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Random thoughts/SHOUT SOMETHING RANDOM!!!


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#535341
pokari

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Yeah, but with wall street, much of what they own is pixie dust and figments of imagination in a shared delusion. What are you going to claim or hold hostage when they have nothing of substance and trade mostly in thin air?

Bailing out wall street is not to keep infrastructure running. Bailing out wall street was to keep the soap bubble of our fantasies intact. There was not much there to be saved, just figures on ledgers—but it's very important that we don't wake up from the dream in which they do own something tangible, because if we wake up from that dream, bad things happen.

...Sorry if I'm extra cynical this morning, our whole backstabby lighting-the-way-for-genocide thing has me in a bit of a mood.

#535342
PItiful Boar

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we all have those days. what genocide thing?

Well, wall street has some use - they take all the money from Asia each day and put it back into capital allocation back into Asia. What do they call it? Carry trade default swaps for employment?

It's what funds retirement accounts. Or doesn't. Not sure how cities are going to afford the retirement crisis.



#535343
pokari

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we all have those days. what genocide thing?


Turkey and the Kurds. To be fair, it's sort of blurry to what extent it's genocide vs. the indiscriminate slaughter of a neighboring geopolitical group for pragmatic dictatorial reasons, not that those are necessarily always two different things.

Not that that distinction matters to the people who are dying.

The reason it's particularly sickening in comparison to the other civilian slaughter the U.S. has been involved with of late (aside from it being not even super-cynically "strategic," just a shitshow slaughter caused by Trump's own personal volatile whimsy or, if you prefer to think him a rational actor of some sort, his love and/or boot-licking of Putin and other dictators), is the cartoon-villain-level backstabbing that we've committed. Essentially, to my understanding, we negotiated with the Kurds to stand down their defenses on the border so they and Turkey would butt heads less, putting our forces between them. Then we removed the forces, with zero advance notice to anyone (because it was an order from The Orange One that came out of nowhere). And, well, Turkey did exactly what you'd expect and attacked across that border immediately, showing the sort of care to avoid civilian casualties that you would expect (translation: Is killing everyone.)

It's what funds retirement accounts. Or doesn't. Not sure how cities are going to afford the retirement crisis.


I think our options are robots, sincere socialism, and/or bust. (I mean, literally "or bust". As in, lots of little government bankruptcies to shrug off obligations, like some cities have done already)

* * *


Edit: 'nuff politics for today, reading what I've wrote I sound like an angry old man. x_x

Riiiight, so... You know, I'm surprised I haven't seen any Christmas-related products or advertisments yet. We're almost halfway through October, that's showing remarkable restraint compared to what I feel has been the going trend.

Maybe it's because now our seasonal autumn marketing and product development is all based solely around Pumpkin Spice? If so, it is one step forward, or is it two steps down the proverbial Road of Good Intentions?

Edited by pokari, 12 October 2019 - 07:33 AM.


#535344
PItiful Boar

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nobody's talking about chile either - the student protests, which started two weeks back. starting to gain momentum



#535345
pokari

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Indeed, I hadn't even heard of it. Everything vanishes in the shadow of The Orange One.

Good for him that he likes to be the center of attention.

#535346
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8 years old

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#535347
pokari

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Congratulations!

You has earned a pastry with eight conflagrations!

At least if I'm remembering my Earthling culture lessons correctly.

#535348
Argomundo

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Wouldnt it be nice if society wasnt so shit


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#535349
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*hugs everyone* ~ <3

#535350
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Wouldnt it be nice if society wasnt so shit


...Are you still allowed to call it a "society" if it doesn't gnash people in its cogwheels? I think you're required to call a nice one, like, a "community" or something.

Actually I only just realised this duality of terms is a thing, but it is, isn't it?

But: Yes.

#535351
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Society

A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same geographical or social territory,

typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.

 

I always thought community is a smaller scale, like a town is a community. A country, a society or part of one.


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#535352
pokari

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I mean, officially, yes, the difference is more one of scale.

But I'm thinking that at large scale, there's a modern tendency to blame "society" for our ills but thank "the community" for it's help, when talking about the same group of people (e.g. a nation)

#535353
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Well I hate politicians of all shapes and sizes, so not like the outcome would change i guess


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#535354
pokari

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I like some politicians. It's kinda rare but it totally happens. I even kinda liked one of the ones currently running in the preliminaries for president here, though I haven't paid much attention since that announcement, since presidential campaigns bring out the worst in people and I don't feel the need or desire to watch that happen. u.u

There's a sort of interesting bit of a problematic feedback loop where "everyone knows" politicians are a slimy bunch and so often a lot of the people interested are those to whom that sounds ideal. Like businessmen looking to hobnob and make connections.

#535355
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I'm not sure why politics have to be people centered.  What's important is decide what to do and then decide the best person to execute this plan. 



#535356
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Well, if we had a machine that did that impartially...

Broadly speaking, it's not that politics have to be people-centered, it's that it's impossible to keep them from becoming so, for various reasons. About the best we've come up with is partially controlling the manner in which they do so.

What you and I have right now is a democracy, which makes a system that leans back and forth between basing things on what you said (deciding together who will best execute a role, or, more often—this being a republic—deciding on the people who will in turn decide both what to do, and who to do it with), and between being a base popularity contest.

The popularity contest is where the whole "worst system except for all the other ones" idea comes in. Essentially, democracy hopes that leaning towards demagogues is a necessary price to pay for leaning away from the insular, self-serving consolidation of power to the detriment of everyone else, that is the natural inclination of many forms of government—in the form of plutocracy or nepotism or whatnot.

That's not to say democracy is immune to these problems (any more than dictatorial meritocracies are immune to demagogues, even though it leans less towards them). Just, hopefully, has some better defenses against them.

#535357
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The problem is we get more and more problems that are spiralling out of control with every passing day.
Mental health, infrastructure falling apart, super diseases, the growing of the wealth divide, etc. . I could literally write paragraphs.

And politicians cant get their shit together and rather argue about stupid shit like affirmative action (illegal immigration),

or shit like green energy, which is 80% scam and they're only doing it to get re-elected (CDU got called out hard for the shit they've been pulling for ages, and nothing happened),

wasting copious amounts of money on shitty pet projects (looking at you Berlin Airport)

 

Siiiiiiigh ... honestly just fuck all of them.
At this point I'm honest to god just hoping for someone to make an AI that goes rouge and takes over the world,
because frankly I'll rather take that coin toss between good and evil AI rather than let this bunch of morons run the economy to the ground and start a new race/class war.


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#535358
PItiful Boar

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Germany is still doing ok all things considered

There are many countries out there who would love to have Germany's problems


The issue may be that Germany is carrying much of Europe on its back and is overburdened by this responsibility, the same way that most other capable nations are... and while you don't see things happpening on a local scene, things are happening on the bigger scene... 



#535359
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I would certainly rather have been German than American right now.

Even in simple terms of quality of living. But admittedly trebly so in these past three years under the Orange Man in the White House.

Edited by pokari, 11 November 2019 - 03:26 PM.


#535360
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ADF on the rise in Germany


parts of Germany has not seen rising living standard for a decade or two, especially the former bloc