Youtube comments of Digital Footballer (@digitalfootballer9032).
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It's a combination of lack of mental health facilities, an emergence of a plethora of mental health medication much of which has proven to cause more harm than good, and a general shift in attitudes and norms in society all kicking off with the introduction of the 24 hour news cycle and the internet. This is of course a very high level analysis, and it goes much deeper, but in the spirit of brevity I will not go on because I could do so forever. It is very apparent to me that this is much more a sociological phenomenon than anything pertaining to the actual firearms themselves, or else this would have been a problem ever since repeating firearms were introduced over 150 years ago.
Also keep in mind that while yes there have been some major incidents in places like Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Canada, and others, the bulk of mass shootings have been the in the United States. Is this a gun problem? No, it is a people problem in a country with a deep gun culture. Mass killings happen and have happened all over the world, but look at many outside of Western countries, and especially outside the United States. Specifically terrorism, where groups like the PLO and IRA as well as rogue individuals loosely affiliated with them used bombs for their weapon of choice. Modern Islamic extremis have used bombs as well as vehicles. One could argue, and correctly so, that in the United States the problem of mass killings is much worse. Gun culture is a quick and easy scapegoat, but again the gun itself is just the tool of choice. The aggressive American culture of getting ahead, being the best at the expense of others, and so called "keeping up with the Joneses" is much to blame, but this has been amplified in the internet and social media era. Those left behind in this endless rat race are more negativity impacted than ever. This is a breeding ground for the proverbial loner that sits in their parents basement on the internet and plots to take out their enemies.
One may ask as well, then why doesn't this happen in a place like Japan, a country where there is even more pressure to perform, and people are worked even harder and stressed moreso. Culture. American culture is the Wild West. Go take your rifle and shoot up the town if you are having a bad day. Japan is all about honor. If you can't cut it, you are dishonorable, and you commit suicide, you don't go after others and disrespect their honor. American culture over the last 30 years has been to encourage people to blame everyone but themselves, and some take it to an extreme.
I am American, and I am pro gun rights. But I see many flaws in our modern culture. We have strayed too far away from the personal responsibility of past generations. Nowadays there is always a pill for that, a quack doctor for that, or a scapegoat for that. I think these mass killers deep down want to really kill their father they never met, their teacher that was too hard on them, or that old school bully that tormented them, but that may not be possible so they just take out their aggression on random people.
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Those prices were outrageous, especially adjusted for inflation, which would be about $4,300 in today's money for a top end unit. Of course the VCR was 1979's equivalent of a UHD 4K curved screen TV, or whatever the latest greatest home entertainment thing is now. The prices did come down over time, but they still were not cheap. I remember my dad buying us one for a "family Christmas present" in 1984. It was $395, but they gave him a deal at the local electronics store because he got 4 friends to all buy one from them at the same time, so they got them for $350. That's $850 in today's money, so not chump change.
And here is the best part. The unit is a Magnavox VHS format VCR. It still works, and it is currently hooked up to my basement TV and I still use it! I had several more modern units over the years and they all broke eventually, but the old hunk of steel from 1984 is still going strong. Rewinding a tape does sound like an airplane taking off, but it does indeed work!
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When myself and some friends were arrested in college for having an underage drinking party at our house, we were not Mirandized, we were not given a phone call, we put in cuffs that were cranked on as tight as possible, told to "shut the F up" every time we tried to speak to an officer, and whipped in a holding cell that was about as warm as a meat locker and had our belts, shoes, jackets, and all belongings taken. And guess what, we all lived. And this was for a minor ABC (alcoholic beverage control) violation. What the officers did in this video was TAME. What Happened to us was tame, and in comparison to what happened to this girl, we were practically executed.
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Religion is like politics, or even economics. There are lots of different beliefs out there, but no matter how strongly you believe in your way, no one particular way has been proven right. All you can do is think freely however you believe is right, and there will always be people who disagree with you. If we had all the answers, life would be much easier. But we don't. I believe we aren't supposed to. Whether that is God, the nature of the universe, or just simple human shortcomings, is up for you to decide. If we knew all the answers, there would be no point in religion, politics, economics, scientific theory, or debate.
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So many good points in this video. My favorite being that communists will never admit wrongdoing or failure because they seriously believe they are righteous in their beliefs and everyone else is just wrong or blind to it. Much like a religion. More specifically, the whole failure of the Soviet Union, and the blame on the West and/or "it wasn't real communism". Bottom line is the Soviet Union had the population, the resources, and the means to dominate the world, and they didn't. They collapsed from within and every rational person knows this. Beyond even the economics of a communist system just flat out not working, another huge problem is the power vacuum it creates. Just as with the French Revolution, you eliminate all the elites and give "power to the people", then who rules? A new set of elites, that is more often than not much more tyrannical than the former set that got eliminated. A system simply cannot be a 100% egalitarian system with everything including wealth, resources, and power distributed equally...there will ALWAYS be opportunists who will seize more of the power, and more of the wealth and resources, and oppress the rest.
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For the most part, America is good for Americans, just as Denmark is good for Danes and Russia is good for Russians. Trying to say "X country should be more like Y country" is ludicrous. But it is equally ludicrous to say your own country is the best or worst (in most cases) because everywhere has its positives and negatives (again for the most part, probably not too much positive to say about the totalitarian DPRK or lawless Somalia). I can of course find fault in America, nothing is perfect, but yet I would never want to live anywhere else. Our culture, economics, and politics can't be just like Denmark nor can Denmark's be just like ours, for example. I use Denmark because many Americans who favor socialism often use them as an example of a perfect society...yet I have heard more than one Dane say that yeah they have nice benefits but get taxed to death. You also can't compare two countries of vastly different size and cultural homogeny. But you can't compare just on size either because look how different Russia and the United States are. While imperfect, most civilized, economically sound, democratic nations are best for for their own people. Anyone who thinks the grass will be greener elsewhere usually is in for a big culture shock.
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I live just outside of Buffalo. Say what you will about it, it isn't the most glamourous city, and we get a lot of snow, but it really is, statistically speaking, not a city riddled with violent crime, and for the most part pretty safe and people are mostly descent around here. Yes, every city has it's crime and it's sections you stay away from, and we are no exception, but this kind of thing just doesn't happen here. It's a shame it took an outsider to come in here and commit this heinous act. But this just goes to show you that anything can happen anywhere, no matter how safe you think your community is, all it takes is one bad individual passing through, or in this case oddly enough targeting this specific area. Yes, it is well understood it was racially motivated, but strange he didn't go to a much closer area like Syracuse or Binghamton or Elmira, which all have large minority communities as well. I think we may find out some interesting developments as time goes on here in terms of motives and why this specific location was chosen.
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Well, the last two years has certainly accelerated everything, but part of finding your "tribe" comes with age as well. At least for myself, once I hit 40, I found myself caring less and less about image, about having "popular" opinions, and about clinging on to social acquaintances from way back just because I have known them forever rather than having anything in common with them. A lot of people I spent a lot of time around and tolerated for years I just don't have time for any longer. People who go on social media and brag about getting shots for their young children and scolding those who don't. People who brag about how much money they make or how important they are or their jobs are. People who put little signs in their yard broadcasting their political opinions. People who have called me "racist" for flying a Gadsden Flag. They can all pound sand. Many lesser acquaintances from the past have now emerged as strong allies. My alliance is those who think and do for themselves, and those who are honest and humble. I don't care what your race, religion, or political views are. In fact, in a bit of an ironic twist as a person who is to the right politically, I am finding a good number of my closest allies actually being left politically, but libertarian, as I am. Real liberals, which essentially is what I am. Phony liberals are just authoritarian leftists. And I have just as little time for neocon right wing authoritarians as well. They are all the same garbage but in different piles. Anyone who respects liberty, personal freedom, and personal responsibility are okay with me, even if you don't exactly subscribe to the same politics as me.
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While there is some truth to that, what is the root of it? Why would a billionaire WANT to move their business out of what was at the time the largest state economy in the country? It starts with a "T" and ends with "axes". Again, sure you can attribute a lot of things to greed, but look at it from their prospective. Whether you are a billionaire or barely have two nickels to rub together, why pay more taxes than you need to? Why wouldn't you relocate and save your bottom line? Greed can happen anywhere, but it takes poor government policy to drive business out, greedy or not. And let's be completely fair here, companies like Kodak like you mentioned, and Xerox (also Rochester )and Smith Corona (Elmira) that you didn't were doomed to fail anyways because of outdated technology. Nobody uses film or typewriters anymore, and as far as copy machines they are becoming more rare as printing and copying can be done on much less expensive more efficient business machines made by other companies like Brother and HP and others. I'm originally from Jamestown, the former furniture capital of America. There are no furniture factories left there, outside of a small shell of an operation by Sauder. Bush Industries, Crawford, VanStee, Fancher, Kling, countless others either defunct, absorbed by other businesses and relocated, or outright moved. The old furniture exposition is now a call center. Crescent Wrench which originated there moved to the Carolinas when I was a child. Cummins engine is about all that's left and frankly I'm surprised they stay as another large part of their manufacturing is in Indiana where taxes are much more favorable and I am surprised they haven't moved it all there.
At the end of the day, corporate greed is universal. That's not going to change whether you are in New York or in some tax haven. But the real problem is why WOULDN'T you go to the tax haven? Greed didn't kill upstate NY, New York killed upstate NY.
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My mom was in high school and college in the 1960's. She keeps saying how what is going on now is no different than what was going on then, and that it will blow over just like it did then. I disagree. Not downplaying the rioting of the 60's (I wasn't around to see them, and I'm sure it was bad), but the DIFFERENCE is that today you have the media and the government siding with the insurgents. You have social media to organize them, and also to be used as a weapon against enemies, using it to get people fired from their jobs, to dox them, to terrorize them. Law enforcement have their hands tied by politicians who are in on the chaos. This wasn't the case in the 60's. Sure, the players are mostly the same kind of people, but this time they have powerful allies. This time, it is more dangerous than ever. And sadly I think alot of the older generation doesn't see this. They just think it is a bunch of misguided kids that will grow up eventually. Not this time. These people have been indoctrinated since birth practically. They are angry and they want to take down this country.
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School is a waste, just bide your time and pass everything and get on with your life. Teach yourself what's important when you get to adulthood. I supposedly tested as "gifted" in school and I basically took the Peter from Office Space approach of "do just enough not to get fired", I did just enough to get a C average and graduate in both high school and college, because I didn't care and I knew it was just a joke rat race. Did the corporate gig for years and absolutely hated it but needed a financial base, so put up with it until my mid 30's. Work for a small business now and am not majority owner but have a stake in the ownership and manage one of the offices. It's great no corporate bs, dei hires, useless meetings 10 times a day, diversity training, etc. Just work but you gotta like the work and I do. Pays modestly but I don't even care escaping the grind is worth more than money and I saved like hell back when I made more in the rat race. Gotta find the right niche that can survive as a small business also. Most get run out by the big corps. Mine is tax, preparation, advice, planning, and such for personal and small business. The boss does trusts and estates as well and I am learning them. Believe it or not it's very competitive because people hate places like H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, etc. They like the more personal approach we have. It actually feels like I accomplish something helping people with tax problems rather than being a cog in a huge machine. It's great building personal relationships with clients and also sticking it to Uncle Sam when we can 😂
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Lifespans were indeed shorter, mainly because of two things, one many modern advancements in medicine had not come about yet, and two that there was still a very high infant mortality rate that brought the overall average lifespan down by averaging in more zeroes. But yes people were healthier in terms of diet for sure. "But they ate lard and smoked!". Yes, yes they did, but lard is better than a bunch of chemicals and genetically modified garbage, and while tobacco use is if course not healthy, this was also before all the chemical additives in tobacco as well. There are many famous people way back in history that lived very long lives. It wasn't unheard of, again it was mainly that the average was lowered because it was more common for children to die because the medicine basically sucked. If you made it past about 16, your chances of making 80,90, 100 were not all that different than they are now.
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@cooladam9930 he old 90% top tax bracket argument doesn't hold muster. Firstly, there were way more loopholes back then and very few actually paid that level of tax. Secondly, it was only at a very high income level that adjusted for inflation would only impact a very small fraction of a fraction, even if they didn't exploit the loopholes, which they most definitely did. Shit you even used to be able to write off interest on car loans and credit cards. The 90% rate was a mirage. But what's also worth noting is things like earned income credit, and all these other little tax credits they throw out there now didn't exist back then either, so there wasn't a huge chunk of the population actually getting PAID rather than paying in like you have today. Today if you make around $25K and have two kids you will get paid roughly $7-8K by the government on your tax return. This didn't used to exist. And this adds to the debt. Also a factor was most households then were single income, and things cost much less, and people didn't waste like they do now. Things were much different and you can't take a number on a piece of paper and apply it to how things actually went in reality.
I will also note that it isn't just as simple as taxing the most wealthy heavily. Not in the world and the global economy we live in today. They will pick up and leave the country if they are taxed at a punitive rate, because there are places all over the world that will welcome them and not tax them, and they have the means to go wherever they want at the drop of a hat. Forcing a bunch of wealth offshore doesn't help our economy. Getting 35% is better than trying to get 90% and causing them to leave so you get zero. And this is proven to happen. Maryland imposed a "millionaire tax" years back and a bunch of them left the state. So much so that the opportunity cost of forcing them out massively outweighed the increased tax revenue from those who stayed.
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As a New Yorker, I can confirm high taxes and bad winters, especially in the great lakes region where I am are the two biggest factors. And because of the shrinking population and less than optimal business environment, jobs are also leaving and cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton, Utica, and pretty much everywhere else are struggling because there are so few descent jobs available. Jamestown, NY where I was born was at one point the largest furniture manufacturing city in North America and now hase zero furniture factories. It was once the home of the American Furniture Exposition, that building is now a call center...go figure.
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The electoral college is always an interesting issue of debate. The 2016 election heated that debate up more than ever. Clinton accumulated more popular vote, but Trump won, mainly by turning several "safe" blue states red by small margins. Some call it a travesty of the election system, others argue that the electoral college did exactly what it was designed to do. Regardless of what position you take, and what candidate you favored, you must take one thing into account in this election, and every other Presidential election. The candidates campaigned according to this system. Had the race been a purely popular vote race, the campaigns, and quite possibly the outcomes, would have been much different. Take California and Texas for example...the two biggest prizes, and two very safe states for their respective parties. How many Republicans in California, and Democrats in Texas didn't bother to vote because they knew their candidate had no chance of winning the state? We obviously could never know. Not necessarily an argument in favor of the electoral college, but an explanation of why candidates run their campaigns completely differently because of it. Also consider the amount of effort spent in small swing States like Iowa and New Hampshire that would likely be ignored in a popular vote system. An argument in favor of the electoral college is that these states become more important. Another argument for it is that while certainly large states are still worth more electoral points, the fact that one candidate can blow out the other in a few large states and still lose overall by losing narrowly in a greater number of smaller states is an interesting phenomenon, and is exactly what happened in 2016.
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Sounds nice in theory, but you are making this statement under the assumption that these people would do with the money what you would do with the money. You can't assume this. A poor, and likely uneducated person is not going to invest anything, and in fact they may actually squander the aid money because they don't know any better. Yes, this sounds very harsh, but we can't look at this through the eyes of an educated, financially stable Westerner. You almost have to look at it from the same angle you look at handing a couple bucks to a homeless person...are they going to actually buy food with it, or booze or drugs?
Not to be harsh on you either because your heart is in the right place, but the world is a rough place and people like us tend to look at it through rose colored glasses sometimes. I would also fear that in many situations any deserving people that would receive aid would in turn quickly because robbed of it by corrupt governments or gangs depending on where they reside. A more top down approach is what is necessary, but the problem is who is going to do that. Unless the areas these people live in are improved from the top down, they will unfortunately continue to be impoverished.
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If something isn't done, and soon, about all this violence, I can predict what is coming. The mob will be more and more emboldened, and they will start invading people's homes. And when homeowners defend themselves with lethal force, the homeowners will be the ones charged. It's really quite simple. When terror goes unpunished, and furthermore those defending themselves DO get punished, then there is nothing to stop the terrorists. Not only do they have nothing to lose, but also, they have a strong platform to bait innocent people into taking action that will get THEM, the defenders, punished.
