US Politics: Russian Roulette Republican Style

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Relic said:

Well...I hope you're right. our vision of the future is definitely brighter than mine (and apparently Ini's too).

Oh, I share @Inigima's pessimism, especially since I found out I was Jewish (and now have the genetic database to back that up, which is AWESOME to think about when you're thinking about invasions of privacy). I think America is largely hosed, and my family is trying to figure out how to move away before it gets really bad. 

As the old quote by Elie Wiesel goes: When someone says that they want to kill you, you should believe them.

But I don't think the world is doomed. I just think America is going to largely suck and become another Russia. 

[Dr. Pepper]

5 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I'd forgotten how wonderful the grapes of wrath was as a story of a society with a surplus of time resulting in a flourishing of the arts for the Joads.

The realities of today are quite different from the realities of the droughts on the great depression era.  I would think automation, technology and the internet changes tons about how we react to the inevitable lack of jobs in the future.  

[Zorral]

I'd have hope except for this Great. Big. Fact -- climate collapse and the cascade of events from famine and drought, disease, the very rapid rate of extinction of the species -- plants, animals, insects, bacteria --on which the planet's existence as we've known it from breathable atmosphere to nutrients in the soil depends. The planet doesn't depend on humans to continue, but we sure as hell have destroyed.

 

 

[Dr. Pepper]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

I'd have hope except for this Great. Big. Fact -- climate collapse and the cascade of events from famine and drought, disease, the very rapid rate of extinction of the species -- plants, animals, insects, bacteria --on which the planet's existence as we've known it from breathable atmosphere to nutrients in the soil depends. The planet doesn't depend on humans to continue, but we sure as hell have destroyed.

 

 

I've found that the realities of climate collapse are just too big for me to even think about these days.  

[lokisnow]

It is a hard fact of american society that social security and medicare are extremely popular programs with broad bi-partisan support from the electorate (not the elected officials obviously).

Both will be ended within the next twenty years, because of simple demographics.

For social security's 80 year existence, and medicare's fifty year existence they have been popular.

They have also been demographically comprised as recipients as 90% white.

They are popular not because they dispense good benefits fairly. They are popular because whites reap 90% of the benefits.

Up until one point in history, america's demographics were stable, functionally 90% white.

Then this happened:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965

And immigration into America leapt forward and starting in 1980, America was  becoming 0.5% less white every year. Democrats like to trumpet this, that the electorate is 2% less white every new presidential election.

But the thing is, we are reaching the point where the slightly more diverse electorate is retiring and receiving social security and medicare benefits.

So every year, because of the immigration act of 1965, whites receive a little less of the benefits because they are a little less higher percentage of the recipients.

That means that both programs which will obey the laws of american politics, will become slightly less popular every year going forward. 

Once the racial animus driving the republican party seizes on the point that whites are no longer reaping 90% of the benefits, they will realize their electorate will support cutting off their own noses to spite their face and the republicans in this country will happily axe their own benefit programs if it means denying minorities the right to participate.

So both programs are demographically doomed. Democrats won't be able to save them, in my opinion.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

The realities of today are quite different from the realities of the droughts on the great depression era.  I would think automation, technology and the internet changes tons about how we react to the inevitable lack of jobs in the future.  

In the 1930s, the issues were largely about monetary problems and the lack of aggregate demand and strengthening labor's power.

But, in the future, we will need a whole rethinking of how we structure society with the AI revolution.  We will need a good deal of socialism, I'd imagine.

The AI revolution is both scary and hopeful. If handled wrongly it could lead to a few individuals holding enormous amounts of power, leading us back to a state feudalism and destroying democracy. If handled correctly it might enable humans to escape much drudgery.

[Zorral]

1 minute ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I've found that the realities of climate collapse are just too big for me to even think about these days.  

Doesn't change the facts though, ma'm, not a jot.

