How does the World view America these days?

  On 11/22/2017 at 8:39 PM, zaphod said:

 

  On 11/22/2017 at 9:01 AM, ignatius said:

 

  On 11/22/2017 at 6:34 AM, zaphod said:

so is the net neutrality thing something to worry about? are we about to become china?

 

or portugal. look forward to packages.. i'm sure they'll have forum package.

 

this is misleading. Portugal has net neutrality. This is a mobile package.

 

i heard they don't even mobile there anymore because net neutrality fake news. 

No clue what that is supposed to mean. the EU enforced net neutrality afaik and Portugal is part of that so...

Anyway after reading more this will be bad but probably gradual. My guess is they vote, then it gets vetoed and laws are put in place with loopholes that allow companies to manipulate the market so it won’t matter. But some of this is doomsday bullshit. There are already fast lanes on the internet.

  On 11/22/2017 at 9:46 PM, zaphod said:

No clue what that is supposed to mean. the EU enforced net neutrality afaik and Portugal is part of that so...

 

Anyway after reading more this will be bad but probably gradual. My guess is they vote, then it gets vetoed and laws are put in place with loopholes that allow companies to manipulate the market so it won’t matter. But some of this is doomsday bullshit. There are already fast lanes on the internet.

they've tried to repeal it before.. this is the 2nd or 3rd time they've tried to repeal it.  

  On 11/22/2017 at 9:46 PM, zaphod said:

No clue what that is supposed to mean. the EU enforced net neutrality afaik and Portugal is part of that so...

 

Anyway after reading more this will be bad but probably gradual. My guess is they vote, then it gets vetoed and laws are put in place with loopholes that allow companies to manipulate the market so it won’t matter. But some of this is doomsday bullshit. There are already fast lanes on the internet.

What are these fast lanes on the internet? Is it like where the trucks go really fast so they don't clog the tubes?

You know you clogged the tube, now fix that shit.

  On 11/23/2017 at 7:38 AM, Rubin Farr said:

You know you clogged the tube, now fix that shit.

sorry bro.. we're busy

https://www.facebook.com/cnninternational/videos/10155899678279641/

Humans of u.s.a

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/23/texas-town-without-running-water-sandbranch

  Quote

 

The county provides roads, signage and law enforcement but doesn’t provide water infrastructure. Loessberg said the county looked at creating a new water utility for Sandbranch the 1990s but no one in the town wanted to run it. The well water can’t be cleansed of its pollution. And the county doesn’t see its role as paying for bottled water. Sandbranch’s decline may now be irreversible.

 

“We tried to get them water but with the cost involved and a declining population was it good policy to spend millions of public dollars for 88 people?” Loessberg said. “With the community in the floodplain it’s unlikely there will be new development so there will be no new houses to share the cost of it.

 

“Whenever you see poverty in a country as prosperous as ours, it’s disconcerting. We like to think we are better than that. I wish we could wave a magic wand, but it’s tricky. It’s complicated.”

  On 11/23/2017 at 4:29 PM, auxien said:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/23/texas-town-without-running-water-sandbranch

 

  Quote

 

The county provides roads, signage and law enforcement but doesn’t provide water infrastructure. Loessberg said the county looked at creating a new water utility for Sandbranch the 1990s but no one in the town wanted to run it. The well water can’t be cleansed of its pollution. And the county doesn’t see its role as paying for bottled water. Sandbranch’s decline may now be irreversible.

 

“We tried to get them water but with the cost involved and a declining population was it good policy to spend millions of public dollars for 88 people?” Loessberg said. “With the community in the floodplain it’s unlikely there will be new development so there will be no new houses to share the cost of it.

 

“Whenever you see poverty in a country as prosperous as ours, it’s disconcerting. We like to think we are better than that. I wish we could wave a magic wand, but it’s tricky. It’s complicated.”

 

failed state

I'm going to sound like a dick here but why not just.... not live in Sandbranch?