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Healthcare isn't an intangible like free speech, freedom of religion, voting rights, etc. As Been Shapiro has stated many times, it's a commodity. Healthcare can never be "free" for anyone unless doctors start working for free. It can be "taken care of" by others, but never free. Who will "take care of it"? The government. Two big problems there. One, the government couldn't run a lemonade stand if they were given free lemons...and two, "the government" doesn't have some giant magic self-funded piggy bank, the taxpayers fund the government. Are there better ways to run the healthcare system? Sure. But single payer government run is not the answer.
I worked in medical finance for years and did the spreadsheets. The Medicare and Medicaid systems are a joke. The hospital just eats the costs that the government doesn't cover. As of 2014, that was every dollar above $248 for a Medicaid patient. The hospital of course makes up for it by charging people's insurance $50 for an Advil, and about $10 grand for a bed for a night. Many more problems than this, but I can only type for so long.
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CEOs do "less work" huh? I'd like to see you take a crack at running a Fortune 500 company for a day. Typical no nothing liberal brat that thinks executives do nothing but sit around and light cigars with $100 bills and get paid for it. Believe me, I've been on both ends. I've never been a CEO, but I have been an accountant and a manager (white collar "easy" jobs), and I have worked retail, food service, and warehouse (blue collar "hard" jobs). The amount of stress, expectations, long hours for no extra pay, and knowledge needed to to the "white collar" jobs vastly exceeds any hard physical labor you have in a "blue collar" job, unless maybe you are a lumberjack or oil rigger, but they get paid well also. Just because you sit at a desk doesn't make your job easy. I wasn't spinning in my chair all day in those jobs, I was doing complex work 60 some odd hours a week, managing idiots, and having my manager breathing down my neck constantly. I'd go back to retail unloading trucks and stocking shelves for the same pay any day. There's a reason those jobs pay differently. You need to grow up and experience the real world, and not go off what some leftist Looney toon professor at community college brainwashed you with.
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The religious baker thing actually goes way beyond religious freedom, which is a factor, but there is so much more to it. The fact that there are people that believe you can compel any craftsman, tradesman, or artisan to make a custom item for you no questions asked is absurd. So using that logic, I could force a painter to come to my house and paint a mural of child porn on the side of my house, or I could force a Jewish carver to carve me a statue of Hitler holding up a sign that says death to Jews, or I could force a Muslim painter to paint me a picture of Mohammed. These situations have happened in the past and the business always won the right to refuse. There was a case in Pennsylvania years back where a white supremacist who named his child Adolf Hitler requested a bakery to make him a birthday cake with his name on it and swastika designs, and they refused...legally. But that's offensive, that's different! Maybe. But maybe the Christian baker finds homosexuality offensive. I personally don't find a drawing of Mohammed offensive, but a Muslim would. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and shouldn't have to go against them to "not offend" another person, as long as it isn't harming anyone. Refusing service to someone because of their sexual orientation, religion, race, etc is totally different than declining a custom order you find offensive, for any reason, religious or otherwise.
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@russellrlf What is "right wing" about that in any way? That is a factual statement, the Constitution does indeed limit the power of government to infringe upon natural rights rather than grant rights. The founders were not gods and they knew this, they simply limited the actions of the men in power, rather than crowning certain men as kings or gods to bestow rights upon the lowly citizenry. Anyone who got past 9th grade history class knows this. That's what makes the American Constitution unique. Rights like freedom of speech, religion, bearing arms, etc are not stated as "we grant them to you", rather as they are deemed as natural rights that "shall not be infringed" by government. The viewpoint that other mortal men cannot "grant" you rights, rather that you are born with the rights and they can't take them away, is what this country is founded upon. It doesn't make men gods, in fact it prevents them from being as such.
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If you look at most former communist states, many are to the right politically today. It's pretty simple to understand, they want to go as far away in the other direction from communism as possible because very few lived well under those regimes. Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria are all good examples if this. Cuban Americans also a good example, they are a large majority Republican. The fact that Germany as whole seems to be heading to the political right is because of open immigration policies by the left that are now creating problems with crime and unemployment. A nationalistic attitude is brewing there, as well as in the United States, the Netherlands, France, and other countries. I personally do not see this as a bad thing, a country should put its own citizens first.
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IQ is a strange thing. It's definitely an indicator on your ability to learn and understand new and complex matters. A high IQ alone will not get you through life successfully, there are people with average or below average IQs that are more ambitious, more socially adept, or just plain willing to put in the extra work to learn something complex even if it is harder for them.
I have an extremely high IQ, I've taken a number of tests and it has put it anywhere from the mid 140's up to in excess of 160. I usually just say 150 because I tend to like to round down if not entirely positive. I don't think I'm better than anyone else because of it, I wouldn't want to be any other way, but yet also it makes some things in life difficult. I was an average student in school overall but an absolute whiz at math. I have an average job with a very average income, I am an accountant, and a fairly low paid one at that but I work for a small business and I like my job. I am not necessarily better at my job than the others. I'm descent but experience means a lot and other more experienced people on the job know more than I do. My curse is that where an average person can pass by studying and excel by studying very diligently, I can pass by doing nothing, and excel by studying an average amount, but since it was always easier to do nothing that's what I did. I got B's without ever cracking a book, so why bother trying for an A when a B was essentially automatic. Yes, a piss-poor attitude.
Where the high IQ thing can burn you also is where most people want to talk about sports and entertainment and current events, I like to talk about philosophy and the universe and existential stuff and most people have no interest. I bury myself in channels about this kind of stuff and comment on it. But I am also very extraverted and have a very good social life. I manage that by restraining my "inner geek". It's a very odd existence to say the least. Some might accuse me of being lazy but I'm not, I am actually a very hard worker, I am just not ambitious. My dad always used to say "that's good enough" was my favorite saying.
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@Sinaeb If it were "capitalist" policy, the entire country would have gone under a century ago. So how's that "socialism" working out for you in Germany, UK, Sweden, France, etc? No so great, huh? The EU is in the tank economically. At least the Swedes are waking up and changing things there. France and Netherlands are trending that way but have work to do. The Germans and the Brits are doubling down on it and they are spiraling downward out of control. About the only exception is Norway, but keep in mind Norway also has a small population and very strict immigration policy. Here's the thing, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have all these huge social programs that cost billions even trillions of tax dollars and also have open borders and let a bunch of non paying people roll in and take the benefits but contribute little to nothing to the tax base that funds it. Obviously nowhere in the world has ever had completely unregulated Laissez-faire capitalism, Hong Kong was the closet thing and it was actually an economic powerhouse until it was taken back by China. Countries like the United States are a mixed economy. You can't go too far over way or the other or the results are not favorable. So to simply say "capitalism" is the problem is both daft and uneducated. New York state has some of the biggest social programs and safety bets in the country, so I seriously doubt "capitalism" has much to with the states problems.
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I also tend to think there is a bigger divide between authoritarians (those who either want to have absolute rule or feel safer if ruled absolutel), and libertarians (those who believe more in freedom to do what you want as long as it doesn't harm others). Of course very few people are all the way to one side of that spectrum, but most will at least lean more one way than the other. I believe the divide is greater here because you have both authoritarian orthodoxy on both the right and the left, as well as libertarianism on both sides. Left and right disagree about the methods, the small details, the individual issues, where as authoritarians vs libertarians disagree about the bigger picture. I, as a right libertarian, many times can have a better conversation or debate with a left libertarian than a right authoritarian. Whether it be the authoritarian lefts cancel culture, required acceptance of diversity and restrictions on speech or the authoritarian rights hyper religious views, demands for purity, and trend towards a police state, I am equally disgusted with both.
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In most counties outside of the United States and Canada, "liberal" actually means centre right, with nationalists on the right and labour/socialism on the left. Even though I am American, I tend to agree with that. To be truly liberal, you must embrace personal liberty, which the left does not, and the religious right does not either. I view it more like conservative = religious authoritarianism, socialist = government authoritarianism, liberal = libertarian. Hence why libertarianism/true liberalism will never prevail as a mainstream view... because most humans crave the need for an authority figure in their lives, whether that be the government or the church. I say this as one who identifies as a libertarian. From what I have found, most of us are strongly independent people, who don't trust big government or organized religion.
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@vulcan734 All really good points. I think for the foreseeable future, most people will need a second vehicle that is internal combustion if they have an EV as their main transportation, or at the very least traditional ICE vehicles to remain readily available for rental for when those who only own an EV want to take a longer trip. Of course this will be dictated heavily by where you live, because if you live in a rural area not only are destinations further apart, but also the new charging technology will take longer to become available there, much in the same way you saw many rural residents well into the 20th century before they had electricity or indoor plumbing, were very late to the game on cable television, and many still do not have mainline natural gas service and require propane tanks. EVs will most definitely be biggest in cities to start. Another problem I forsee is the toll on an already aging and outdated power grid. Without modernization of much of the nation's grid, I don't see how widespread EV use will be possible. With so many areas already experiencing rolling blackouts and brownouts, what will millions of EVs hooked up to the system do? Without massive upgrades to the system, there will be problems. I also am afraid that without not only upgrades to capacity, but to cleaner forms of power generation, you are trading one pollutant for another when you go ICE to EV as 90% of American power comes from coal fired plants.
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@StochasticUniverse Communism and socialism, on paper are indeed very different, but in practice communism is basically totalitarian socialism. Nazism, or National Socialism, was also true to its name in that social programs were absolutely a big element. Where it differed from left wing socialism and why it is considered right wing is because of the Nationalist element to it. On paper, a Nazi's core values were based on strength of their nation and race, where as a communists core values were based on the strength of the proletariat, the worker. Again, in practice both proved similar in that both had a high degree of control by the government in the means of production, and in the general welfare of the public. In reality, a true far right wing ideology would be a purely capitalist and free market system, free from government control, as a true communist system would be communal ownership and distribution, and a communal system of welfare. Of course in reality, neither worked in the intended way.
I both systems, if implemented true to their respective theories, government should have little control, if existing at all. A true far right system should basically be anarchy, with the free flow of the market controlling the system. A true far left system should be community rule, with communities distributing work to grow crops, manufacturer goods, etc, then evenly distributing the finished product to the workers. Neither, in theory, should have the need for a centralized government entity, but in practice both have used such to an extreme. Both are extremely idealistic and utopian, but use different means to reach a perceived similar end of harmony, one through the individual and one through the collective. Since humans, in general, tend to find advantage in doing some things individually and some things collectively, one must force a system that requires it all to be one way or the other, which defeats the idealistic concept of both. In both systems, a small minority become very wealthy, and the majority become very poor. And furthermore, you can see in practice that Nazism indeed did not give absolute power to the individual or the free market, nor did communism give absolute power to the collective or the worker. Both gave absolute power to the State. And both were very nationalistic putting personal sacrifice in the name of the State above all else.
If you look at a standard political map, very few individuals have been near 100% left or right AND near 100% libertarian, which is what both systems, respectively, would require. If you look at the ideologies of historical figures like Stalin, Mau, and others on the left, and ones like Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, and others on the right, you will see all were very much authoritarian. Political theory is not as black and white as people think. It is not as simple as calling someone a "Nazi" or a "Commie" if they are too far to one side in their ideals. The authorization vs libertarian element is also a huge factor. Very few (really, zero) heads of state have been purely libertarian, whether left or right, because being a head of state by its very nature implies some degree of authority. Libertarianism is utopian in its purest form, and therefore is impossible, but the biggest irony is that theories that are purely libertarian in nature are falsely implemented under authoritarian regimes. I myself identity as a libertarian, however I fully understand that there is a law of diminishing returns at play here...that going TOO far in that direction will cause anarchy, which presents its own set of problems. I could go on because I am fascinated by political theory and its plethora of contradictions and overlaps, but I think every gets my point, that being that what people have branded as "far right" and "far left" have more similarities and internal contradictions than would appear on the surface.
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It doesn't matter how many coins there are. Same probability with one coin. First flip, both people have 50% probability of getting heads. Second flip, whether the same coin or different coin, again 50% probability of getting the desired result. Where the twist comes is if both players on the second flip do not get the desired result. Then the advantage goes to the heads-tails player over the heads-heads player. Why? Because the desired results are P1 H-H and P2 H-T, right? First flip, both get heads, results logged. Okay, second flip, P1 gets tails, and P2 gets heads, the reverse of their desired result, again results are logged. P2 is still 1 flip away from victory. He got H-H but wanted H-T. You are still playing off a prior flip of H. You just need a T. 50% shot. P1 wanted got H-T, but wanted H-H. His prior flip was a T. He needs a minimum of two flips to get H-H, or 50% odds times 50% odds again = 25%. The number of coins is irrelevant.
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I am an accountant and have hundreds of clients of all walks of life and professions. I will tell you the professions of the several of my highest wage earning clients. Superintendent of Schools (requires college), Highway Superintendent (does not require college), Car salesman (does not require college), Collection agent (does not require college) Residential Construction (does not require college) Physician Assistant (requires college), Information Technology products salesman (does not require college, only product training). Yes that's right, the majority of my highest earning clients are not college graduates. Not in the top top earners, but fairly high also is a Diesel mechanic client of mine, who makes well over $100K a year. These people all make more than me and I have a Master's degree. I am not saying you CAN'T make high wages with a college degree, just that you CAN without one, and in the right field and with the right skills can often do better.
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@lemonandgaming6013 I do understand your point, I disagree for reasons I will mention, but yes it is a good point on the surface at least. If nobody has guns then good guys don't need them for protection because bad guys don't have them either. On its face that is a pretty logical argument. But if you dig deeper that is where you will find problems. There are two significant ones.
One. Samuel Colt called his repeating revolver "the great equalizer", and for good reason. Assuming skill of use equal, anyone who held one was more or less equal to their opponent holding one. Factor in skill and a physically weaker combatant may actually prove to be stronger than an opponent who is physically stronger. The point being that if unarmed, or even welding a hand weapon such as a knife, blunt instrument, etc, if you put 5'9" 180 lb me up against a guy the stature of Hulk Hogan in his prime, I am going to lose 99.9% of the time, barring maybe a lucky swipe of a hand weapon. Guns basically nullify brute physical strength. Theoretically in a world with no guns or projectile weapons, big strong men could basically just take what they want from everyone else. Or even regular sized men could just go beat up granny and take her belongings. But give granny a pistol and no matter how big and strong you are, you better hope she isn't a better shot than you. Yes, undoubtedly guns present new problems to the mix, but overall they truly do put the physically weak on more or less an equal footing to everyone else in terms of personal defence.
Point two. The government. The government will always have guns even if the citizens don't. Yes I understand you aren't going to fend off the national army of your country with a shotgun, but there is absolutely a psychological aspect to this. It has absolutely been proven that regimes throughout history that completely disarmed the public were more tyrranical because they had nothing to fear. Again I, singlehandedly would not take down the U.S. military no matter how many guns I had, nor would myself and a large group of other armed citizens, however, you keep increasing that potential number that could potentially band together and the government will think twice before attacking its own citizens. Not saying it would happen ever, but it's also not impossible. I personally would not feel comfortable in an environment where police and military are all armed and I couldn't be. Even though I know that alone still couldn't do much of the shit hit the fan and they turned on the citizens, the psychological aspect is still relevant, both in peace of mind if the citizens, as well as in casting even a small amount of doubt in a would be tyrranical government.
I suppose the second one is more of an American thing than anything, and I know times have changed in the last 250 years, but that's the culture here where pretty much a bunch of farmers defeated the strongest army in the world to gain independence.
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And I will add, of those 9 unarmed black people killed by police, three of them tried to run over police with a vehicle (which technically is a deadly weapon if used as such), one tried to beat a female officer to death with his fists and she shot him, one was killed when the officer's sidearm discharged in a struggle (officer was also black), and of the four remaining, in two of the situations the officers were indeed found guilty of manslaughter, and two were found not guilty and may be questionable.
So if there are 350 million people in this country, 12% is about 42 million. 2 people out of 42 million MAY have been wrongfully killed by police. 2. That's hardly genocide, that's hardly "police hunting black people". It's not even a blip on the radar. Many, many more people are killed by medical malpractice and nobody is calling for abolition of doctors.
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I live in NY, where the $15 minimum wage law was passed a few years ago. Where I live upstate it is being phased in, and we are at $13.25/hr now I believe. What I have noticed is happening in the service industry, which is mainly made of people at or around minimum wage, is they give hardly any hours to the employees, and work the salaried managers about 80 hours a week so their hourly equivalent is much lower than minimum wage. You go to any store, whether that be a fast food restaurant, a grocery store, a retail store, or whatever, and there are usually hardly any people working, things are a mess, and the lines are long.
