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The brain was not designed for this much bad news

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Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#141

Post by ben_w »

retired wrote: post #104
seba_dos1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can be done too. I live in a rather big city, so I don't own a car, as I can perfectly go by using public transport.

Only if you limit your work and social life to that particular city. Not something most people want to do.

Depends on the public transport network where you live. I used to work with someone who commuted from London to Cambridge (yes, that way around). And in Berlin, someone else who commuted from half way to Poland.

Won't work everywhere, e.g. from what I saw when visiting I don't foresee US cities rapidly integrating enough good public transport to properly replace cars within themselves, and from what I've heard about how municipal organisation works in the US even less so for a convenient and well integrated intercity network, but it can be done.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#142

Post by kstenerud »

inglor_cz wrote: post #135
kstenerud wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that you plan to do nothing; rather, it's because you can do nothing about them. The only people who have any sway are the various foreign offices and the country leaders. But even their power is incredibly limited, because humanity moves like the tide. Sure, Trump can continue chastising Netanyahu for continuing Israel's attacks into Gaza and Lebanon (which will sabotage the already comical agreement betwee…

Netanyahu could also simply retire, he has been in politics since the 1970s. But he would probably end up in jail on corruption charges, which is why he perseveres. At this moment I wonder if the entire region would be better off if the Knesset passed a law "Netanyahu is universally pardoned, but must GTFO of the country and leave politics entirely". Cynical, but maybe the result would be worth it. On a more positive…

I Netanyahu retires, Eisenkot or Bennett take up the mantle, which is arguably worse. But he's got no reason to retire, given how he's polling now.

Iran isn't going to drop their nuclear program. They know full well that IF this deal actually works out (it won't, but just for the sake of argument...), they can go back to their clandestine enrichment program and nobody will actually look very hard (just like before). It'll be a return to normalcy, except they'll also be exacting tolls on the strait and building up with that new fat wad of free cash. And if it doesn't work out, they just stand firm until the USA gets tired and goes home with a fig leaf "we won" as November nears. Either way, similar result.

Russia is going to lose this war in a slow and grinding attrition that will smack of Afghanistan, that's not in question. But their ambitions aren't going to die. When they're ready again a decade later (and if NATO is still a thing), they'll grab a chunk of NATO land and extend their nuclear umbrella over it, daring the paper tiger to do something.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#143

Post by danaris »

joshrw wrote: post #72
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weird quote. It reeks of pretentious pseudo-intellectualism. People vote for a government that does something very tangible about all of those things. The media influenced how Americans voted in the US election, and they voted for a guy that predictably started a major new war in the Middle East. That is a real thing that happened and has impacted billions of people globally with second-order economic effec…

It wasn’t predictable that he would start a war. He presented himself as the anti-war candidate and then betrayed his electorate.

If you paid attention to his actions while in office, rather than a selection of his words while on the campaign trail, it was pretty clear he wasn't in the least bit interested in being a "peace president;" he just wanted the Nobel Peace Price because Obama got one.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#144

Post by rvba »

spking wrote: post #3

Neil Postman called this the “Peekaboo World”. “What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East? Or the rates of inflation, crime and unemployment? What are your plans for preserving the environment or reducing the risk of nuclear war? What do you plan to do about NATO, OPEC, the CIA, affirmative action, and the monstrous treatment of the Baha’is in Iran? I shall take the liberty of answering…

> Middle East, inflation, crime and unemployment, preserving the natural environment, NATO, OPEC, the CIA, Iran

Not voting for republican part or candidates would fix a lot of those things, although I will probably be heavily downvoted for this since cryptobros like their low taxes at all costs.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#146

Post by clort »

inglor_cz wrote: post #135
kstenerud wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that you plan to do nothing; rather, it's because you can do nothing about them. The only people who have any sway are the various foreign offices and the country leaders. But even their power is incredibly limited, because humanity moves like the tide. Sure, Trump can continue chastising Netanyahu for continuing Israel's attacks into Gaza and Lebanon (which will sabotage the already comical agreement betwee…

