world is what you project into it.

So if i project hypotheticals? ;-p

  On 4/21/2014 at 5:53 PM, delet... said:

So if i project hypotheticals? ;-p

If you project a negative and cynical viewpoint through your thoughts and actions your world with reflect it.

I can't properly discuss this without getting depressed and wasting time, but here are some observations of mine:

- It all comes down to money. Ideology, the two parties, and "political discussion" are ultimately irrelevant. They control the government and the media in very subtle, nuanced ways that allow false transparency and democracy and prevent an overthrow.

- Those in power succeed in fostering division and pigeonholing opinions. It prevents grassroots, organic democratic action on a larger level. That's why the Tea Party was co-opted and the Occupy movement dismissed.

- Sincere Democrats and Republicans are prevented from actually wielding power. Decent moderates and technocrats only stay in power by not towing the line. This is how slow, gradual progress occurs while we go backwards on broader issues.

- Expanding on what I said above, there are very, very few right-wing and left-wing extremists in existence and the actual differences between liberals and conservatives on public policy are not that deep more often than not...in the last few years I've noticed that right-wing friends of mine are now more sincerely concerned about issues like the militarization of the police or our military imperialism overseas and far less concerned about social issues. They say the same things far-left friends of mine said years ago. It's incredible. The frustrating thing is they still vote in corrupt officials, but to their defense political campaigns and political news coverage is so full of misinformation and lies that they can't easily break away from it. Likewise, my liberal friends have become increasingly disillusioned and disappointed and don't vote at all. I tune out those on the left and right that still re-hash the biased shit they read every day. This is what's making things worse. And who can blame them? There's such a futility to all of it. Something will give, and if it does it will be messy and violent and frightening, but otherwise we're pretty much in the nascet era of a dystopia. I kind of hope it implodes into localized communities, perhaps when an energy crisis emerges, but I'm worried instead we'll get a hellish anarchy of war.

America is too big to have one government.