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In my former job, I did budgets for a U.S. hospital near the Canadian border. No lie, nearly half our earnings were from Canadian patients paying out of pocket. I did the financial reports. I saw the numbers. There is a reason they come here, and it is exactly for the reasons explained above.
This is why also, that despite being a city on the decline for over 50 years in terms of industry and manufacturing, Buffalo NY has one of the fastest growing medical sectors in the country. They can't build new medical facilities here fast enough. Yes, there are other reasons such as lower labor costs and a large medical school at the University of Buffalo, but a big factor is in all the profits to be made off of Canadian out of pocket payers. You can literally throw a stone from downtown and hit someone in Canada, so you can see why (no, not that Canadians are getting injured by stones we throw at them, but the close proximity!🤣🤣🤣). Yes, Buffalo, where we are so far north that Canada isn't to the north, it is to the west! That is where the money is made in health care. Hospitals lose money off Medicare and Medicaid claims. They do turn a profit off private insurance, but nothing like out of pocket payers. They basically can charge whatever they want because they don't have to fight insurance companies for compensation. The medical sector is exploding here and that is a big reason why.
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It's all about thinking outside the box. If there are indeed certain limitations and unbreakable laws of physics that prevent us from travel away from earth of any significant distance, then ways to "bend" the rules need to be discovered. The Alcubierre drive is an example of this, though of course it is purely theoretical.
This is a very simplistic example when compared to space travel, but relevant in terms of making the impossible, possible through bending the rules. A Volkswagen beetle simply is not going to beat a Porsche GT3 in a quarter mile drag race, it is impossible assuming of course there are no modifications allowed, both vehicles are driven by skilled drivers, and both vehicles function properly and do not break down or crash. However, this was achieved when the rules were bent and the playing field was changed from 2 dimensions to 3. A beetle when dropped a quarter mile in the air from a helicopter will cover a quarter mile of vertical space quicker than a Porsche GT3 can cover a quarter mile of horizontal space under its own power. This was done by our friends at Top Gear. Again very simple, but completely changed the result when an extra dimension was added to the equation. Could the same be true in space if and/or when a higher dimension were to be discovered and possibly manipulated? A rocket powered ship is only going to go so fast, but if there were to be a "way around" through a higher spacial dimension could this be exploited?
What's impossible in one dimension is not only possible, but practical in a higher one. On a 2D plane you can only go back and forth and side to side...up and down is not only impossible, but can't even be conceptualized by an entity living within that 2D plane. What impossible movements might we discover in a 4th spacial dimension, or higher? Traveling to another star system might be like walking from your living room to your kitchen. We would never know if higher dimensions are not unlocked. The problem is unlocking them, can it be done, and do they even exist? Some scientists think so, but again it is purely theoretical.
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What is interesting to think about is that under a popular vote system, we don't know what the results WOULD have been. And that's because the candidates campaigned under an electoral vote system, and the behavior of voters was determined by an electoral vote system. In other words, under our current system, in states like Texas, Clinton wouldn't have campaigned much, and more Democrats would have been less motivated to vote, and in California, Trump would have campaigned less, and Republicans would have been less motivated to vote. Those dynamics change under a popular vote system, so the outcome would not be known.
It's like saying a team that scored more runs, but won less games in a World Series would have won under an aggregate run system, instead of a best of 7 games system. You don't know that, because under a different system, the strategies of the teams would have been different...like in a 2-legged football match that is scored by aggregate goals, and give more weight to away goals...you change your strategies from a regular match.
I am certainly not advocating a change to a popular vote system, though the electoral system does have its flaws as well. I agree that it does disenfranchise opposition party voters in solid "blue" or solid "red" states. But the advantage is it takes power away from a handful of large population centers and spreads it out nation wide. In my opinion, a system like Maine and Nebraska have is a good compromise between popular and electoral systems. Award 1 vote per congressional district to the winner of that district, and award 2 votes to the overall popular vote winner of the state.
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@VeritableVagabond Ok, I'll give you a straight answer, because my view on the matter is that you do what you think is best for you, not what others SAY is best for you, or what you may be coerced into doing...and that includes TAKING the vax, or NOT taking the vax because of perceived social pressure in either direction. The vast majority of both those who have and have not vaxed don't hate those who have done the opposite. Most people have done what they believe is best for them. The government officials barking at people to get vaccinated are not "most people", they are the exception. On the other side, hard core anti vaxers who mistrust all vaccines are also not "most people"...but both groups get all the attention because both bark the loudest.
I possess every other major vaccine in existence, and even a few lesser common ones as I used to work at a hospital and it was required. I don't have a problem with vaccinea in general. I also do not have a problem with the COVID vaccine. I personally waited almost a year to take it because I wasn't going to run right out and take something unproven. And when I did it is because I wanted to, because I thought it was in my best interests as someone with a history of respiratory issues. Nobody made that decision but me. When I was among the unvaccinated, I did not disparage those who took it, and now that I am vaccinated I do not disparage those who choose not to. I don't think either side is evil or stupid. You are however stupid, and maybe evil, if you want to shame people who have done differently than you. Stupid people use the excuse that unvaccinated people pose a threat to others. How? If the vaccination is so great then they should only pose a threat to themselves and others like them so why do the busybodies in government care unless it is about control?
I don't think the vaccination is the end all be all. I also don't think it is fake, or poisonous, or a problem for MOST people. Of course I also don't think the virus itself is that big if a threat to MOST people...but there will always be some who have very bad reactions to both the vaccine and the virus itself.
You can't say being against vaccination for Covid is "disagreeing with science" because the PROVEN science isn't there. It hasn't been around long enough. Things like polio vaccines have been around for over half a century and are proven. You can't compare the two. Each individual must make their own choice, and nobody should be admonished for it. I personally decided to take it finally because for ME, I thought that the possibility it at the very least will lessen the negative effects of the virus if I contracted it outweighed the potential side effects of the vaccination itself. That's my opinion and my choice. I would never criticize anyone else for choosing what they think is best for them.
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My boomer parents raised me, owned a house, and two cars on one income, and to be quite honest my dad's job was nothing spectacular, just a middle of the road middle management position in an office. He worked a lot, but we got by and lived what I would consider bang on middle class. Fast forward to today from the 1980's and my wife and I both work, and I also have a portion of my late father's pension, and we can barely scarpe by. And it's not like we live extravagantly. We have an average home, I drive a 10 year old pickup truck, and we have taken one single actual vacation, beyond a weekend day trip, in 15 years of marriage. Something doesn't add up here. Yes, inflation, but the dollar is roughly half what it was worth in the 80's, but we bring in together much more than double my dad's single income. Everything is so much more expensive now, and taxes especially property tax are terrible. It is interesting because back in the day something like a new TV cost a fortune but you bought it once and it lasted, and if it broke you had it repaired...but groceries and staples of life were pretty reasonable. Now a new computer or TV is cheap, but disposable, and your weekly grocery bill is more than the TV you just bought.
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It doesn't matter. You can point out the failures of the USSR to them until you are blue in the face and they just say "but that wasn't REAL communism". Well that's the point, it wasn't. And it wasn't because REAL communism CAN'T exist, outside of maybe a small isolated population, and even that is a big maybe. Human nature prohibits it. Humans, as a whole (of course there are individual exceptions), are driven to work, succeed, and provide for their families. Most people expect that hard work will pay off with larger benefits. Of course that doesn't always happen, but that is always the goal. A system where "resources are shared" cannot work. Two big reasons. One is people want to get out of something what they put into it. So who is going to want to become a doctor when a janitor has equal share in the goods and revenues? Secondly, and even more importantly, "sharing of resources" must be administered and policed by someone. It won't just happen organically. That "someone" is government. Government consists of people, who can be corrupted by power. And inevitably, the government WILL become corrupt. Hence why Russian Oligarchs lived in luxury while the rest of the population waited in bread lines.
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We have plenty of the same problems here, but at least we still have free speech and the right to bear arms (for now). Most of the worst is just in the urban areas, rampant crime, inept police, rioting, looting, etc, so for now if you stick to the rural areas you are in good shape. And believe it or not our police are actually still pretty good out here. They actually arrest criminals and leave citizens alone. My left wing state passed some nonsense gun restrictions a few years ago, but our right wing Sheriff in our right wing county refuses to enforce them, which is great, and makes it somewhat tolerable to still live in my state. It's New York if you were wondering. The state government sucks and so does the city, but upstate in the rural areas we are as conservative as Texas.
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@richarddukard8989 It's actually not a difficult concept. If you are sitting in a 3,000 lb slab of metal and plastic that is capable of high speeds, and you are told not to move the slab, and you do, that's a threat. You see, this 3,000 lb slab can go forward, backward, and steer side to side, and if it hits you or runs over you, it will damage you, or maybe kill you. "But the police were to the side of the car". Yes, they were, but does that not mean the driver can pull forward, slam it in reverse and back over them? Of course he could. Police are not mind readers. They have to assume the worst in order to protect themselves and other citizens. Or even forget the police themselves. Is it not possible the kid floors it and plows into another citizen and kills them? Of course it's possible.
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I've said basically what you have said for years. I am a Swedish-American, 3rd generation. Sweden never conquered, imperialized, or enslaved any brown or black people in any far off lands. Heck, the Swedes have been neutral in practically every major war. And furthermore, my ancestors were still farmers and furniture makers in Sweden for about another 25-30 years after slavery ended in the United States. They weren't even here. In fact on one side of my family my ancestors were missionaries in Africa and China. They were not terrorizing non-whites, they were helping them. So no, I don't come from a long line of racists and colonizers. And neither do the majority of other white Americans. Only about 1 in 10 white Americans can trace their ancestry to people who even lived in this country before slavery was abolished, and only about 1% of that group had ancestors that were slave owners. There may have been millions of slaves, but if you were to analyze the ownership and compare it to people of today, your average person, even fairly wealthy people did not own slaves, only that absolute wealthiest and elite, wealth comparably speaking to what Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have today compared to average Americans.
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@TheAstilesus Very good points. Most people's ancestors who came here didn't come here because they were rich people out to exploit others. They were mostly dirt poor, starving, or escaping some other bad conditions, whether famine, lack of work, or poor living conditions, or all of those. I read somewhere that less than 1% of Americans can trace their roots back to colonialists, industrialists, plantation owners, etc. I know mine were not wealthy by any means, they mostly came here in the late 1800s and lived in log cabins they built themselves and lived off the land. Lots of them died from disease and house fires and things like that. Very few people had it easy back then. So it gets old when people cry about their ancestors being oppressed because almost nobody had it good.
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@Anna-1917 While yes it is true that communism is not inherently totalitarian in nature, nor is it intended to be, every large scale example so far in history has ended up as such. The end result in any system, communism included, is that power ultimately shifts to a small group that ends up controlling everything. While yes, in theory communism is supposed to be communal sharing of work and products of that work, it never quite works out that way because of two main reasons. 1) Most humans are competitive by nature, and beyond that some are more ambitious than others, some lazy, some are cooperative, and others are selfish. Not all people are the same and therefore a system that relies on every "cog" being more or less the same doesn't work. And this leads to 2) there must be a government to enforce law and provide order, and enforce rules to make every "cog in the wheel" perform basically the same because people are not going to just do so left to their own devices. By creating a government to control this situation, you have now created a separate class in a society meant to be classless, but yet at the same time you must have it to maintain the very system you want to function as a classless system. It's a catch-22, it's pradoxal and it's self defeating, and it eventually leads to autocracy or oligarchy.
No system works 100% or else that would just be the way. I am in favour mostly of capitalism but also recognize its flaws, and in my opinion a society must be able to pick and choose the most optimal parts of every system, patch them together, and do what uniquely works for them. In other words, what works for Norway will be different than what works for the USA, which will be different than what works for China. Population, culture, a homogeneous vs a heterogeneous citizenry, norms, work ethic, laws, even religion play into what economic system will work best for a specific country. Again I tend to favor a system that is 51% or more capitalistic in nature, but also don't deny that other more socialistic elements are necessary, the scope of which would vary by country. Some of these include social welfare systems, regulation of truststs and monopolies, minimum wage, and labour unions, though for unions I believe in limiting them to private sector only, and am against compulsory membership (right to work).
I don't believe communism is a completely flawed concept, but I do in terms of any large scale population because it requires homogony to a very high degree and I don't believe that can be achieved in anything outside of a very small population, closed society, such as a small island nation. Everyone has to be on board for it to work, just a few mavericks and the system goes to shambles. Hence why historically we have seen authoritarianism as the driving force in these types of societies. To think about it logically, it isn't that hard to get an individual or a small group on board with an idea, but trying to manage a mob is a different story. Diversity of thought, work ethic, and ideals are too strong within a large group and force is the only way to homogenize it. Don't forget also that most people are short sighted. A simple promise of a prosperous future if everyone would just work together isn't enough. People want to see results fast. Capitalism, despite all its negative side effects, provides that for some, and others see that and can be inspired by that.
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Maybe it's just me, but I want a few liberals on Fox. I want criticism of the President, even if it unfair, so it can be exposed as such, but if it is fair, well fair is fair. I love President Trump, but he is not infallible. I disagreed with President Obama 99% of the time, but in that 1% of the time he did right in my view, he deserved credit for it. I don't want an echo chamber. We already have that in CNN and MSNBC. For them, Trump can do no right and Obama could do no wrong. I don't care for Cavuto, but I wouldn't want him gone, either. I want people that will challenge my viewpoint. That's what separates us from the left, they don't want a challenge, they just want to cram their ideas down your throat and force feed them to you. We need to be better than that. Let them speak their piece, and then we, as conservatives, can deconstruct it critically. Tucker is the master at that. He has always featured many left wing guests, let's them rant on about their opinion, then picks it apart to their face and exposes their stupidity and bias. And both Tucker, and O'Reilly when he was around, would be critical of the Republican party when warranted, and I think that is good. I have been a registered Republican ever since I was 18, but I don't agree with everything they do. To truly be balanced is to feature all viewpoints, even if some of them are garbage, and even if the people expressing them are garbage. Debate is good for everyone. I don't want an echo chamber, in the same sense that if I am shopping for a new car, I don't go to that vehicles fan forum for reviews, I go to Edmunds or Kelly, I watch the test drive on Motorweek, I want an unbiased review. CNN and MSNBC are the Democrat party's fan forum in that sense. I don't want Fox to be the same for the Republicans. That's the problem with people in general now. Nobody wants their opinions to be challenged. I do. It makes you think more critically. Personally, I don't find it interesting seeing a bunch of like minded people all sitting around patting each other on the back.
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@lamiagumbo Maybe "old people" actually learned history in school instead of propaganda and woke politics. Easy for you to just determine how "you think it was", and call out actions of the distant past based on your narrow view of the world you have, provided by your shallow and artificial "education" you apparently got fairly recently judging by your disdain of "old people".
It's easy to take everything at face value through the lens of modernity and jump to your own conclusions, but that doesn't make you clever or smart, that makes you reactionary and naive. There is more to almost every significant historical event even more so than we can even learn from a legitimate historical source, because none of us were there. It isn't always as simple as good vs evil, this isn't the Star Wars saga. Even if you read up on the most cut and dry evil there was in modern history, the Nazis, you can still get an understanding of how the general public was mesmerized by the writings and speeches of Hitler and why they followed him, considering the state of their country at the time, and the relative power vacuum that existed. Does that make the Nazi party's means, methods, and vision any less evil? No. But at the same time the poor and downtrodden masses were looking for anyone who could make Germany strong again. Did they know it was imperialistic? Sure. Did they know it was genocidal? Most did not. The civil war and secession of the South was similar but on a much lesser scale. These men fought for the pride of their state, not some notion of slavery that only elitists of the time reaped the fruits of. One can make the argument that nearly every conflict throughout history has sinister undertones by the elite of the time, but the citizens and soldiers only fight for what they hold dear, whether that be their state, their kingdom, or their way of life. It is not evil. Shortsighted maybe, but we are talking about mostly poor dirt farmers here who no more owned slaves than the person today with a small vegetable garden owns millions of dollars of farm equipment.
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In my opinion, the most sensible theory is that there always has been and always will be a universe. It begins, lives out it's trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years, then dies out, and is recreated again, on repeat loop, for infinity. Time is just a human concept. The universe knows no time, it has always been there and always will be there, through it's beginning to end, then over and over again forever. It's quite possible that we have lived this life an infinite number of times, and will continue on reliving it for infinity.
