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Is everything falling apart?

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#731

Post by CyberDildonics »

zmgsabst wrote: post #215
_usr1 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good god, enough with this "fascist and nazi seem to have lost all meaning" nonsense. Let's call it the "No true fascist fallacy". I could bring the corpse of Himmler here and some people would regurgitate the same "Bu-bu-but that's not actually fascist enough!". OP was basically quoting the definition of Ur-fascism by Umberto Eco. Is that historically accurate enough for you? Or should we check beforehand if whoever…

The reason people focus on definitions like “oh, it’s really about toxic masculinity!” is because admitting the truth would make them look bad: Fascism is a collectivist authoritarian system with regulated commerce rather than direct state control, often co-occurring with systemic racism. The reason people don’t want to be honest about the definition is that it’s the platform of modern Democrats, who are gaslighting…

Democrats took to the street in acts of arson, violence, and murder to terrorize the public ahead of an election — the modern Brownshirts. [5]

Your link for this sweeping generalization is a single shooting in seattle months before the election of someone not old enough to vote.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#732

Post by imtringued »

mellavora wrote: post #312
bryanlarsen wrote: post #107

We were getting close to a fairly positive future. There are three basic constraints to material and non-material goods: - capital - labour - energy There are other raw materials, but they aren't limiting factors. For example, processed Lithium is in short supply right now, but it's not raw Lithium that's the constraint. We don't have enough Lithium mines and processing facilities. capital/labour/energy, in other wor…

I like your framework, but I do question your dismissal of raw materials. The 'green revolution' broke a barrier in our ability to grow food (amount per acre), but it isn't clear if that increase can be sustained for the next 100 years-- the massive amounts of chemicals we put on the land are killing the soil. That's before we get to climate-change threats to food production. Or species diversity threats to food prod…

There is this agrotech thing called no till farming and combined with proper crop rotation and carefully selected cover crops and soil management your soil will improve every single year instead of degrading.

I have seen a lot of hackernews comments that think they can just chemically or genetically engineer their way out of this. Just spray compound X and Y on crop Z and you are ready to go. It may look technologically impressive but that is actually the lazy solution.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#733

Post by jhbadger »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #526
Melatonic wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those very much do not sound like "things are falling apart" to me

It’s interesting, even if you don’t believe in a higher power, people that believe in God have far lower rates of depression and suicide, so if you try to optimize your life for happiness and mental robustness, it’s then logical to believe in a higher power. This is an interesting manifestation of the incompleteness theorem. :)

The happiest country in the world is Finland [1]. And two-thirds of them are atheists[2]. On the other hand, the most religious places in the world [3] are not on the happy list and most of them are desperately poor and miserable places.

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-... [2] https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/2... [3] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/most-religious-countries...

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#734

Post by TMWNN »

foundart wrote: post #288
giantg2 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather worked for the steel mills. Some workers didn't get anything for their pensions. He was one of the lucky ones and got something, like 10 cents on the dollar. I think they even stopped sending them before he died (remember him saying something about that was the last check and complaining about the company).

Pensions are insured but not at 100% of what was promised by the employer’s pension plan. Thus, getting only 10 cents on the dollar is certainly possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corpo...

And this is why forcing USPS in 2006 to prepay pensions for the next 70 years is a good thing, as opposed to a "GOP conspiracy to privatize the post office". Why it was passed almost unanimously by Congress.

USPS's primary business, delivering letters, was by 2006 clearly in terminal decline, with no guarantee that parcel volume would increase to compensate. Many, many employees of newspapers—the other industry that in 2006 was facing similar danger—wish that Congress had mandated something like this for their pensions.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#735

Post by incomingpain »

dragonwriter wrote: post #600
incomingpain wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The depiction of the right remaining where it is from 2008 to 2021 is misguided at best. As I mention here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31206510 it has been objectively measured. There have been quite a number of leftist political commentators who recently have been offended that they are labelled right-wing now. Bill Maher or Russel Brand for examples. Carlos Maza before his disgrace wrote on the subject @…

> There have been quite a number of leftist political commentators who recently have been offended that they are labelled right-wing now. Bill Maher Was never a leftist, or a political commentator with any coherent ideology at all. AFAICT, he was only ever painted by some as a leftist because of the Right painting everyone who wasn't in lockstep with the racist war fury of the early 00s as “leftist”, and because bein…

>Was never a leftist, or a political commentator with any coherent ideology at all.