People uproot themselves (yes people that live in poverty/are extremely poor) for far less than having no sewerage/running water/trash collection etc like sandbranch county. Be poor somewhere where there's at least running water?

I read the article and wiki page and I don't really understand. 

Enlighten me?

edit: I lived in rural Oklahoma when I was a kid. I at least had running water and stuff. No trash collection or sewerage though (we had a dump on our land). I remember thinking how bad I wanted to get out of there. 

editedit: sorry, I just don't think it makes sense for them to put the infrastructure in place to support this tiny community that's on a flood plain. Maybe the gov't should support relocating the people that are there? Not sure how that works. In Canada at least there are some relocation programs (especially when an area is deemed unsuitable, which it appears sandbranch has been deemed since no new structures are allowed to be built?).

  On 11/23/2017 at 6:31 PM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

I'm going to sound like a dick here but why not just.... not live in Sandbranch?

 

People uproot themselves (yes people that live in poverty/are extremely poor) for far less than having no sewerage/running water/trash collection etc like sandbranch county. Be poor somewhere where there's at least running water?

 

I read the article and wiki page and I don't really understand. 

 

Enlighten me?

They don't come right out and address this, but you may be unaware of the issues that often affect people in situations similar...basically, money and history. The people who live there almost certainly own the land/homes they're on, and like many in VERY poor and rural areas like this, they inherited the land, often from a few generations back. The land itself is worth almost nothing now (as the article states) for various reasons, and the people living there likely are not working much if at all, many are likely aging/retired/etc., and can't afford to 'just move.' This has to do with many many factors that honestly could get into some shitty territory given this is WATMM, so I won't delve too much into that, but essentially, they're most likely all on welfare, aging and can't work, living on social security, etc.

To be fair, many of them could 'just move' to assisted living/projects somewhere in a more populated area, but then they likely have no means of transport to visit others elsewhere, are likely moving to shady areas where they have to deal with issues like noise, violence, and who knows what else. And to them, it seems, dealing with no water isn't as much of a hassle as uprooting their whole lives and losing any amount of their land's wealth (they'd try to sell and get almost nothing, essentially, IF they'd even be able to sell). They end up between a rock and a hard place with no real winning way out. Some have obviously chosen to move away, died off, or whatever, as the population continues to dwindle, but those that are left are in a stasis that they're seemingly comfortable with. It sounds impossible to many, but that's just their way of life and they've obviously adapted...having to rely on handouts and charity isn't a great way to live, but like I said, most of them are likely entirely sustained by government assistance checks anyway, so that's not an issue.

tl;dr: They ain't got shit, won't never have shit, but at least where they are they've got their land/homes.

Related personal anecdote: where I lived in high school (15+ years ago now) there was a couple houses back in the woods just a couple miles down the road that had just got electricity run to them a few years prior, some time in the early/mid 90's. People there had been asked about if they wanted it regularly before and had turned it down for decades until then.

edit: I'm definitely making some assumptions based on similar situations I do know about...so I could be entirely wrong, but what I stated seems most likely based on the information given in the article.

^ that sounds almost exactly like where I lived in Oklahoma (with the obvious difference being I'm not a minority or anything like that).

Everyone was just waiting for their parents and stuff to die out so they could inherit the house.  House/land passed down for generations, no real economy in the area. It was a really weird experience.

  On 11/23/2017 at 6:49 PM, auxien said:

 

tl;dr: They ain't got shit, won't never have shit, but at least where they are they've got their land/homes.

 

 

 

Pretty much this I guess, yeah. =(

And you're right, I can only imagine having to make a choice between continuing life the way I know it on MY land vs deciding to live on gov't handouts etc.

Shitty buzz man, there's so much f'ed in the US of A...

  On 11/23/2017 at 6:51 PM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

Everyone was just waiting for their parents and stuff to die out so they could inherit the house.  House/land passed down for generations, no real economy in the area. It was a really weird experience.