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As far as the tax thing goes, that's what I do for a living, so the quick explanation is that more likely than not if you are a small to medium income content creator, you would file a schedule C for self employment income. The common misconception is that is taxed less, but it is not, it is actually taxed more because you pay regular income tax plus self employment tax, which is equivalent to paying "payroll tax" twice (SS, medicare, disability). There is however an advantage in that you can use the cost of production (equipment, cost of internet service, etc) as a work expense and deduct it from your income. Depending on how much your work expenses are, it CAN be an advantage, but it isn't always necessarily an advantage.
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@inspecthergadget4503 "Cancel culture" is just another fancy term for censorship, but it is instead driven by the left instead of by the right where it was traditionally. Or more accurately, another form of censorship by those in positions of power. Go back even just 30-40 years, and especially so beyond that, and the church still was a very powerful entity, and politically, Democrats were moderate, maybe even center right, and Republicans solidly right. Outside of some fringe groups there was little to the left, in the United States at least. This started to change in the 1960s, but social conservatism fought back with censorship and other methods and retained its dominance up through the 1990s. The pendulum started to swing at the turn of the century, and the 2010's saw a big advance in power by the left, save for a last gasp by the right in electing Donald Trump. Now the left has more or less solidified itself as the authority figure in the social culture structure, and they use cancel culture as a censorship tool to retain THEIR dominance. Same ol' story, but with different characters leading the charge. Rather than church ladies and tee toatlers at the helm, it is woke activists and social progressives. Neither way is appealing to somebody like me. I would prefer to run around with my AR-15 and my bong, and if I were gay, my same sex partner, while at the same time calling whomever I please inappropriate names and engaging in unbridled laissez faire capitalism, so long as I am not physically or economically harming anyone. The right can pound sand with their morals and the left can pound sand with their feelings.
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Most likely, the world's number one ranked curler probably earns less than the 52nd man on a 52 man NFL team who just sits the bench and makes the league minimum. But more people watch the NFL than professional curling, and there are much higher revenues. This is basically the US women's soccer team. Fine and dandy they have had a large degree of success, but MUCH less people watch women's sports, and the revenue from ticket sales, merchandise, advertising, etc, is exponentially less. Not to mention their success is against much weaker opposition. Seriously watch some clips from some of their blowout victories. My six year old is better than some of these opponents. The Men's team plays against the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, and the most talented professionals in the world.
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I understand it is much easier to shoot someone than to stab them, kill them with your bare hands, run them over, or build a bomb and blow them up, you don't have to be a genius to figure that out. But what is interesting is that all of these alternative methods increase dramatically once gun control measures are strictly enforced and gun crime decreases. So I am not going deny that one particularly efficient way of killing MIGHT be quelled (and that is of course if the gun control is effective, which is most often is not because it just takes guns away from non violent people and violent ones still find ways to get them), but that fact aside, how is this solving anything when other methods of murder and assault are almost universally increased every time guns are restricted? Quite obviously people that want to harm and kill others will find a way regardless of what tools are available. And quite obviously the problem is sociological rather than weapon based, and especially so considering that, at least in the United States, UNTIL about 40 years ago you could get about any gun, anywhere, legally, on the spot and without any kind of permit, and ironically STARTING about 40 years ago more restrictive laws were introduced in many areas and about 30 years ago mass shootings basically went from non existent to commonplace. And it is an absolute fact that stabbing incidents have risen hundreds of percentage points in places like the UK and Australia in the years since strict gun control has been introduced.
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Labor should be paid what it is worth. Any able bodied person can serve lunch on a tray, but not everyone can give emergency medical attention to a person, not properly anyways, without training. Yet in NY, with the new minimum wage increase, a fast food server makes roughly the same as an EMT. This is a big problem, on many levels. When the value of unskilled labor is inflated, the value of skilled labor is diminished. The purchase power of $15 decreases when the bottom rung earns that amount. And when all the bottom rung jobs went up 50% from $10 to $15 an hour, prices went up, yet most people already making $15 an hour before the rise still only make around the same amount. So rather than lifting the bottom, it just brought down the middle. Go to any restaurant in NY and you will see prices have gone up substantially. You see it also to a lesser extent in groceries and other small consumer goods. So basically, $15 gets you about what $10 got you a few years ago, massively outpacing general inflation, which is only a few percentage points a year. So the person getting the raise from $10 to $15 essentially gains nothing, while the person staying at $15 loses their purchase power. Nobody wins. The best case scenario is you about break even, but many more will lose ground financially.
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@domitron Good points, however it is a statistical fact that the more advanced a society becomes, the less its population grows. This is evident in industrialized nations all over the world...in fact Japan, who is arguably one of the most technologically advanced, is actually showing a decline in population due to low birth rates. Of course this is all due to many factors, such as but not limited to less of a need for large families for things like farm labor, advances in contraception, the reality of most families now having two working parents with less time for child care, and as harsh as it may seem but true, with much lower rates of childhood disease and death, families in modern society have less of a need to "have more because you might lose a few".
So that all said, your point is certainly valid, but could you see an eventual turnaround as more societies on this planet become modernized, rather than a population explosion? I mean of course this will take awhile since much of the world's communities are lagging far behind others, and of course we are certainly in a major upwards population trend now and for the foreseeable future, but EVENTUALLY... assuming we don't all blow ourselves up before we get there? Maybe overpopulation is a Great Filter we need to overcome?
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Fact...9 of the top 10 largest State Deficits are BLUE STATES.
Idiot leftist response...Oh, but California is great. If California was a country, it would have a bigger GDP than alot of industrialized counties.
Fact...True, but California also has a deficit higher than almost any other industrialized country on the planet, outside of a few of the bigger ones. It is over a trillion dollars. A TRILLION DOLLARS...for a STATE!
This is what happens when you subsidize illegal aliens and millions upon millions of other freeloaders for decades. And don't even go on about the crap about "States like California subsidize the poor rural red States". No it doesn't. How do you subsidize anything with over a TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT? You don't. And I don't care how much California produces, it's still a net negative. If California produces $500 Billion and is in debt a Trillion, and Mississippi produces $2.00 and is in debt $3.00...which is better?
Places like California and NY (downstate anyways) are pricing successful people right out with their rising taxes and inflated property costs. Who is going to pay $800K for a house the size of a garage and pay about $40-50K a year in property tax, just for the "privilege" of living in CA/NY? Less and less people. Hence why many of the state's bordering these places are booming. I live in upstate NY. Our taxes aren't as bad as downstate, but they are still bad. A friend of mine moved to Ohio a few years ago. Same shitty weather, same shitty roads, same shitty football teams...but less than half the property tax, lower state income tax, and roughly equivalent pay rates in professional jobs there (and much easier to carry there, which is a nice bonus). I plan on doing the same thing within a few years. Successful people are leaving these "socialist utopia" blue states in droves, so pretty soon there will be nobody left to pay for all the free healthcare/college/weed/etc for illegal aliens and generational welfare recipients in places like NY and CA.
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Believe whatever makes you feel good, but it is factually incorrect. While there may be some truth to some rich and powerful individuals in the Southern states in influencing the decision to secede from the union based on their own gains acquired through slavery, the official position was one of states rights. And as I commented in another thread, you must realize WHO owned slaves. You talk about the elite 1% today, that was the slaveholders of the 1800's. Pretty much every soldier from the South fought for their State. They were no more concerned with protecting the right to own slaves than a working class person today would be concerned with the right to own your own helicopter or private jet. They were not "fighting for evil" any more than American soldiers in the Vietnamese conflict were going in knowing they were fighting a useless, futile guerilla war against an insignificant enemy, they thought they were fighting a glorious cause to stop the spread of communism. It's different, but it is still propaganda and propaganda is what gets men enlisted when the powerful desire a war. While of course the issue of slavery was always in the background it was not THE reason, even for the government and the generals, it was just ONE of many reasons behind a larger umbrella of states rights issues. Doesn't make it 100% legitimate, but also not as sinister as you propose.
You also have to take into account the attitude of the time. Today, you call yourself an American first, except maybe if you are a Texan. Back then, you called yourself a Virginian, or a Buckeye, or a Jayhawk. Your state was your identity. Your state was what was important to you and you wanted to fight for your state, even if it was not perfect. That sort of group identity lives on to this day, but in other forms, especially evident in politics. Die hard Republicans or Democrats use that part as an identification and will debate endlessly the valor of their party, even if they don't agree with 100% of their "team's" platform.
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Very true, there wasn't alot to work with back in those days. The technology didn't exist to have speed AND fuel efficiency. You got one or the other, and since fuel efficiency was being mandated, you got that, period. A 7.9 second 0-60 by today's standards may be subpar even for a family sedan, but in '85 wasn't too shabby, even for a sports car. You have to consider the era. These were the days of 4-cylinder Mustangs, and Corvettes that had only 230hp out of a V8 in '85, which sadly was an improvement from the the last of the C3s in the early 80's, and there was nothing fast out of Japan yet at this time, the Nissan Z was probably the best you could get (maybe a Celica-Supra), and it was probably slower than this Charger in stock form. So actually, these little fastback Chargers were quite quick for their time.
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Authoritarianism never works, whether politically left or right, whether tyrannical or supposedly benevolent. Tito of the former Yugoslav republic is often referred to as a "benevolent dictator", but the term is just an oxymoron, and that nation-state obviously collapsed in the end anyways. Of course the counter argument was that title of "benevolent" was just American propaganda because he had a good relationship with the United States, and I tend to believe as such, and I am American. Also as others have stated, there really is no such thing as "a little" authoritarianism because if you give an inch they take a mile as the saying goes. But I understand your point. I am guessing your point is that we bring back a bit of law and order because it has been degrading now for some time, and I agree. You don't have to be a fanatical right winger to want some degree of order in society. At at the same time being left doesn't necessarily mean you want chaos and anarchy either. I think for both sides, those who are closer to the center anyways, do want structure, rule of law, and order in society. The right winger living in a cabin in the mountains sitting atop a small arsenal waiting to take on the government, and the left winger torching police cars with Molotov cocktails are the outliers, but both groups are growing. I don't think most people want this, but many see us heading there, and many of us see ourselves as helpless to stop it. Polarization in government isn't helping the cause. It doesn't have to be a police state and it doesn't have to be anarchy. There is middle ground and we have been there. Unless there is some event, leader, or circumstance that changes our trajectory, I see us plunging further and further towards anarchy, which be met by swift and aggressive force once it goes too far and then we go 180 into a complete dictatorship police state/military junta...then it all collapses with huge death tolls and a complete end to the republic.
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It's all what you grow up with and get used to. I am from a rural area, and prefer lots of space and close proximity to nature, at the expense of not having as many cultural/social options a city offers. Where I have chosen to live as an adult is actually perfect for me. I live on the very edge of the population center of a medium sized city. Literally across the street from me is a hay field, and not far beyond that lots of places to golf, ski, hunt, fish, hike, etc. But a mile and a half the other direction is a suburban shopping center, and another 15-20 miles beyond that is the city center. My personal property is about an acre and I am surrounded by woods on 2 out of 3 sides of my house with a street in front of course and open land across from me. But I can hop in my car and drive 30 minutes to go to a sporting event, a show, or anything else I want to do downtown.
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Basically you can sum up the world right now in terms of culture, diversity, racism, etc into one simple action and reaction...
For the most part the mass media, entertainment, government, and everyone else in a powerful and/or influential position has been force feeding us "rules" on how to interact with each other, how to get along, diversify, and not be racist/bigoted/sexist/homophobic/etc. However these "rules" are completely wrong, and completely will have the opposite effect, and I believe this is by design. It is obvious people are more divided than ever, and groups are becoming more segregated and clanish than they have been in over 60 years or more.
But think about it for a minute. We are given these "rules", that we mostly follow, then the end result is more division, disgust, and hatred. So then we are shamed, told we are bad people, and in order to be good people and get along, now more than ever we must listen to THEM, because THEY have been right all along and WE are just a bunch of stupid plebes.
A perfect example is 30 years ago I as a white male would have been told "be color blind, don't look at that black man as black, but just as a man, another human just like you". And that's what I do, that's how I have always been. Now, all the sudden that is wrong, and I must accept, no, embrace his 'blackness', praise it, put it up on a pedestal, but God forbid never try to copy or emulate it lest I be a 'cultural appropriator '. What does that do? Breeds resentment. No, I am not going to 'embrace' any one else's culture or way, nor should they mine. How about we go back to the old way and just respect each other as humans and not worry about races, classes, religion, nationality, etc.
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I would imagine most intelligent life would be humanoid, while quite possibly looking much different than humans, having a similar structure. There are two reasons I believe this. One, the human body works, it's functional, it may not be the fastest, the strongest, or the most resilient, but it is a good balance of these and not particularly weak in any area. Secondly, because I would think that most other places capable of supporting complex life would have to be on a planet with conditions not drastically different than earth, because again, obviously this model works, and what works well in the universe tends to be the norm.
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@Phantom1963 There's welfare poor, and there's working poor. That latter group is becoming increasingly bigger, and that's a big concern. But when your grocery bill, your gas for your car, your insurance costs, and just about everything costs twice as much, more people working for a living get stretched. These things don't effect the welfare poor nearly as much as they get food stamps and other support. Poor is also a state of mind and the state of your own spending and thrift. I work in a financial field and have clients with triple, quadruple, and more my family income that are "poor" because they can't manage their money and have massive debt. And then there's my idiot friend who makes $350K a year and just went and dropped over $100K on a used Lamborghini that is broken and he bought it from scam artists and he is out the money and crying broke now. I do his taxes and he owed $6K and doesn't know how he will pay it. Really? I could pay it 10 times over just with what I have in liquid cash savings, and I make a fraction of what he does. But this is what happens in a world of "look at me, look at my shiny new things I posted on Facebook". Society in general now are slaves to their excesses. Couple that with a faltering economy and we are going to have big problems going forward.
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@ryanharrington5066 Well, there have been talks in places like Texas of leaving the union, but it's just talk. It would result in a second civil war if States attempted secession again. But the truth is the political atmosphere is constantly changing here. Every few election cycles the minority party takes power. People want positivity and neither party provides it, so they get fed up and vote them out, then the cycle repeats with the other party in power. And it's very common for people who side with either party to get mad and throw their toys whenever the opposition is in power. Both the left and the right do it. I don't know as much how your system works. Granted, as someone who literally lives a few miles from the Canadian border I've spent a lot of time up there, and have learned a little bit of your history and politics. I do know that Canada is considered a confederation, so how would that work , if say AB and SK wanted to leave? As an American, the term confederation to me would mean a loose organization of states that emphasizes state rule (in your case provincial) over federal rule. The United States actually prohibits states from secession in the Constitution. Does Canada have an equivalent to this? I ask because I genuinely don't know. If something like that were to happen, what are the implications? Could it lead to civil war?
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I think on paper this sounds admirable, but logistically there could be some problems depending on where some of these people are located and what their situations are. If you are talking Mexico and many parts of South America, the poor areas are mostly controlled by drug cartels and gangs, parts of Africa controlled by warlords, pirates, and chieftains that control the supply of pretty much everything. Aid to persons in these areas would likely result in them being robbed of it. And forget about North Korea completely, where unfortunately a large number of their civilians are starving, because their government controls everything and would never allow it to happen. I think your approach may be successful in certain situations, but there are many where a much more robust approach would have to be taken, if anything at all could be done. Not saying I have the answer because I don't, but the problem is that the majority of the most impoverished people of the world live in conditions where the local rulers, whether that be gangs or government, keep it that way for their own benefit.
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God or no God, it's still impossible for matter to emerge from complete nothingness. Absolute nothing would contain no matter, time would not exist, and any actions or changes would not be possible, as all of these things constitute 'something'. Absolute nothing would never begin or end, it would just be nothing forever. Hence why it is impossible, because obviously there is a universe full of 'something'. This leaves a handful of possibilities. An actual God, a super intelligence, or something that would seem godlike to us outside of the universe and time that made it happen, this being or beings existing eternally with no origin or end...or, an infinitely repeating cycle of universes...or, something larger than the universe, in which the universe is contained, of which is infinite in nature. Infinity must come into play somewhere along the lines. We cannot comprehend something without beginning or end, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. What is impossible is something coming from nothing, and the fact that there is something and we are here to ask these questions proves this.