One cannot think clearly about the so-called future without factoring in climate collapse.  It's frackin' December and we had to turn on the a/c last night in order to sleep.  It's over frackin' 60 degrees.

 

[williamjm]

16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Remember when Babylon 5 was ridiculed in its 3rd season for having a plot involving the authoritarian takeover of earth, complete with secret police and their own spy system, as being way too unrealistic and happening too fast?

I also remember criticising Captain America : The Winter Soldier a few years because the idea of senior members of the US government being Nazis seemed a bit too cartoonish and unlikely

[lokisnow]

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Honestly I've never read it, but I'm sure that this is an incredibly cutting remark to me and I bow to your clever literate wit.

But in all seriousness - I think you'll see a whole lot of people out there become celebrities and some amount of fortune with very little up-front cost, doing things that they think are cool. We're already seeing some of that with the internet, and I think this trend will only continue as more people lose their jobs or go to a gig-based economy. 

So sure, tech companies are going to gleefully inflict mass unemployment and murder over a billion jobs over the next twenty years. They will probably fund UBI for no-more-than-five-years (over under at 3 years I'd say).

Then once the UBI "experiment" has had it's inevitable failure, and there are still three billion people unemployed, the tech companies will shrug and gleefully inflict mass starvation, or amazon and google will happily send in the drones for "assisted suicide" or other "humane" large scale inhumation efforts.  

After the tech companies and governments exterminate six billion people, sure, maybe then we'll have your artistic paradise. Until then, the tech companies in california will act exactly like the agricultural companies of california treated the Joads, because humans and people have not fundamentally changed, and they will still act exactly the same as they have in the past.

[Relic]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

Doesn't change the facts though, ma'm, not a jot.

One cannot think clearly about the so-called future without factoring in climate collapse.  It's frackin' December and we had to turn on the a/c last night in order to sleep.  It's over frackin' 60 degrees.

 

Hold on. 60 degrees F? 

[lokisnow]

8 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

In the 1930s, the issues were largely about monetary problems and the lack of aggregate demand and strengthening labor's power.

But, in the future, we will need a whole rethinking of how we structure society with the AI revolution.  We will need a good deal of socialism, I'd imagine.

The AI revolution is both scary and hopeful. If handled wrongly it could lead to a few individuals holding enormous amounts of power, leading us back to a state feudalism and destroying democracy. If handled correctly it might enable humans to escape much drudgery.

UBI will fail, and "humane" mass executions will be the official state and corporate sanctioned response.

the first step will be mass sterilizations to deal with the food crisis brought on by climate change. Sterilization kits with two day shipping from amazon! 

Tech people do not like the rest of society very much. Why does everyone think they're going to be all benevolent dictators dispensing all their wealth to keep everyone on the dole? Their moral response at happily supporting UBI will have a very short and very predictable time limit to it. 

Then they will happily rationalize unimaginable evil as "the right thing to do" as the only "humane" response. because humans are good at doing that.

[Dr. Pepper]

9 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Doesn't change the facts though, ma'm, not a jot.

One cannot think clearly about the so-called future without factoring in climate collapse.  It's frackin' December and we had to turn on the a/c last night in order to sleep.  It's over frackin' 60 degrees.

 

Oh for sure, I agree about the facts.  I just find that I can't think clearly about anything when I focus on climate collapse.  It's too scary.  It feels a bit like how the characters in the movie Melacholia felt when a planet was on a collision course with Earth.  it's not just thinking about individual death, it's thinking about extinction of our entire species and that becomes terrifying.  imo

3 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

UBI will fail, and "humane" mass executions will be the officially state and corporate sanctioned response.

the first step will be mass sterilizations to deal with the food crisis brought on by climate change. Sterilization kits with two day shipping from amazon! 

How will corporations make money when their consumers disappear?

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, lokisnow said:

UBI will fail, and "humane" mass executions will be the officially state and corporate sanctioned response.

the first step will be mass sterilizations to deal with the food crisis brought on by climate change. Sterilization kits with two day shipping from amazon! 