There's so much of the south (probably much of the midwest and many rural areas in America as well) that's like that. It's staggering when you really start to portion it off in your head how many are just absolutely destitute and continuing to just live on next to nothing. I can drive through my city and there's neighborhoods of $500k+ houses literally a few hundred feet away from homes that'd be worth $35k if they ever went for sale.

It's not a third-world situation, of course, but a lot of me wonders how far away from that it truly is in regards to personal experience, happiness, and life in general for those in the situations.

I'm in NYC right now, when did your cop cars get cool deep bassy sirens?

^ when sick dubstep was born in the States during the golden years of good electronica. it's all gone to shit now though. what even is a juke? lol. and what's with all this faggy 80s retro shit? these kids don't know about drops.

Science fiction has always told us that machines will rise up and replace us.  But, as I start reading articles about a "new economy" I can only picture that as AI advances, and starts to supplement even high paying jobs, like doctors and lawyers, the 20th century population will have to swallow a bitter pill and re-adjust to the 21st century economy.  We might actually end up in a world where AI and bots perform the menial and replaceable tasks that humans used to do.  Then what is the place of the college educated human being?  Some say we just become students for the rest of our lives, and be damned the traditional job based economy.  There will be huge growing pains for sure, as climate change, human tribalism, resource depletion, possibly the continued rise of radicalized Sunni Wahabiism, etc. change the face of this planet, for better or worse.

  On 11/24/2017 at 5:43 AM, usagi said:

^ when sick dubstep was born in the States during the golden years of good electronica. it's all gone to shit now though. what even is a juke? lol. and what's with all this faggy 80s retro shit? these kids don't know about drops.

  On 11/23/2017 at 4:29 PM, auxien said:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/23/texas-town-without-running-water-sandbranch

 

  Quote

The county provides roads, signage and law enforcement but doesn’t provide water infrastructure. Loessberg said the county looked at creating a new water utility for Sandbranch the 1990s but no one in the town wanted to run it. The well water can’t be cleansed of its pollution. And the county doesn’t see its role as paying for bottled water. Sandbranch’s decline may now be irreversible.

 

“We tried to get them water but with the cost involved and a declining population was it good policy to spend millions of public dollars for 88 people?” Loessberg said. “With the community in the floodplain it’s unlikely there will be new development so there will be no new houses to share the cost of it.

 

“Whenever you see poverty in a country as prosperous as ours, it’s disconcerting. We like to think we are better than that. I wish we could wave a magic wand, but it’s tricky. It’s complicated.”

The free market will surely take care of this situation. That and no regulations anywhere. #maga!

https://youtu.be/AC7QXUmfN60

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

Sweet.

you don't have to look down your noses on the poor. They often live more fulfilling lives than the rich. They usually have relatives all over their county and are super tight. Rich, or upper middle class shut themselves out from the common experience where you can just be you and not put up some artifice of decorum. Families are spread out all over the world.  Id much rather hang with a funny redneck than some snooty self appointed intellect or someone born into the top of the class system. Always some front people put up. I hate it. 

Yes.

  On 11/24/2017 at 10:28 AM, Rubin Farr said:

Science fiction has always told us that machines will rise up and replace us.  But, as I start reading articles about a "new economy" I can only picture that as AI advances, and starts to supplement even high paying jobs, like doctors and lawyers, the 20th century population will have to swallow a bitter pill and re-adjust to the 21st century economy.  We might actually end up in a world where AI and bots perform the menial and replaceable tasks that humans used to do.  Then what is the place of the college educated human being?  Some say we just become students for the rest of our lives, and be damned the traditional job based economy.  There will be huge growing pains for sure, as climate change, human tribalism, resource depletion, possibly the continued rise of radicalized Sunni Wahabiism, etc. change the face of this planet, for better or worse.

common sense solution: completely outlaw automation, even the forms we have right now. Boom, hundreds of millions of jobs and hundreds of millions back in the economy.