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I hate to be the one to point this out, but there haven't been bad [enough] times in several generations to create the strong men who create the good times again. It completely flew by both my generation (Gen X) and the millennials as we are all getting uo there in age now. I think we can all agree the last decade or two has been no picnic, but we haven't had a world war or a depression or even a conflict the scale of Vietnam. Many say it's coming, and maybe it needs to. We're all pretty comfortable whether we want to admit it or not, even those who are poor or working paycheck to paycheck. Sure the economy sucks, the job market sucks, rent is high, taxes are high, and buying a house is out of the question for many, but there is no fear that tomorrow your number might be pulled to go off and die in a foreign war. There is no fear that tomorrow the enemy might nuke us. There is no fear that tomorrow you may not be able to put food on the table. These were all legitimate fears of prior generations and we just haven't had it and it has made us soft and complacent. We're all miserable and just spinning our wheels, there is no fire being lit beneath us. There is no urgency to have children because there is nothing to fight for, we are just all droning on through mediocrity. Population needs crisis to grow and to flourish. People complain about high living costs from their $2000 mobile device. Nobody makes the sacrifices our predecessors did. My great grandparents rented out their home and lived in basically what amounted to a shack on the back of their property to get through the depression. My grandfathers both fought in WWII. My dad was active service during Vietnam but fortunately didn't get sent there or I probably wouldn't be here writing this. What have we done? Yes, we have been crapped on by big business and big government, but what real perils have we faced? My generation is too old now, but maybe it's gen Z or the later generations who will have to step up and be the next "greatest generation". The stagnant dirge of an existence the population is in now will only continue to spiral downward unless real crisis prompts our young people to act. Don't forget that strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, and bad times create strong men. It's like the cycle just hit a stall somewhere in between bad times and weak men. Times are pretty bad but not terrible, and we are fairly weak but haven't bottomed out yet, and it has been stuck here now for at least two decades.
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I'm 46, so a gen Xer, and have two alpha children. My parents were not boomers, they were silent generation, they were old when they had me just like I was when I had my kids (less so, but still old for their day being in their 30's having children in the 1970's was old). Now I raise mine a lot like mine raised me, but again mine were not boomers and most of my peers had boomer parents, so I was raised quite a bit different. I also spent a lot of time with my grandfather who was born in 1914 so that was a prospective many even my age didn't have much experience around...I mean he was older even in WWII and served as a 28 year old officer where most of my friends grandparents were children during WWII. He had some interesting perspectives on things from that time, the war, and everything else. Being an only child also contributed to it, but I too was treated like a mini adult from early on. That has its benefits and downsides just like anything else, but overall I think it makes kids smarter and more aware of the world around them. I don't want to raise them in a bubble.
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On every one of these types of maps that shows the different cultures in America, I always notice that all of New York state is always lumped in with "Yankees" from down state and New England. As someone who has spent nearly their entire life in Western NY, I have to disagree with that. People here are vastly different than downstaters and New Englanders. We are a bit of our own subculture here I would say west of the finger lakes. We probably have more in common with Midwesterners, though aren't exactly the same and maybe have a touch of Yankeedom. But from our interests, to our attitudes, to even our voting we are much different from the Eastern half of the state. Outside of the cities of Buffalo and Rochester, it is solid red state territory here, and even in the cities they are Democrats but more like Democrats from 60 years ago that are pro labour and such but socially conservative. People here are blue collar, have traditional values, and aren't nearly as uptight for the most part. As someone who has spent a lot of time in Ohio and Pennsylvania as well as New York City, I have to say Western New Yorkers have much more in common with OH and PA than NYC.
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Ivy league schools are basically like giant networking events. It's name value. It's driving a BMW for the badge on the hood when a Chevy will get you to where you are going just as well. Yes, that BMW badge, or Harvard degree might get you noticed and open up a door you may not have had otherwise, but at what expense? Nothing is guaranteed. A friend of mine who has a 4-year state school degree that took him 5 years and he passed by the skin of his teeth with a "C" average makes more money now than practically everyone else I know combined. Why? Because he just happened to meet the right guy, who was starting up a niche business, that took off like a rocket, and my friend got in on the ground floor, made a few big sales early on, and is getting paid big commissions in perpetuity on those accounts. Yes, he is an exception to the rule. But more often you hear of the people who spend hundreds of thousands to get that "big name" University degree that don't amount to any more than that other person who went to community college, but now they are strapped with big debt for many years to come, and the community college graduate paid off his student expenses in a few years.
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We live in a new gilded age. Mark Twain described the original gilded age as an age that was an unattractive reality covered by a thin veneer of wealth. That's today to a tee. People out rolling expensive rides, living in too large expensive houses, going on their annual cruise, but in reality their big house has two sticks of furniture in them, they eat peanut butter sandwiches for dinner every night, and they are one missed payment away from foreclosure or repossession of their nice car. Credit card debt, student debt, personal loan debt, mortgage debt, all through the roof. Those who appear on top really living paycheck to paycheck. Those of us in the middle trying to save and living very modestly, more so than we should have to. Everyone is poor but everyone has a fancy phone, and many a fancy ride and a fancy house, but it's unsustainable. The bottom is falling out as we speak. The gap between the haves and the have nots is widening day by day. We're all just passengers at this point.
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@explosiverift2037 So what are you suggesting then, no punishment for crime? That's called anarchy. So then what happens in an anarchist system? Vigilantism, for one. Or you get a system like we see in places like Somalia that have little to no governance or laws where war lords and chieftains run everything, which is also comparable to in our past where in certain parts of cities where the Mafia controlled the police and everything in their neighborhoods. When there is a power vacuum, then the criminals make the rules rather than authorities. They become the authority. Justice will always be served whether the government is serving it, or it is being served by whatever gang or posse happens to run your town. There is no free for all. We aren't going to all dance around and hold hands and be friends if the criminal justice system were to suddenly be abolished. For every gripe I have with the government, and often how law and order is handled, and it's plenty, I still realize you have to have rules in society and a governing body to enforce them. Crime won't ever go unpunished, you eliminate authority and it just turns into vigilantism, it turns into the wild west. All the eye for an eye stuff that so many anti law and order people dread so much becomes a much bigger and worse reality when you eliminate or weaken actual authority, because they are simply replaced by much nastier individuals who have no rules and can punish you themselves however they see fit.
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@xaviercruz847 Agreed, it's really a viscous circle in a lot of ways. Taxes and living costs go up for workers and they have to get paid more to live or else leave. Some companies will oblige and others will skip town as well to an area where labor costs are lower. This has been traditionally true in the South. Yes, tax is not everything (I tend to default to taxes because I myself am a tax accountant and live in the tax world). Tax, cost of living, corporate mismanagement/greed, government mismanagement all play a role and feed off each other. New York unfortunately has had a long history of all these problems, even going back to some of the political "bosses" of the 1800's, the "robber barons" of the same era, or just general political corruption all the way from Boss Tweed to Elliott Spitzer. And by the way it was actually a shame about Spitzer, I am a lifelong Republican and I voted for Spitzer as one of only a few Democrats ever because I thought he had a really good business sense and was very good in his prior roles in state government. Just turns out he couldn't keep certain things in his pants 😂, but again I swear it's a NY thing with him, Weiner, Collins, and so many others in both political parties.
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What is even more fascinating to think about is within that 10^10^70 different possibilities of matter arrangements within a cubic metre, how many would there be of something that's almost you but just a couple atoms different, or even thousands different...which for all practical and noticeable purposes would be an identical copy of you. If you think about how small 1,000 atoms are, the difference between you and a version of you with 1,000 atoms that are different would essentially be an exact copy.
HOWEVER, to play a little bit of Numberphiles own probability game here, just because after 10^10^70 possibilities the process must repeat, does not mean the 10^10^70 + 1st version is going to be you again...or for that matter that you will necessarily get two of you in (10^10^70) x 2 metres of space, or a million of you in (10^10^70) x 1,000,000 cubic metres of space. It's just the PROBABILITY. It's like flipping a coin...you probably won't flip all heads or all tails in 100 flips but it's not impossible. In a universe of that size the probability is that there is a million of you, but there could be just one, or 12, or 50 billion. For whatever reason your pattern could repeat alot, or not at all, and only other patterns have repeated. 🤯
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Nobody's trying to prove anything. Prager himself is not saying he has "proof of God". He is simply stating that the concept of an afterlife goes along with a good and just God. He is saying one without the other is illogical. Maybe you think both are illogical. That's your right. Maybe others don't, that's their right. Nobody can prove the existence of God, I'm quite certain that if there is a God, it is beyond human capabilities to prove it... that's kind of the point in religion. Whether you are religious or not, the concept behind religion is that life is a test. If you already know the answer (God is proven to exist, or not exist), it kind of defeats the purpose. You either choose to believe, or you choose not to. And if you somehow think it makes you superior to insult others who believe differently than you, whether you are a believer or non-believer, that makes you a small pathetic person. There is no I know I'm right and you're wrong, because nobody knows the answer. As for Pascal's Wager, you can pick it apart all you want, but it's pretty simple and straightforward. He basically says what do you have to lose. Well, what DO you have to lose? Lose face with some internet troll on YouTube? Oh, the shame. My whole life is based on not giving a shit what others think, and religious beliefs are no exception. You do what makes you happy, and I will me, as long as it doesn't bring harm to others. Pretty easy philosophy to live by.
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Only way NY goes red is if we lop off NYC, except for Staten island, that is actually a Republican district. Most of upstate is Republican except the bigger cities, but none of them are big enough to outweigh all the Republicans everywhere else in this state if NYC suddenly broke off and became another state (which of course will never happen). Last election 55 out of 63 counties went for Trump but 4 of those 8 that didn't were Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, which also account for nearly half the states population. The other 4 were Erie (Buffalo), Monroe (Rochester), Oneida (Syracuse), and Tompkins (Ithaca).
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@russellrlf ell interesting comeback, if you want to call it that, rather than arguing against my point you just make ad hoc assumptions and use them as a strawman. But just FYI, no, I actually have never once used that line, because I don't agree with it. We are both a Republic AND a democracy. We have a democratic election system, but legislate as a Representative Republic. I am also not a "right winger", in fact people on the left think I am, and people on the right think I am a left winger... because I am libertarian, too conservative to be a liberal, and too liberal to be a conservative, so everyone except other libertarians usually disagree with me and I wouldn't have it any other way 😂
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We can all sit here and analyze this to death, but there is one fact that nobody ever mentions. That fact is that repeating firearms have existed since the mid 19th century, and in the United States from about 1860 until roughly the 1980's or 90's, pretty much any adult could get any gun they wanted at any time with no wait and no permit, excluding full automatics which were banned federally (except for those with a very difficult to obtain special license) in the 1930's, mainly because of gang related crime.
Considering that fact, I find it quite interesting that during an over 100 year span you could practically count mass shootings by individuals on one hand, of course discounting gang violence which is a whole other issue with different problems and solutions. So this begs the question of how is it that less gun restrictions mean less mass shootings? Because it's not the guns, or the availability of them. It's sociological. There are countless contributing factors, but to summarize some of the major ones, it's mental health, extremism, political polarization, a 24/7 news cycle full of sensationalism, and of course social media and internet chats that didn't exist prior to at the earliest the 1990s, and is a proven breeding ground for extremism. I could go on but you get the point. To say guns cause murder is like saying cars cause car accidents. It's flawed logic. It is the person pulling the trigger or the person behind the wheel. When there is a people problem, then we have problems with the tools we use (guns are nothing but a tool). It is also worth noting that a deep gun culture in America dating back to Revolutionary days and into the wild west has simply made guns the tool of choice. You see other parts of the world where more mass killings are done by vehicles or bombs. People who want to kill are going to find a way to do it. The solution is with people and society, not in the tools we use. Yes easier said than done, but that is the key factor. I don't care what political side you are on, it is hard to deny that we as a whole are just an angrier society in general today that throughout most of modern history.
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But nobody can ever explain this. In most states in the United States, acquiring a handgun is a process, and in some a lengthy and difficult one and you are examined very closely in order to get approval. You basically need an almost spotless criminal record, a "legitimate need", and also reliable character references. I was denied several years ago because about 20 years prior when I was 19 I was arrested and not even convicted of simple assault for punching some dude in the face. That's how particular they are in some states. Eventually I was approved because I now manage a small business and handle, hold on site, and transport cash, which the government sees as a "legitimate need".
All this said, handguns BY FAR are the number one weapon used in murders. Number two, knives. Number three "personal weapons", fists, hands, elbows, feet. Number 4, rifles and long guns, including semi automatics. Handguns are heavily regulated in most, but not all areas. Most gun crime is in areas with these heavy regulations. Anybody can get a rifle or a knife, and probably has hands elbows and feet attached to their body. So how on earth is this a gun control issue? The hardest weapon to obtain is the most commonly used. So this implies one of two things: 1) Gun control doesn't work, or 2) Guns aren't the problem, and especially not semi automatic rifles which can easily be obtained by an 18 or 21 year old depending on state with a simple call to a background check hotline, and a short questionnaire which is a joke, yet are 4th behind much harder to obtain weapons, as well as much harder to use weapons.
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It could be one of several things. Indeed we are in the middle of a fourth turning right now, or some may call it a gilded age, but nonetheless it seems to have been dragging on for some time now and I don't see the reset of the cycle hitting anytime soon. Or a more dark possibility is we are on the verge of a great filter. An event or series of events that will make or break the future of humanity, possibly ending in extinction. And it doesn't have to be a swift end, it could very well be a slow dying on the vine if you will, where we as a species basically opened Pandora's box and it will slowly kill us off and/or doom future generations into a slow extinction. The easy things to notice are the dumbing down of society, the over reliance on technology that proves itself to be unreliable, things like that. But what about the things not right in your face? The growing infertility rates. The growing rates of cancer. The awful food and drugs we are fed. People in the mid century 1900's are lard every meal, smoked two packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day, drank whisky after dinner and at business meetings, and were mostly more healthy than us. Something sinister is going on.
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I have a college degree, but have a job that doesn't require one. I make between $30-40 an hour (depending on bonuses), which is more than I ever made in a job that did require a degree, and, I like the job itself much more. I also got promoted to a manager effective January 1st, so next year going forward that wage will be more on the $40-50 an hour range. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have bothered with University, but I still would have gone to community college, as I feel that was actually valuable, and it was cheap. I learned much more about real world skills in community college, where as University was much more theoretical nonsense you will probably never use.
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I'm a 40-something late gen Xer and I actually have the pleasure of managing one of those "semi-retired" part time lifestyle boomers who "doesn't have to work". If you want to call it "managing", that is, because he basically just does whatever he wants and the business owner who is the same age as him allows it and comes down on me when I complain about how he refuses to work certain days/hours or do certain tasks when we are busy and need someone actually pitching in and willing to do whatever they need to do. I get stuck doing most of it, or regretfully have to dump it off on the young guys that are eager to work, and I feel bad because I was them once and always had extra work dumped on me. Mr. Semi retired can't work past 6pm or Saturdays because it cramps his style, won't deal with any of the "difficult" customers, leaves work that is "too hard" in a pile for me to do, and refuses to learn how to do just about anything on the computer and leaves all that work for other people as well. But I do get to hear all the stories about "When I was a manager in the hospitality industry I worked 85 hours a week and it was so demanding and I was responsible for managing 200 people". Good for you. We aren't in the hospitality industry and you aren't the manager, you are a useless pile of crap. Do your work and shut up, or better yet, just leave so I can get someone with some worth. I had, a few years ago, a woman a few years older than me that was sharp as a tack, wanted nights and weekends, did all the important work but also had no problem doing all the BS filing and crap nobody wants to do. She had to leave to take care of her elderly parents. God how I miss having her over her useless turd of a replacement. She still comes in as a customer and I always beg her to come back...jokingly because I know her situation, but semi serious at the same time.
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So in other words, will time dilate if such a method is used? It is believed that no, it would not, because by using such a method of travel (warping the plane of space, wormholes, etc) there would be no effect on time because you are not reaching relativistic speeds, you are simply taking a "shortcut" at slower speeds. Time is only effected when high speeds come into play, or you get into close proximity to a large gravitational force (e.g. a black hole). A wormhole or other "bend" in space is essentially like folding a piece of paper and coming out the other side instantaneously, you don't necessarily need to go fast to get there, you just drastically shorten the distance of the journey. It is theorized that we can produce man made wormholes, but the technology needed is well beyond our current capabilities.