Netanyahu could also simply retire, he has been in politics since the 1970s. But he would probably end up in jail on corruption charges, which is why he perseveres. At this moment I wonder if the entire region would be better off if the Knesset passed a law "Netanyahu is universally pardoned, but must GTFO of the country and leave politics entirely". Cynical, but maybe the result would be worth it. On a more positive…

The drones and missiles helped them to not lose the war, but they were significantly damaged by the initial strikes. A nuclear capability might have been sufficient deterrent to prevent those.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#147

Post by consp »

retired wrote: post #116
IneffablePigeon wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many places in the world this is not true. I would say about half the people I know who live in London don’t own a car. They travel plenty - probably more than the people I know who don’t live in London. If they really need a car once they get to their destination they will rent one, or use taxis.

For The Netherlands you are really constricted to the city you live in if you don’t own a car. You can forget about going to a concert, a birthday party or catching an early flight without one. Or if you want to do anything fun on a Sunday in the east. Most people I know have a social life or do sports that require a car. If your children play football you really need a car. Last time I used a taxi in The Netherlands…

You don't need a car for football matches. You need a car for convenience because [fill lazy reason]. And if one person rents a van you can take half the team...

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#148

Post by alextingle »

retired wrote: post #116
IneffablePigeon wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many places in the world this is not true. I would say about half the people I know who live in London don’t own a car. They travel plenty - probably more than the people I know who don’t live in London. If they really need a car once they get to their destination they will rent one, or use taxis.

For The Netherlands you are really constricted to the city you live in if you don’t own a car. You can forget about going to a concert, a birthday party or catching an early flight without one. Or if you want to do anything fun on a Sunday in the east. Most people I know have a social life or do sports that require a car. If your children play football you really need a car. Last time I used a taxi in The Netherlands…

> in The Netherlands it was €210 for a 40 minute ride

That's much more than taxis cost in the UK, and pretty expensive even for the Netherlands. You have great cycling infrastructure, and public transport though.

Renting a car is an affordable alternative to ownership, if you need to go to occasional concerts or birthday parties, and public transport happens to be inconvenient for your specific destination. I did that for years - the rental company would deliver and collect from my workplace, so it's super-easy.

> If your children play football you really need a car.

A friend of mine used to ferry his son 1000s of km per year to ice-hockey matches around the country, so I know what you mean. I don't understand it though - if the whole team is travelling, why don't they just rent a bus? Personally, I don't think it's healthy for a child's hobby to consume so much of the parents' time - of course, your choice.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#149

Post by throwaway209329 »

consp wrote: post #140
stratocumulus0 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Postman wrote this in context of television, which is a broadcast channel with no means to interact with it. But in times of social media, your reaction to the news is something you can broadcast yourself, at the very least to your online followers (if we are talking about story feeds). Now, a lot of groups enforce their members to take political stances and show action as a sign of belonging. These might be anything…

Your first paragraph sounds like a religion.

As an autistic person this has never made sense, the things people are willing to do in order to fit into a group, like at it's extreme murdering others. After becoming aware of my diagnosis I've started studying "normal" people and it's insane what you are willing to withstand just to belong to a group or in society. Now I think that some things "normal" people participate in they think is actually fun, like hanging around others doing nothing productive, which after reaching 40 years old, and having a burnout, I also now enjoy just hanging around and belonging to a group. Also social capital, or belonging to a group, has many positive advantages.

Re: The brain was not designed for this much bad news

#150

Post by bluebarbet »

roenxi wrote: post #11

The other option is to be more realistic - people often have wildly unrealistic expectations of how the world should work and seem to get a bit stressed when they are confronted with reality. The more pressing problem is the voters who accept policies being put in place based on something going wrong one time without accepting that things go wrong and we have to tolerate problems to some extent. If policies were made…

Agreed. Even more generally: the argument "I voted and it didn't change anything" has always seemed to me incredibly self-absorbed. Of course your individual vote didn't change anything. After all, it was worth no more than a hundred million other votes, and some of those voters (deep breath!) did not share your personal values and priorities.
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