If the Masters of The Universe are wise, and I'm not saying they will be, they will handle this correctly.

Otherwise the lowly peasants may have to go on a full scale revolt.

[Kalbear]

10 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

After the tech companies and governments exterminate six billion people, sure, maybe then we'll have your artistic paradise. Until then, the tech companies in california will act exactly like the agricultural companies of california treated the Joads, because humans and people have not fundamentally changed, and they will still act exactly the same as they have in the past.

Oh, I don't think it'll be a paradise. I just think it'll be oddly democratizing. We'll see farmers in Kenya become megastars overnight, and we'll see a lot more people able to compete on the tech side with supposedly middle and rich class people. Corporations will happily exploit them, as divergence from the norm will be crushed unless it is exploitable. But that exploitation is going to result in success for a lot of people who would never have had the opportunity.

I don't think we'll have 6 billion exterminations any time soon. 

[Zorral]

10 minutes ago, Relic said:

Hold on. 60 degrees F? 

Yes F. In normal times in my  city it would be in 30's low 40's.  I remember when it was.  Which, considering where I grew up, was balmy.  The really cold weather here would arrive either on or right after New Year's.  Last Christmas Eve it was 80 degrees!

[Bonnot OG]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Ok, honest question....does anyone have any hope a this point? 

I do. 

I'm just not sure I can say what my hopes are on here since I am not sure they are within forum rules. 

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

How will corporations make money when their consumers disappear?

Corporations will be beyond money. Money as a concept may not matter. Corporations will control the means of, well, everything. Food, entertainment, supplies, resources, manufacturing, everything - they'll have it. You don't need money when you have power, and you have everything you could possibly want; all you need is control. Money is a proxy for that, but it is not nearly as good as actually having the control.

And when you can write laws yourself, you control politicians directly (or, as a corporation, can be a politician potentially), you can choose what cities and states to go in based on their laws and can control the benefits of your employees, you really don't need money. You are far too big to fail at that point. 

[Zorral]

9 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Oh for sure, I agree about the facts.  I just find that I can't think clearly about anything when I focus on climate collapse.  It's too scary.  It feels a bit like how the characters in the movie Melacholia felt when a planet was on a collision course with Earth.  it's not just thinking about individual death, it's thinking about extinction of our entire species and that becomes terrifying.  imo

How will corporations make money when their consumers disappear?

They won't need consumers.  They have robots and AI's to manufacture everything they need and want, and they live in total luxury in their citadels, quite like in the animated film, Wall-E.

[Relic]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Yes F. In normal times in my  city it would be in 30's low 40's.  I remember when it was.  Which, considering where I grew up, was balmy.  The really cold weather here would arrive either on or right after New Year's.  Last Christmas Eve it was 80 degrees!

Ok, well I don't mean to be a dick about this, but do you see the same irony that i do in the fact that you are using an a/c in order to sleep on a relatively cool night while warning us about the collapsing climate?

[Zorral]

5 minutes ago, Relic said:

Ok, well I don't mean to be a dick about this, but do you see the same irony that i do in the fact that you are using an a/c in order to sleep on a relatively cool night while warning us about the collapsing climate?

You cannot live in this apartment building without a/c when the temperature is above 55 degrees, due to how it is fabricated.  Not to mention the noise and pollution of the air outside.  People in the city without a/c often die.

OTOH, I have never owned a car or a television.  I don't order everything online and create the tons of delivery waste that every other tenant in this blding does.  I shop and carry home the items out of which I create my meals.  I wash my own dishes with my own hands and I cook almost all my own food -- with the exceptions of meeting friends in a restaurant and other friends hosting in their homes.  I don't own appliances beyond a refrigerator and stove / oven.

O, the a/c unit, the oven / stove and refrigerator are certified the most environmentally friendly there is -- and they cost that much too, as such appliances do.