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Well that's exactly it and exactly why politics are as they are. "For the good of society" in many cases is not a cut and dry matter, because society has become increasingly diverse and heterogeneous. Hence why you see political extremes attempt to homogenize their followers, so they can create a monolithic bloc of like minded individuals, even if through indoctrination and coercion...you saw that with the communists as well as the Nazis. If more people in general could be taught to understand that everything isn't a zero sum game, we would all be better off, but political extremism demands that line of thinking. Yes, for almost every action there will be winners and losers, but this has to be weighed carefully, and more of us need to ignore the very emotional rhetoric that "your side" is always getting screwed in favor of others. Of course it's always a delicate balance, but we all need to be willing to give up an inch here and there with the prospect will gain a few more in return. This is increasingly difficult in a large, diverse population who all have different needs, and in an era of instant gratification provided by technology it just makes it harder.
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Also it should be taken into consideration that these were all European definitions of left and right...which are quite different than Americans define it. In Europe the right was always the aristocracy, the nobility, and the loyalists to them, and the left were those like the revolutionary French, revolutionary Russia, Weimar, etc. It was stodgy old traditionalists and reactionaries vs. libertines and borderline anarchy. A much broader difference than as defined here. All the different definitions by region and over time have basically made a mess out of defining any of these things. In many places outside the United States, a national party is right, a liberal is center right, and a labour and or social democrat party is left. Most places outside the U.S. liberal doesn't mean left, it's more the classic definition like a modern libertarian. As a libertarian myself I also, like Dennis, say there is a big difference between a liberal and a leftist.
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Society has just become soft, and as a member of Gen X, I am not just pointing fingers because my generation is part of it. Every generation before mine, including the dreaded boomers, have faced a major crisis and/or large scale war and conscription of young men to said war. Whether that be Vietnam, the great depression, the two world wars, the civil war/reconstruction, the perils of westward expansion and the wars with the natives, the lust goes on. What do any of us have? Yes, bad stuff has happened, 9/11, middle east conflicts, COVID, etc, but nothing to the scale of prior generations. Anyone born after about 1955 hasn't dealt with the perils of the prior generations and it has made us soft. Strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, bad times create strong men. We've just been stuck in an endless loop of "not so great" times now for about 20 years or so but no major crisis yet to toughen us up. My generation is getting old now and we won't be the ones to fight the battles, but maybe it's those who are young now. Maybe you can be the difference in the future.
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Late Gen X here, born '76. Grew up old school as only child of Silent generation parents that had me in their 30's. Had a single rotary dial phone on the kitchen wall, one tv, no MTV allowed it was blocked on our cable, dad worked all the time and mom took care of me and worked part time and I would hang out with my super old school grandparents (My grandfather was born in 1914). Saturday was the day I got to hang out with my dad, he worked long hours and went to college nights. They stayed together and that was becoming less common at that point. I had a good childhood and was mostly treated like a little adult being an only child of that era, so needless to say I'm a little different than your average bear, but it was all good. The 80's and 90's were a great time to be young. First kiss at 14, first real girlfriend at 17, boys today are lucky if they touch a real woman by their mid 20's which is sad. It was a great time to be young but I don't feel like the adults had it much better than we do today. My dad worked a thankless job. We had one fairly descent car usually a Buick or Oldsmobile, but a beater for a second car. The house was average. We didn't do anything too extravagant, a few trips with frequent flyer miles dad would get from business trips. Money wasn't super tight, but fairly. I used to hear them complain about the economy and costs and stuff like people do today. It wasn't a magical time altogether, but for kids it sure seemed like it was without grown up problems. Kids today are deprived of so many of the simple yet fun experiences we had. I actually feel bad for especially young men today. Many of them tell me they wish they could have grown up when I did. They actually hate all the modern technology, social media, etc, yet they are slaves to it because there is no other option lest you become an outcast.
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Look, you can call yourself whatever you want, a man, a woman, a toaster, a tea kettle, whatever, regardless of what your physical body is, that's fine, that's your right and that's fine. But you don't have the right to mislabel yourself in order to exploit others. You also don't have the right to immunity from things others may say that you may not like. And this is where the left completely departs from reason and logic. You have the right to many things, to free speech, free expression, etc, but nobody has the right to anything that exploits or takes away rights of another. Period.
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I agree with your sentiment, and have had some exorbitant bills myself, but what is the answer? I personally don't think it's a government system. For one, government corrupts and bloats and messes up everything it touches. Secondly, it would require a substantial tax hike to pay for it. Taxing the wealthy or corporations more isn't a viable solution either because they simply pass the cost off to consumers...hence why they have very well trained teams of accountants. But yes, the insurance industry is just a giant grift, and a boondoggle for certain members of Congress who surely benefit from them benefitting. Paying someone else to maybe compensate you down the road, if they feel it's fit, is just a giant ponzi scheme. Honestly the best thing is to take both insurance and government out of it completely, but that's impossible at this point as much too big of a monster has been created already. It was almost inevitable with the advances in medical technology and prescription medicine. Stuff today that even 50 years ago would be considered a miracle. Somebody was certainly going to profit off this. I mean, look what happened to Tesla (the man), who had ideas to provide free electricity to everyone. Had someone like that come along in the field of medicine, they would have had a similar fate. Big medicine is big money and unfortunately I don't know if that can ever be changed.
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@Vanedis You be you and do what you want, if don't ever want kids that's your decision and if people want to be dicks about it, well I don't know why they care because you are not them. I will say, however, at the expense of sounding like an old know it all dad (because I am an old dad, at least 😂) that don't be surprised if your opinion changes some day. I don't know how old you are, but I am guessing relatively young. I was just like you, and on top of that I am very stubborn and set in my ways (maybe you are too). I eventually changed my mind from being dead set against having kids and had them quite late in life, at 39 and 43. I'm 47 now. For me I never wanted the party to end but realized quickly in my mid 30's it was going to end regardless of what I did because for one I was getting old, and secondly all my friends had families and other commitments. Going out drinking on a Friday night or golfing all weekend wasn't an option for them, and only became so for me if I wanted to do it alone, which I wasn't going to do. Had two kids and it was actually just what I needed at that age, but before then definitely not.
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Where I live is like that, for the most part, also, and despite the crappy weather here I am never leaving! The ironic thing is my state is dark blue, probably one of the top few darkest blue, but the region I live in is traditional and mostly conservative. It does suck with some of the ridiculous laws this state has passed, but at least I don't have to deal with the people who support all of that because they are clear the other end of the state. That state, by the way, is New York. The city mocks all of us upstate "country folk", and claims it is alright for them to make all the rules because they make all the money. Ok, I won't argue that Wall Street is bringing in alot more than our dairy and corn farmers up here, but good luck having any food on your table if you were to just eliminate all of the country folk in "flyover country". You need all of us more than you want to admit. Yeah I am an accountant and not a farmer, but many of my clients are farmers. People up here all work hard and make an honest living.
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Thomas Mills while I actually do relish the idea of a federal government that is much less powerful, yes, the effects of hundreds of years of state rule under a confederal system would be interesting to say the least. In all honesty, where slavery may have remained legal, I doubt it would have lasted much into the industrial revolution. But to see an alternate reality where this happened would be fascinating, maybe terrifying much like the Man in the High Castle. That said, where we are now with things as how they went up until this point, and switching now to such a system I wouldn't be against. Of course that's not something that would ever happen, but with the political polarization of today, and the vast gulf in political views, culture, beliefs, and way of life across all the regions of the United States, I don't think it would be such a bad thing. Let California and New York be sanctuary states for illegal immigrants, have high taxation, large welfare programs, no gun rights, no bail, and loose criminal law statute, and see how it goes for them. Yes, they do all these things now, but do so with zero federal backing because the federal system ceases to exist. I'm thinking Weimar Republic within a few years.
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Yes, my thoughts exactly. 2,500 years is actually a drop in the bucket when comparing to the grand scale of the potential to be around a million years from now. Just look at all the really bad ideas just in the last 100 years that we realized were bad soon enough, but next time we might not be so fortunate. One of many examples believing early on in the nuclear age that we could use nuclear explosions for excavation, but then realized before implementation that radiation was a thing and it was very bad. How many times in a million more years will we not catch the catastrophic mistakes before it is too late? It may it take one slip up. Many believe the next big one is the AI Singularity. I am not 100% on board with the doomsdayers on this one (I think it would be a much slower process that they think), but there are some good points. It could open Pandora's box and lead to our demise, or perhaps not, but whether it be that, or some new form of energy production, or whatever, it could take hundreds, perhaps thousands of years to realize hiw bad it is and then it is much too late ti turn back and undo any damage. I think it is inevitable. Maybe that sounds pessimistic, but we as a species are just too eager to tinker around with things we shouldn't and I feel it's only a matter of time before a major catastrophy that becomes unstoppable.
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@elinope4745 I'd say it's cherry picking when comparing the past to the present. While yes, we live longer on average, healthcare and medicine is better, nutrition is better (although I question if that is true anymore), conveniences like home appliances are better, travel is faster and easier. On the other hand, community is weaker, skills have diminished, things like that. How many people know more than one or two neighbors today? As opposed to even 30 some years ago as a kid I knew everyone on the street and frequently was in and out of almost every house and the neighborhood took care of each other and watched out for the children and such. Go back 100-200 years and this expands to the whole village. What about skills? How many of us could live off the land today? Not many. In the past you had to. If our modern conveniences ever were destroyed or went away for any reason (war, natural disaster, etc), most people wouldn't survive a month. So yes, we are absolutely guilty of cherry picking the best aspects. But, not necessarily defending it but stating a brute fact, as progress churns in, we may benefit in many ways, but we also lose some benefits to time, and that is rarely acknowledged.
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I'm a libertarian and have never had any loyalty to either party. For years I always said "same crap, different piles", and while I still think both are crap, one who is so much worse than the other that I actually have been voting straight Republican now the last few cycles. Granted, I have only voted for 3 Democrats in my entire life, all local and state, none nationally, but I also used to vote mostly 3rd party, none of the above, or not vote at all sometimes. People say the lesser of two evils is still evil, but we are talking like Pol Pot vs a petty theif here, so did whatever necessary to keep the big evil out.
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I am 110% a supporter of President Trump. That said, I have no problem with Fox News being critical of him as long as it is fair criticism. I also have no problem with Fox having a few liberal contributors and hosts, and interviewing Democrats from time to time. Being overly biased to the right is no better than CNN and MSNBC being overly biased to the left. My feeling is that you can just be balanced, give all opinions a shot, and that the conservative viewpoint will still prevail on its own merits. As conservatives we don't need to be biased and/or deceptive like the left in order for our ideas to win support, because most of our ideas are logical and work on their own. So please, continue to show both sides, be critical of both, and give credit when due. We will still prevail, and in the process, give the left one less thing to moan about when they say "Fox is biased".
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Diversity is great when people adhere to the "melting pot" theory. In other words, I'm Swedish, you're Italian, you're black, and you're Hispanic, but we're all Americans FIRST. We'll all bring a little bit of our culture and mix it into the pot for everyone to experience. We will all do our part to make the best of ourselves, our community, and our country. We'll all learn the culture and language here, even if we want to keep our own cultures close to our hearts, we can still do both. That there is when diversity is great. It has worked in the past, and it can work now. Diversity is not great when we identify ourselves with our race, religion, or national origin first, and American second. It is not great when we want to make a mini version of the "old country" in our neighborhood, and speak a different language, and segregate ourselves. Diversity can be great, or not so great... it's all how we all handle it. Identity politics are killing the "melting pot". Identity politics are killing the notion of being American first, and everything else second. If we can all be Americans first, the other differences won't matter so much then.
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Socialism is a wonderful idea in a world that lacks corruption and where all leaders are benevolent and selfless. Unfortunately we don't live in that world. Capitalism may very well have it's faults, however socialism by its very nature is a very corruptible system because in order to implement it, you must entrust individuals into positions of power to regulate economic practices. This is the inherent vice of socialism, or any ideology that involves central planning...no individual or group of individuals tasked with leadership will ever be pure enough to govern such a system fairly. Capitalism is a model that is more organic in nature, for better or for worse. The better being that any one person, in theory, can succeed through their own labours, the worse being that unscrupulous individuals out there in the free market can manipulate things to their favour, and negative side effects such as monopoly, monopsony, price gouging, etc, can occur. In my humble opinion, a base capitalist system with a modest degree of central control is the best compromise. Granted, of course, that those in control are chosen through free election.
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@alexcallender "If you can accept that god can simply exist without first being created, why can't you accept the same for our cosmos "?
I cannot accept it for the cosmos because at our current level of understanding, the cosmos is not eternal, there was a beginning at big bang and a presumed ending with heat death. This would indicate it came from somewhere, and that it will not go on forever (and this is going off the current popular opinion in science). Something with a beginning and end must have a cause.
I agree with OP that it is most logical to concur that it is a greater intelligence that is itself not created but eternally existing, a prime mover, intelligent designer, God, or whatever it may be. I should actually say "most logical" when compared to other known alternatives, those being an infinite regression or repeating loop, or, appearance out of a state of complete nothingness. Those are both illogical. I will admit I am not so extremely zealous in my opinion to say there isn't another possibility outside the realm of what we can currently conceive, but for all alternatives we can conceive, an intelligent, all powerful, and eternal force seems more logical than appearing out of nothing (impossible for nothingness to change state as a catalyst would be needed, which couldn't exist in nothingness), and a repeating loop or cyclical universe is just turtles all the way down. A multiverse would be similar, where do you stop, where is the origin?
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I hope things get better for you. So with you being 29 you must have been born the year I graduated high school as I am 47. The world was different in my day but certainly not the great utopia people make it out to be now, it's just that now is so bad it makes the 80's and 90's look perfect. It's a shame about University. That should have been the best years of your life. Heck, I enjoyed it so much I did two victory laps (took 6 years to get a 4 year degree because I partied too much 😂). You were unlucky with your timing. At your age that was one of the worst times to go to university. I certainly wouldn't want to any time after about 2010.
As an older guy now for years I always just thought younger people of around your generation were just whiners. But after watching this channel so much I have changed my view entirety. I know it's fashionable to be the downtrodden person who always has it so tough, but your generation really does. You can't do the things we did. I graduated university in 2000 and got my first job making $27K which wasn't phenomenal money but still enough to have my own place, a new car, and go out every weekend. Can barely do one of those things on twice that today. I had a good paying job for awhile after that enough to save and buy a house, but was let go in a downsizing in 2014 and was unemployed for two years. Almost lost the house but the wife just made enough along with my paltry benefits to just scrape by. Got a job with a small business now that doesn't pay great but is good honest work and run by an honest man. These things were tough, but at least people of my era had that opportunity that many of you don't have.
I really hope things turn around for your generation. It doesn't look great now but maybe we need to just bottom out before it gets better. I know one thing is I won't be retiring the way things are going, I'll work until I die. I'm getting screwed on that end but I feel like people like you got robbed of your youth and young adulthood, which I think is worse. I'm not great in advice because I've screwed up plenty in my own life, but all I can give you is don't be afraid to think outside the box and take a chance on something you don't think you would want to do if you get the opportunity. That's what I did, and while it didn't make me rich by any means, my quality of life has improved, it pays the bills, and it got me out of the big corporate rat race. That last part alone is priceless.
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He was referring to language structure, not culture, though it absolutely can be argued that the languages and their structuring also reflects the culture and attitude of the speakers of said language. And it would be significant to note that English is a Germanic language...French is Romansque. Completely different roots. Interesting comparison I get from this also is the more "direct" English speakers, which is Germanic, which also encompasses Scandinavia, also contains the people who were the most "direct" about conquering and colonization...the English, the Vikings, the Saxons, etc. One could conclude that a more direct language goes hand in hand with a more aggressive posture in terms of military conquest, but also a more aggressive, or rather ambitious, means of innovation, as Germans especially as well as other Germanic cultures have historically been very innovative and technologically ambitious. Take the Nazis for example. Of course plenty you can say negativily about them, but from a technological standpoint they were vastly superior to the Allies. With arguably the best tanks, best small arms, the first to have rocket propulsion technology and jet engines, they should have won the war if not for an insane leader that was a tactical nightmare for them, basically dooming them with an insistence on conquering the Soviets, which are up all of their resources and manpower.
