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US Politics: Russian Roulette Republican Style


Fragile Bird

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4 minutes ago, Sword of Doom said:

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. 

Errrr....

Probably for the best, especially if you are pinning your hopes on a joyous future that involves shooting guns a lot. 

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One more thing: I don't have kids, a conscious decision because I had no hope for a real future of the planet.  Kids have more impact on the environment of city living than almost anything else, btw, especially with the now mandatory disposable diapers.

Under the circumstances it's unlikely that my environmental footprint comes anywhere near many of the people posting here, for a single instance.  I know compared to friends and relatives, I don't even have an environmental footprint.

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19 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?

One they won't need money.

Two those former customers will be deliberately converted to  non-customers, that's the goal of mass automation.

Once six Billion jobs have been murdered by glorious Science (all praise His name), people not in tech will be subsistence day to day or in active starvation, they won't have any disposable income because the tech companies and science killed all the means of earning income. But since all the needs of tech people will be comfortably met they won't worry anymore about the inhuman rabble, insects really, not even human if you think about it, that they've destroyed.

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Mass extermination sounds like so much effort and planning. I'm sure Peter Thiel and the rest of the vampire overlords will be content to simply wall themselves off into their own arcologies and let the undesirables fight over their waste.

I have a hard time thinking about the future and what kind of world will await my son. He's only three and it was a dagger in my fucking heart when he actually recognized Trump's face. I suspect his day care provider lets him see the news.

Some days I think I need to train him to be some kind of Book of Eli type character, prepared to bring light into the wasteland. I'll save my Terry Pratchett books for him instead of the Bible, so that the society he helps rebuild might be a kinder and smarter one.

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25 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

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.

Well, the reason you see so many pessimist liberals right now....Trump WAS the revolt. And you see how that worked.

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23 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

I'm sure Peter Thiel and the rest of the vampire overlords will be content to simply wall themselves off into their own arcologies and let the undesirables fight over their waste.

I’d always kind of hoped that Theil, along with his fellow band of “libertarians”, would have moved themselves to Petri Friedman’s Sea Steading project, so we all could see how libertarian paradise might have worked out.

Though, if I had to bet, they probably would have gotten into trouble and asked our very socialist navy to come help them out. In such a situation, I believe the proper response should have been something like:

You have no moral claim upon us.

Signed

Ayn Rand

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23 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Well, the reason you see so many pessimist liberals right now....Trump WAS the revolt. And you see how that worked.

Well to some extent yes. But, it seems like it was also a revolt of our high "libertarian" overlords as well, as an article you posted recently seemed to point out. People like Peter Thiel for instance and Mercer. You know, the sorts of people that the peasants of the future may have to battle when AI becomes a thing.

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I am having a very odd reaction to this thread -- it seems so over the top, with people trying to outdo one another with pessimism, that I am starting to find it humorous. Complete pessimism is just as silly and unrealistic as complete optimism, and to me you all are starting to sound like the flip side of climate change deniers and the supply siders -- just as illogical as they are. Whatever the future brings, I doubt if it will be anywhere near as bleak as you all are expecting -- at least not until we get hit by a big asteroid. :)

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1 minute ago, Ormond said:

I am having a very odd reaction to this thread -- it seems so over the top, with people trying to outdo one another with pessimism, that I am starting to find it humorous.

Yep it certainly went off the rails there.

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23 hours ago, Ormond said:

I am having a very odd reaction to this thread -- it seems so over the top, with people trying to outdo one another with pessimism, that I am starting to find it humorous. Complete pessimism is just as silly and unrealistic as complete optimism, and to me you all are starting to sound like the flip side of climate change deniers and the supply siders -- just as illogical as they are. Whatever the future brings, I doubt if it will be anywhere near as bleak as you all are expecting -- at least not until we get hit by a big asteroid. :)

Oh I'm not a complete pessimist. But, I am a worrier. And I sweat the details.

I just feel like if you don't sweat the details and hope everything just kind of falls into place you end up doing something like Dubya in Iraq or something.