He labels himself a leftist. His views are commonly left of center. He lives in leftyville california. He went to Cornell which doesn't produce republicans. I watched him on politically incorrect, but I only see the odd show here and there since he went to real time on hbo. I would say he's a lefty. I very much doubt there's any air of caricature in his public persona. I do believe he has been legitimate in his beliefs. Better yet makes tons of funny jokes.

If on the subject of political polarization of the left-wing has you saying Bill Maher is right wing. I rest my case.

>Brand I’ve not paid much attention to, but he never struck me as particularly leftist, either.

Like I know Bill Maher is left of center. Brand is left of him.

He even recently made a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4e8lSQy64c

Lets not forget the bernie bros who are suddenly right wing as well, joe rogan, jimmy dore, kenosha shooter guy.

The point to take away. If you think "the right" are racist war fury and islamaphobic. You should leave your country. There's somewhere else that is better for you. "the right" are your fellow countrymen, they are on your team. Do you know of lots of your country people that you like are moving somewhere? Europe, Japan/Korea? Australia? Germany? Perhaps you should reach out to them. See if it's really better?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#736

Post by heartbreak »

rabuse wrote: post #355
drugstorecowboy wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Essential workers” are pretty fucking pissed millions sat on their ass with no clue how to feed or care for themselves. They are not showing the same allegiance to shit jobs and moving on. They never had allegiance, they didn't leave shit jobs because of fear and the fact that moving between 2 minimum wage jobs likely wouldn't improve their circumstances. People are switching jobs because its an option now where i…

"Waste of their time". Is binging a Netflix series more important than having survival skills?

Surviving a societal meltdown is not a goal of mine, so yes.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#737

Post by jaegerpicker »

throwawayboise wrote: post #601
sleepdreamy wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this sarcasm? It's truly laughable if you don't think boomers had a clear advantage in comparison to Millennials, Gen X, etc; I'm sorry you didn't reap the benefits of the most benevolent time in America's history but plenty of your Boomer counter-parts sure as hell did. I've met enough Boomers that there is nothing wrong with generalizing Boomers as a whole. Just like a huge percentage of my generation totally ga…

What was your in-laws annual income when they bought the $60,000 house? What would be the income of someone today, looking to buy the house for $800K?

Average income in 1960 (as an example year since it wasn't listed) $6000 or 10% of that house.

Average income in 2021 $65,000, well short of the $80,000 to equal 10% of the house. Also, there has been a large increase in other expenses. Most households had a single earner, leaving another adult to generally raise children. That's much rarer today. Two car households, higher utility bills, etc... The evidence is pretty clear that money doesn't go as far today.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#738

Post by mikkergp »

cato_the_elder wrote: post #239
4ggr0 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So for you Trans-People are a sign that the end is near? If that's your biggest worry I'd really like to be in your situation.

No, gender dysphoria has existed since like forever. But it's certainly not a good sign when our institutions try to indoctrinate us with gender ideology. [1] The day it really becomes "the science" is the day I will lose hope in the rest of the apparatus. Lysenkoism [2] be damned. [1]: And by that I mean believing that we should behave as if there are no differences between biological females and MTF, or that it's a…

What’s it like to have such strong feelings about gender?

I don’t have that, the idea that it’s all just a social construct is so embedded in the way I see the world, I just don’t see how anything about sexuality or biology are immutably connected to gender identity. To me the two are completely divorced from each other.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#739

Post by [deleted] »

xyzzyz wrote: post #483
newbamboo wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not talk about nuclear war? It’s one of several elephants in the room. The full collapse of a nuclear super power is unprecedented. Who gets the weapons?

USSR has fully collapsed, and the few years after its collapse were almost total anarchy.

[deleted]

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#740

Post by bradlys »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #468
bradlys wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d read Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone or The Upswing. (Or just watch him talk about it on YouTube) Social division is definitely higher than it’s ever been in decades. Racism and sexism is less prevalent but social division is actually higher than ever.

I hate to make both of us feel ancient, but Bowling Alone was written in the "decades ago" period I'm talking about. While the trend of social atomization has definitely continued, I don't think division as such has gotten worse since then. (Seconding the recommendation though, it is a good book.)

He has follow up books like the one I suggested. It hasn’t gotten better. Division is stronger at socioeconomic lines than ever afaict. We replaced race and sex division with class.
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