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@AaronLitz Big football nerd here, I get a kick out of watching clips of old British football telecasts where the announcers call it "soccer". As an American, that's what we have always called it, but many of us who played do call it football and call American football just NFL. Interesting fact, the countries that do call it soccer are all ones where a different code of football is more popular. The United States (American football), Canada (Canadian football, very similar to American football but with a longer field and 12 men per side), Australia (Australian rules football), New Zealand (Rugby football), and Ireland (Gaelic football). Then there's the Italians, who call it "calcio", which loosely translates to "kickball" in English.
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The problem with a system, like socialism, which requires central planning, is people. You must have people whom are elected to organize the central planning, and people by and large are corrupt, or can be easily corrupted.
The problem with a system, like capitalism, that is organic in nature (the "invisible hand of the market"), is people. You must trust that in a free market system with little to no central control, that people in the system will act fairly, and while many will, enough will manipulate the system enough that it makes a total laissez faire system a disaster.
So there's your problem. It's people. It's always people, regardless of what system you use. Hence why the best solution is to take the best aspects of a multitude of economic systems and implement some sort of a hybrid system. Nobody has quite figured out the perfect mix yet, but in my opinion markets must be free of overregulation, while at the same time, having a degree of control maintaned just enough to prevent unfair market practices. Not an easy task, as those tasked with providing the laws for this regulation can themselves be corrupted and model said laws to their advantage...or just have the right people in the right places to look the other way when they break their own rules. We have seen this in the United States from members of both political parties since day one.
Socialism is a government agent coming in your store and taking 90% of your profits to give to the store across the street because they didn't do as well as you. Capitalism is the mafia coming in your store and busting it up because you are operating on their turf. Neither situation is favorable, hence why a middle ground is needed.
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What's even more ironic is that on the same note of plantations of the time being comparable to a corporate farm today, these same people who whine about the evils of all who fought for the Confederacy would themselves go out in a hot minute and fight a war if the corporate elites of Facebook, Twitter, CNN, or any tech company they like told them they were fighting for "social justice", but had sinister motives they kept to themselves. Oh wait, that actually happened with all the rioting and fighting with law enforcement that has been going on for the last few years. The citizen "soldiers", the antifa, the BLM, the leftist protesters are the tools of elites with the only objective to gain power for themselves under the guise of empty terms like "social justice". Much like the propaganda of "states rights" with the civil war, or "ending the spread of communism" with Vietnam, these "social justice warriors" of today take the bait and go fight for the man under the guise of greater things, with a big difference being though that men were actually conscripted to the other actual wars, these useful idiots of today actually want to fight and think they will make a difference.
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Yes, the Korean conflict and Vietnam war were basically proxy wars against Red China and the USSR. Many people do not realize that. Another little known fact was that Finland was allied with the Germans in WWII, mainly due to a deep hatred for the Soviets, held over from the Russo-Finnish war, and land disputes with the Soviets. The Finns, however, did eventually switch sides and fight on the Allied side. Sweden and Spain, though officially neutral, were both nominally Axis, as well as much of the Middle East, with the exception of Iran, who was believe it or not an American ally until the 1960's. And don't forget our good friends in Bulgaria, the only minor power to fight on the losing side both times.
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It may be cliche, but for some life begins at 40. You have made plenty of bad decisions, but sound like you have been on a good track now for awhile. You don't need to reinvent yourself, just be honest with yourself and maybe make a bold move like pursuing a new career path, an education, or a change of scenery and see if this can be a catalyst. I've seen others go through similar experiences. Some bounce back and others fail. My best friend from childhood is in a similar situation. He is 46, never been married, been in many terrible relationships, and has had issues in the past with alcohol and gambling. He is near suicidal now and I try to keep him positive but it is difficult. I still think there is a chance for people like him and you. I personally didn't have any issues with substance abuse, the law, gambling, etc, but I just floundered for years. Didn't marry until my 30's, have children until almost 40, and never had a job that requires didn't hate until my 40's, but while not perfect by any means, life is okay now. It's never too late.
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Pretty much everything you said makes you the exact identitarian this video criticizes. You are transgender and left, that is your identity, and everything about the other side is unfair, dishonest, and you have supposed proof to this. The fact that you consider media that is favourable to your views as "center" or neutral drives this point home even more. I always find it quite interesting how the right unabashedly will remark that their media sources are right wing, yet the left always says their are neutral. It is just another subconscious attempt to normalize your own views and place everyone else in the extremist category. There is nothing inherently wrong with having a political view from either "side", but no such view is simply the "norm" and rarely is in the "middle". An individual can be composed of a variety of views that aggregate in the "middle", but you would be hard pressed to find anyone completely neutral in everything.
Simply saying "the other side is a bunch of liars and I have proof" is just a get out of jail free card used by individuals who can't back up their own beliefs and claims with logic. If you can't accept the fact that both sides absolutely at the very least "bend" the truth to meet their own agenda, then you can't really be helped. The right and the left both bend the truth and even outright lie at times, but they do it differently. The right often hides behind religion and morality, where the left simply moves the goalposts. The right saying, for example, homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says so, isn't a viable argument because for one not everyone is going to follow the teachings of the Bible, and secondly it is not inherently right or wrong, it just exists and how we as a society handle it is what is important. On the other hand, the left in a particular recent example flat out attempted to change the actual written rules of economics and claim "there is no recession" because they are currently in control of the executive branch of the American government, even though there has been two straight quarters of downturn in the GDP and that is the very definition of recession. As you can see, both arguments are not true, but one side uses rules put forth by an authority that nobody is required to follow, while the other simply attempts to redefine the rules to their own favour.
Once you realize you are complicit in taking everything at face value from one side and just branding it as "the way", while accusing the other side of inherent evils, you are on the right track to changing yourself for the better. I was once a hardcore conservative, and completely and totally agreed with all right wing positions just because I thought they were just and moral. I have since grown to be much more libertarian in my viewpoints and have come to the realization that extremism in either direction is still extremism and is harmful.
I will also correct you on your comment about "anti-vaxxers" and climate change skeptics. This is not "anti-truth", it is rather anti-consensus. Big difference. Consensus does not equal truth. Neither of these examples have had enough time to be proven as truth. As for the vaccines, they have been around what, 2 years now? Have they completely eradicated the virus? No I get have not, so there is still an arguable position that they are not the solution. I personally really don't have an opinion because I don't believe I as an accountant rather than a doctor have the expertise to form a valid one. I took the vaccine, I am yet to get COVID, but I also went the first year of the pandemic unvaccinated and didn't get it either. Results for others are all over the place. There is no hard evidence either way that it is a rock solid solution, nor a "hoax" as some claim. As for climate change, we have not been an industrial society nearly long enough to make absolute claims in this area either. We can postulate, theorize, hypothesize all we want, and even do so strongly, but climate is a phenomena that spans millennia, and the long term effects of something that has only been going on about 150 years cannot be concretely determined, not to mention the fact that there have been historical large swings in climate patterns long before industrialism existed. Again I am neither an advocate nor a skeptic because I am not in a position to be either. Maybe a consensus of experts believe it to be true, but every day experts of yesteryear on a number of subjects are proven wrong as new evidence and data becomes available, especially in the fields of medicine and physics. While you would be ignorant to believe that pollution and waste isn't harmful and doesn't have some effect, the degree to which this effect exists is what is in debate. We can't all think the world is going to end in 10 years because of it, but at the same time we can't just bury everything and think it will go away.
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@EpicMRPancake I think the Strauss-Howe model is pretty accurate, but what it didn't account for was such an extended period of crisis, with no major event to bring the crisis to an end, which has spanned most of millennials adult lives. It has just been a long, dragged out social and economic crisis, rather than world war or something that, while devastating, is resolved within less than a generation and a rebuild begins. That hasn't happened this time, things just get progressively worse but not bad enough yet to come to a head and require decisive action, such as to use the world war example again, stopping a dictator from overthrowing the world. Though this may be coming, and the "hero" generation may skip a generation.
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A lot of generational traits skip a generation so every other one has some similarities, and every 4th generation even more similar yet because of the old cliche yet accurate cycle of "strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make hard times, hard times make strong men". Your generation actually shares more commonalities with mine (gen X) as we have one in between us. I actually see that first hand now. I am 46, and I attend my college fraternity's alumni dinner every year since I graduated in 2000, at which people from the earliest members who are boomers and graduated in the early 1980's (chapter was founded in '80), to current students interact with each other. All the ones in the middle were the weirdest ones for me because I didn't relate as well to millennials. Now for the past few years all the undergrads and newly graduated are gen Z, and they are in some ways but not entirely a lot like us, and the guys my age have a lot of fun getting together with them. It's so funny because all "you kids" dress like we did (and I still do 😂), like similar music, and have similar interests. I and others my age connected better with the people in their early 20's than the those in their 30's and closer to our own age.
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America has always been great. Yeah, we had our dark moments...slavery, interment camps, President Carter, President Obama...but hey, can't hit a home run every time you go to bat. Even during the dark times of Obama, I still loved my country...(I just love it a little more now 😁)...but that's what separates us from the far left. We love our country, bumps, bruises, and all...but they hate the country because it doesn't follow THEIR view of how things should be. They are kind of like that 3 year old child that takes his toys and goes home, and says he hates his best friend, because his best friend wouldn't play the games he wanted to play.
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@jmagicd9831 My family is like that too. In fact it skips all over the place. My mom is technically silent generation (1944) and my dad just at the very beginning of the boomer generation at 1947 but just by about a year. I am actually late generation X (1976) and I skipped two generations having my kids, they are 6 and 2 years old. My grandfather, my mom's dad, was born in 1914, so at least a generation before the silent generation, maybe two? We all have tendency to have children when we are old in my family. My grandfather at 30 having his first was ancient by 1944 standards, but he went and fought in the war even though he was in his late 20's and beyond the maximum age for the draft, so his life was held up a bit. My mom was 32 when she had me. I had my first at 39 and my second at 43. Really just my dad was a proper boomer just by a year but he didn't act like one. My parents were both first-borns, and all their siblings, my two aunts and one uncle, definitely are quintessential boomers. My uncle blew his brains out on LSD in the 1970's and is still alive now and is a complete mess. My two aunts, while always good to me, were both selfish party girls that got divorced young and left my cousins to more or less be raised by our grandparents. I am fortunate that my parents were hard working and family oriented and didn't get the boomer curse. All this and the one who lived the completely straight life, my dad, drops dead at 66, while all the grasshoppers are still dancing around with their fiddles and have all now officially outlived him as he died 9 years ago.
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I am in my 40's. When I was a teenager and in my early 20's, I cared about chasing girls, drinking, where the next party was, and then some extent sports back before they became a political platform. The young people today care about political causes, "climate change", alphabet soup rights, and the latest cause pushed by the mass media. Social media and the 24 hour news cycle has created this monster. Nobody just wants to be young and have fun anymore, and this is a big problem. We have created a whole generation of drones. Granted, there are some exceptions, but they are few and far between. Sadly, I think the bottom line is there are just more stupid and weak willed people than smart, strong ones, and because of this, young people WANT to be controlled now. A far cry from the rebellious nature of the youth of yesteryear. These are people that will never fall flat on their face and have to pick themselves up because they play it safe, and they CONFORM. I count myself lucky I had some of the misfortunes I did from my rebellious carefree younger years because I learned valuable lessons and it made me a stronger person today.
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@johnwolf2829 I would expand on this by saying that communism, as well as socialism or any other sort of planned economy/welfare state ideal is appealing to young people (and henceforth is their primary target), because the young people are the people who still are, or very recently have, been under the care of parents providing for them, so the thought of a "nanny" type government continuing this care while they can continue putting in minimal effort is appealing. They have not yet experienced a long existence of making their own decisions and the freedom of providing for themselves and making their own choices, for better or for worse. Mom and Dad have mostly done this up to this point. And those only a few years out from this are likely struggling because it's almost always hard starting out. When a man in a nice suit appears on tv and tells you that YOU can have everything the next guy has and all you have to do is check that box on the ballot, that's pretty damn appealing to your ordinary young person. Hell, it would have been to me as a young man as well, but I knew better. I knew a system that didn't reward based on merit and output couldn't be sustainable. When more people are collecting benefits than are producing, then how does the economy keep moving? How do you have that loaf of bread or toothbrush you need just waiting for you to buy at a minimal cost on a store shelf when more people want to stay home and collect their government checks than want to make bread and toothbrushes? Sure, not everyone will be a leech on the system, but more will be than can be sustainable.
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In many cases, it ends up being the maximum by default. Elimination of the minimum wage would make hiring more competitive. The places that paid more could be more selective in who they hire, especially if they offered incentives for pay raises, and their business would flourish and create more jobs. Places that wanted to offer low wages and no incentives would eventually fail. This would cause competitive wage offerings by businesses. Right now because of the minimum wage, everyone offers the bare minimum, so everyone else does it, and everyone who works for them offers the bare minimum work because there is no incentive to not just "work just hard enough not to get fired". It also curbs transientism in jobs...which reduces training costs among other things. Back when I was young and in school, the minimum wage was $5.15/hr. Pretty much all the fast food joints paid that, and many retail stores. I took a job at a retail store that paid $5.75 to start, $6.00 after 90 days, and annual performance based increases. It doesn't sound like alot, but an extra $20-30 a week went a long ways for a broke college student in the 1990's. I kept that job for 5 years, and everyone else I knew hopped around dozens of jobs for years. Replacement costs are high for employers, so retaining employees is advantageous.
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The whole world now is living for everyone else. They live for the attention they get on social media. They live to have the best stuff to show off to people who don't care and only care about themselves. Instead live for you, live for your family, live for the people you love and who love you. I have never had a social media account and never will. I drive an old truck, work a modestly paying job, and get by with old things, hand me downs, old furniture I fix up and refinish, stuff like that. I don't take expensive vacations, heck I don't take vacations, full stop. Maybe me and the wife get away to a concert or a ball game and one night away once every few years. That's enough. We are thrifty, we cut coupons, we shop at dollar stores and discount stores. I barter stuff with friends. We're not poor, but we're simple. And I couldn't be happier. Have a wife of 16 years, two boys, my mom right down the road, and a handful of good friends. All the pretenders and fake people cut out of my life. It's the only way to live.
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If Qatar is so evil, being that they are the polar opposite of all the wokesters in these other countries, then why did they allow the World Cup to be played there? Also, why would they allow a nation who has made all its wealth from the evil oil to host, doesn't that go against all the climate alarmism? I know why. Because the almighty dollar speaks much louder than wokeism and climate hysteria. Just give these hypocrites a few dollars and watch how fast they abandon their "principles". Also, it wouldn't surprise me if they purposely picked a very conservative, religious country to host just to have an excuse to protest and whine about it. If they really had principles, they wouldn't allow the tournament to be there no matter how much money it brought them. If they really had principles, maybe I would actually respect them, even if I do disagree with them. But they don't, and that is obvious.
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Well change in it of itself isn't always positive, change can be positive or negative. While yes, outright resistance to all change is bad, on the flip side advocating change simply for the sake of change is equally dangerous. I think it is natural for people to be skeptical of some changes, but if we can embrace the good ones and reject the bad ones we would do better. The problem is this isn't always black and white, there are differences in opinion, or, different impacts on different people. I think we can all agree that modern medicine has been a positive change, however more controversially, one may also argue we have gone too far in some aspects with the whole "there's a pill for everything" attitude and not all of these miracle cures have turned out to be good and sometimes have done more harm than good. An example of a bad change would be when the world of interior decorating was revolutionized in the Victorian era with bright paints and wallpapers that turned out to contain poisons like Arsenic and Cobalt and Iridium, and it actually killed people. If we can accept positive change while at the same time admitting when some changes are bad, that's a step in the right direction.
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@MrBrock314 Actually you don't pay less for healthcare, you pay much, much more. First, you pay way higher taxes than we do to cover a government single payer system. Second, rather than sit on a waiting list to die, you come down here and use our superior system and pay out of pocket to do so if you have any serious health concerns. So essentially you pay twice. And don't deny it because I worked for a hospital a few miles from the Canadian border for years and you guessed it, about half our patients were Canadian!
Even if your system was superior, which it clearly isn't, everything else about your country is inferior. We have a bigger and better economy, much more personal freedom, a much bigger and better equipped military (who by the way basically protects your asses as well), and most importantly, we DON'T have a pompous left wing dictator like Trudeau.