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8 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I am having a very odd reaction to this thread -- it seems so over the top, with people trying to outdo one another with pessimism, that I am starting to find it humorous. Complete pessimism is just as silly and unrealistic as complete optimism, and to me you all are starting to sound like the flip side of climate change deniers and the supply siders -- just as illogical as they are. Whatever the future brings, I doubt if it will be anywhere near as bleak as you all are expecting -- at least not until we get hit by a big asteroid. :)

I don't think anyone is trying to "outdo" anyone else here. I doubt anyone finds this amusing, or looks at it as a contest.

I asked the question I did above because I've been pondering it for some time now. It's always been rolling around in my head, but with increasing frequency for the last year or so. While I find your optimism impossible to understand I DO respect it (much in the same way i dont understand religion but respect it as a personal choice). 

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I'm not really a pessimist. I am glad to have survived the year of the Nazi, however.

Also, remember when liberals where going to flee to Canada when John Kerry lost?

Mike Pence's wife Karen 'finds Donald Trump totally vile'
The second lady was reportedly 'disgusted' by the Access Hollywood tape

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mike-pence-wife-trump-vile-disgusting-comments-access-hollywood-aide-a8093786.html

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See the thing about corporation gaining control over basically everything via automation only works if no government steps in ever. Once you can run a mine without any human workers what incentive does a government really have to keep the middleman that is a mining corporation instead of just doing it itself and controlling all the wealth produced? The US might be crazy enough for people to care about corporations that much. But resource extraction is important to my countries economy, and I can easily see on either the provincial or federal level government agencies being set up to handle that instead of corporations.

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8 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I am having a very odd reaction to this thread -- it seems so over the top, with people trying to outdo one another with pessimism, that I am starting to find it humorous. Complete pessimism is just as silly and unrealistic as complete optimism, and to me you all are starting to sound like the flip side of climate change deniers and the supply siders -- just as illogical as they are. Whatever the future brings, I doubt if it will be anywhere near as bleak as you all are expecting -- at least not until we get hit by a big asteroid. :)

I don't see anyone outdoing anyone on this.  It's reality and what we're working towards.  We'd be so lucky to have an asteroid hit us first.

I can't speak for others, but for myself the pessimism is tied deeply into my fear for the future of the kids and their children.  I'm not sure if I would have hit this emotional point if I weren't a parent, though that's not to say one has to be a parent to feel deeply emotional about the scary shit to come, especially as it relates to climate change.

Climate change is terrifying on it's own.  A country like the US deciding to ignore it makes it all that much worse.  

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4 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Oh I'm not a complete pessimist. But, I am a worrier. And I sweat the details.

I just feel like if you don't sweat the details and hope everything just kind of falls into place you end up doing something like Dubya in Iraq or something.

Oh, as a psychologist I agree that a little anxiety can be beneficial -- anxiety is usually better than anger in terms of finding solutions to problems, because it prompts people to gather information about their situation, while anger usually shuts down information gathering and makes for decisions made with less consideration of the facts. But a lot of this thread, if taken literally, seems to have moved way beyond a little worry into despair, which ain't good for anybody. :)

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1 minute ago, Ormond said:

But a lot of this thread, if taken literally, seems to have moved way beyond a little worry into despair, which ain't good for anybody.

To be fair though, this IS a board of a fantasy series that portends the end of the world.

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What About the Girls Roy Never Molested, Asks Roy Moore’s Spokesperson

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/many-women-never-molested-by-roy-moore-spokesperson-says.html

Orrin Hatch: If Alabama Voters Want an Alleged Sexual Abuser in Congress, They Should Have One

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/hatch-if-voters-okay-with-moore-congress-should-be-too.html

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23 hours ago, Ormond said:

Oh, as a psychologist I agree that a little anxiety can be beneficial -- anxiety is usually better than anger in terms of finding solutions to problems, because it prompts people to gather information about their situation, while anger usually shuts down information gathering and makes for decisions made with less consideration of the facts. But a lot of this thread, if taken literally, seems to have moved way beyond a little worry into despair, which ain't good for anybody. :)

You're probably right.

But, I've found, at times, a little "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore" has gotten me do things which I needed to do, but instead was avoiding cause I didn't want to deal with it or maybe I just too busy fucking off.

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