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My opinion is that this push for interracial couples comes down to a left wing push for sameness. If all the races and cultures mix together, there will be no more unique cultures, just one giant monolithic bloc of "same", which they can brainwash and manipulate. If you read any history about communists and other far left wing regimes, the goal is always to make everyone the same (equally poor and miserable), because being unique does not fit well with manipulation and mind control. And don't let them fool you with all of this "diversity" nonsense, all that means is "nonwhite". But in reality they hate every other culture just as much as whites, they just pretend to like them so they can get their votes. In reality, they just want one huge bloc of mutts with no unique cultures or identities that they can mould into their new world order of "sameness"...well, WE will all be the same, just a bunch of carbon copy bots that look, act, and vote the same, but THEY (the elite) will still have the freedom to be and do what they want.
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New York in general is pretty "red" except for the large cities, although I suppose you could say there is a similar situation in most states. In the "rust belt" cities like Buffalo and Rochester, and again probably very similarly across the other rust belt states, the Democrats are not far left elitists like you see in cosmopolitan cities like NYC, DC, etc, they are mostly blue collar laborers that vote Democrat because they belong to a labor union and their dad and their granddad voted that way. These are actually people, I believe, would not side with the elitists and wokesters if push came to shove. Many of these types of people are my clients, and they talk about politics, and they don't like the way things are going anymore than the most right wing people I talk to. They are getting hit in the wallet just as badly. It's the elite and the welfare class we have to worry about. The welfare class will do the elites bidding because they have everything to lose if the power shifts.
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I know it is easier said than done, but the goal should be not to undermine the law, but to weed out the bad police officers. The law is fair, it is designed to keep us safe, whether you agree with particular laws or not. I would like to think the vast majority of police officers are also fair, but of course they are humans, not robots, so some are flawed. Rioting, looting, and harming others won't solve anything. Holding the few bad cops out there accountable is the right thing to do. Again I know, easier said than done, but somehow that needs to be the goal. All this chaos going on now is only designed to divide us and breed hatred.
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@masterzoroark6664 You clearly don't understand what capitalism is. Capitalism has led to nearly every modern convenience you enjoy. Capitalism has led to better innovation, better medicine, more food on the table. Capitalism does not equate to a voracious pursuit of wealth. Some less than scrupulous individuals may exploit the system to be that for themselves, but overall the system is simply that of supply and demand and compensation based on merit and amount/quality of work. Again it may not always go this way in practice, but in general it seems to work out pretty well. A skilled worker is typically paid more than an unskilled one. Is this biased? No, because labor has a value, and furthermore, an unskilled individual is free to learn a skill and advance.
I gather what you have a problem with is crony capitalism. I, a staunch capitalist, also depise it. It is a bastardization of the system. But that's the unfortunate side effect, wealth generates power, and power corrupts. I'll take the many goods over the few bads though. In a socialist system, it's simply the government calling more of the shots, and this can just as easily be corrupted as the "robber barons" of capitalism are, and unfortunately for that system, it's much harder to dispose of a corrupt government drunk with power, than a handful of super wealthy individuals.
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@masterzoroark6664 Accumulating wealth may not make an individual better, but it makes a country better, and it makes innovation better. No system has a completely balanced allotment of spoils and capitalism is no different. But as a whole if one can get past the fact that maybe your neighbor gets a little more than you for doing less and you think it's unfair, overall we are all better off with better technology, better medicine, and more food on the table because the very system itself drives competition and innovation. Negative side effects and all, it's a pretty effective system and is yet to be topped. Of course there are winners and losers in the system, but everyone has a shot at being a winner. I'd rather have that shot than to be pre destined to mediocrity. And this is coming from someone with a pretty mediocre job, mediocre salary, and average lifestyle and possessions. I could have done more but I didn't and I only have myself to blame and not the system (not that I am upset about it, I am completely content being more or less average, but others who may not be deserve the shot at more).
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Well that's exactly it. The people who play the race game are self loathing individuals who are not proud of what they are, hence why they are such miserable people. I would bet that most Americans would be like the people in this video, contrary to what the mainstream media tells us. There is a difference between pride and narcissism. You can be proud of being white, black, tall, short, Italian, Chinese, Norwegian, etc, without thinking that what you are is superior.
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What many fail to understand is what the entry level pay is does not matter, because the market adjusts itself accordingly. Does it really matter if the entry level wage is doubled, if the cost of goods, services, housing, etc all double as well? No, no it doesn't. Minimum wage could be a dollar an hour or a hundred, and to the person making the minimum, it wouldn't make much difference in terms of disposable income. Who is effected are not the minimum wage earners, and not the ultra wealthy, because well, they are wealthy. No, who is effected, and negativity so, is the middle and lower middle class. When the minimum wage goes up from $7.25 to $15, but the prices of goods and services all go up nearly double, the person making $16 an hour both before and after the hike in the minimum wage is the one who suffers.
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Yes, "gun deaths" and homicides by gun are two entirety different things. "Gun deaths" include suicides, hunting accidents, etc. Suicides for sure shouldn't be a factor because most people suicidal enough to go through with it would just as easily overdose, slit their wrists, hang themselves, or shut themselves in their car in a closed garage and run it to kill themselves if a gun wasn't available. I suppose you could say accidental deaths by firearms are relevant, because without the firearm available they likely wouldn't have happened another way, but these account for a very small fraction of "gun deaths". Using such a statistic is an effective way to inflate the problem and cause panic and discontent, and this is done by design. I might also point out that interestingly enough, with all this pushback on "AR style" weapons, they are also but a small fraction of the whole, the vast majority being handguns because they are the easiest to conceal. But most of the "high profile" mass murders are done with semi automatic weapons and rifles so they get more attention. My state has all but banned "AR style" weapons, yet it is perfectly legal to own (and I do own) the same gun that was used in one of the largest mass murders outside the United States in Norway by Anders Brevik. Specifically, a Ruger mini-14, which is essentially the same weapon and fires the same .223 round as an AR-15, but just lacks the tactical features of an AR. Shows how stupid these pencil pushers in government are.
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Not in all cases, but in many cases, "church" has just become a place to be seen. "I am holy and pious because I go to church every week, and I make sure everyone else sees me going there with my picture perfect family...yet the other 6 days of the week I cheat on my wife, beat my kids, and embezzle money from my employer.". Again, this is certainly not universal, but I have found that being active in a congregation is a perfect place for bad people to hide and pretend they are good. Yes, there truly are many good people there as well, but the whole thing is a turn off for me. I went almost ever week with my parents until I was about 16-17. Then as I got older I realized how much for show and for socializing and gossip it really was, so I quit going. You can be a faithful believer without belonging to any particular congregation or denomination. I am, and I haven't set foot in church in probably about 20 years.
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With the exception of South Africa under apartheid, almost every society the world over throughout human history has been geared towards the majority. Why wouldn't it be? If you are not a member of the majority, you assimilate, or you go elsewhere. And that's what people did in the United States for generations. They came here, learned the language, followed the laws, but still kept their cultural identity and eventually many of those cultural things became part of our everyday life, take for example Italian restaurants, Mexican restaurants,etc, they are now as "American" as anything else. How about the "all American" hamburgers and hot dogs? Those are German. And black culture as well has been in the mainstream for years now. Where do you think rhythm and blues came from?
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OP gives a very good explanation of a subject I know next to nothing about. My personal thoughts (which have nothing to do with piloting a ship because I know nothing about it) are that IF this were a terrorist attack, then why in the middle of the night when no traffic is in the bridge, why not take out a few hundred people in the act by doing it at a peak hour? Secondly, why Baltimore? That doesn't add up either, a terrorist is going to attack a high profile target like something in NYC or LA, you have to consider the terrorist mentality, like how they attacked the twin towers because of their symbolism of American financial power. They could be blowing up football stadiums full of people, but they don't, they go for something symbolic because that's what they do. A bridge in Baltimore isn't at the top of the list of high profile targets. I doubt it was terrorism, and likely was just a major foul up by the crew of the ship, who may or may not have been a bunch of inept "diversity hires".
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100%. I am generation X. There is a reason we are often called the invisible generation. Nothing huge happened during our teens, coming of age, and young adult years like with other generations. Sure some very big things happened, the Challenger explosion, the Berlin wall, the collapse of the USSR, the first wave of the wars in the middle east, etc, but nothing the level of for example Vietnam or 9/11, that while not necessarily any less significant than the others I mentioned, events such as those two in particular had huge societal and political impacts. We are another "sandwich generation", like the silent generation was, sandwiched between the world wars and too young to remember the great depression.
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The problem isn't that we don't have socialized healthcare, the problem is that we do have a bastardized system of healthcare insurance. Because of our system of insurance, prices of medical care and medicine has become artificially inflated. There is a big problem when a hospital bills an insurance company $100 for a single dose of Tylenol and $50 for a pair of disposable rubber gloves. Ideally, a fully out of pocket system would be best, but of course not everyone can afford to pay OOP. Under the current system, it's a vicious circle. The hospital overcharges the insurance company, who in turn overcharges you the consumer. I don't know what the right answer is, but insurance doesn't work, and socialized medicine wouldn't either. Maybe some sort of mandatory employer-based "sick bank" that banks a portion of your pay towards healthcare costs (keeping the government out of it as much as possible), but I suppose that could just as easily be corrupted. Obviously the poor would still need some degree of government aid, but that also needs massive reform. I worked in healthcare finance for years and the system is a mess, I have seen it first hand. At the time (about 5 years ago) when I was still in that job, Medicaid paid the hospital a maximum of $264 per patient, regardless of whether they had a hangnail, or brain surgery. Again, that doesn't work. Again, I don't have the answers, but I can certainly tell you plenty of specifics of what is wrong with the current system.
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Learn a trade, or take non-college training classes for a variety of professions such as sales, tax preparation, insurance, or many other "white collar" professions that don't actually require college. If you really feel you must go, go to community college. I learned much more there than I did in years 3 and 4 at University, as well as in my graduate program. Funny now I do taxes and not only have earnings equal or better (depending on how well I do in a particular season) than in my "college required" jobs of the past, but I like the job better, and work less hours annually (I work a ton January to April, then very minimally the rest of the year). And I could have got this job with no college and just a few training courses that are equivalent to maybe 9 college credit hours. Yeah, I was exempt from having to take the classes because of my accounting background, but I took 160 credit hours only to find myself better off in a job that requires only the equivalent of 9.
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Windigo Jones I believe that by "hardcore" atheist, he meant someone who goes out of their way to criticize those who believe differently. But atheism, as well as theism, isn't "hardcore" or "light" in terms of belief. You either believe in a higher power or you don't. And personal intelligence has nothing to do with it. Sure, there are alot of smart atheists, but that doesn't mean their position is correct. There are alot of smart far left wing whackos too. The staffs at colleges are full of them. People with advanced degrees and high IQs. Yes, you can be educated on religion and on politics, and it can influence you...but for the most part people are going to believe (or not believe) what the want, regardless of how intelligent they are. I am very interested in science and astronomy, yet I also believe in God. As another commenter said, the two are not mutually exclusive. My position also is that order does not spontaneously appear, there has to be a catalyst of some sort. Maybe the universe is random chance, maybe it is designed by a higher power, or maybe it is a living entity, or maybe some other option we can't comprehend. I choose to believe in the higher power option. You are of course free to believe as you do. And for the record I have an IQ of over 140 and have an advanced degree. So I am certainly not stupid. The more science I learn, the more I actually believe in God. And no, I am not a fundamentalist who takes the Bible literally. The Bible is a story written by MAN thousands of years ago. I don't go to church, and I don't identify with any particular religion. But my belief is that science and belief in a higher power are not at odds with each other, rather they compliment each other through the rigid order of the universe.
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Windigo Jones "Our existence means nothing". I actually feel sorry for you. What a dismal way to go though life. If you read my prior comment, you know my position. However, God, god, or gods, or nothing of the sort, humans, nature, and the earth are pretty special. Which does give it all meaning. Legitimate science, not crackpot theories, estimate there may only be a handful of other intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. Which if correct, does give us purpose and meaning, because maybe we are the ones that will someday be responsible for spreading civilizations around the cosmos. That is if we don't destroy ourselves first.
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@luxuryseaviewvillas6744 I don't think PJW got it wrong, I think it was misunderstood by some viewers. The way I interpreted this was not that these people are assholes for not having children, but rather they are assholes for trying to act superior to others for a life decision they made differently that makes them no better or no worse. I think he is mocking the people's behavior rather than their life decisions. And I agree. Have kids or don't, that's your decision, I do but I didn't always want to. But that's neither here nor there. What is on show here is the typical social media idiots that want to glorify everything they do, "everything I have and do is the best, my life is fabulous and you are a bunch of losers. Envy me! Envy me!". That's what this is. It's about shallow people who are coping with their inner misery by trying to project some enviable lifestyle, that in reality is pretty drab and ordinary. I mean going to Costco with your wife and buying a bunch of junk food is glamorous? I know people like this in real life and it's not always about having or not having kids. It's whatever they do. Their job is the best, their car is the best, their town is the best. Why do you have your job, your car, and live where you live? That's what losers do. You're a loser. I'm great and everything I do is great.
That's the point I get from this.
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@nickkk420 Yes we did, and I owned a couple 80's and early 90's vehicles that got high 30s and even 40s for mpg. However they had around 70 and 90 hp. Yes they were light also, but of course they predated all the requirements on current safety features (airbags, etc). Also they had all the joy of driving as a lawn mower. Both were manual transmission, which made them a little more responsive, but they were still SLOW, and in the fast paced world we live in today, your typical consumer wouldn't want one. That is our problem. We want efficiency, less pollution, etc, but we also want our 400hp land yachts with 18 tv screens and every other tech gadget we can imagine that all adds weight. Heck, in my '85 Civic, a cigarette lighter was an OPTION (mine didn't have one, or any DC port of any sort!)
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The common goal of multiculturalism, or at least what they say, is "fairness". The problem is, nature isn't fair, nature is survival of the fittest. It doesn't matter how enlightened some humans think they are, the hard fact is we are still a part of nature. Lions in the wild don't share their kill with the weaker lions and the different colored lions, no, the strongest lions get the most kills and the most meat, and get stronger and the weakest ones blood lines die off. It will work the same way with humans. If we would rather give jobs and resources to people based on their skin color, culture, etc, rather than their abilities, then we are all in big trouble. Put it this way, I would rather have a doctor of any race that knows what they are doing than a doctor that got hired to fill a quota.
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Identity politics, by its very definition, sets itself up to implode on itself. When you have groups that you believe deserve special protection and rights, who all conflict with each other, and in some cases, even hate each other, you have a big problem. Muslims against lbgt is just one of many examples. We are seeing conflict between feminists and transgender people, blacks and gays, blacks and Hispanics, and many more. It is a recipe for disaster as these groups all try to jockey for position as the most "special" of groups. And the far left keeps pushing for it because conflict creates chaos, and chaos creates neediness, and neediness creates call for help to big brother government. That is their plan anyways, but what they didn't account for was these groups turning on each other. The goal was just to make them all hate straight, white Christians.
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Sounds to me like you have what they used to call attention deficit. I have it too, and I also have an IQ around your level. It's actually very common among highly intelligent people. The reason is because you are thinking on a different level than everyone else around you, so all the stuff geared towards them is uninteresting to you, so you drift off, and you don't care. Your school fucked up bad handling it like they did. You should have been sent off to a small focused gifted group, not special ed. It's a sad story and I can only say I'm sorry you went through it. Brilliant minds, unfortunately, are often tortured minds. Society is built around conformity, especially in institutions like education, and is geared towards keeping all the "normies" in line. They have a hard time handling someone different. I didn't suffer the same circumstances you did, however I can somewhat relate because though while they always recognized that I was gifted intellectually, they constantly labeled me as a "bad attitude" and always wanted to "counsel" me. People like us are just square pegs in a sea of round holes. There is nothing wrong with us, it's just that idiots don't know how to handle it.
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Two groups of 23 wouldn't actually be 100%. You wouldn't add the two roughly 50% probabilities of each group. Think of it like flipping two coins. Each coin itself has a 50% chance of landing heads. But if you flip two coins, there is not a 100% chance one will land heads, there is a 75% chance. There are 4 outcomes, H-H, H-T, T-H, and T-T, of which 3 out of 4 contain heads. Goes the same for the two groups of 23 people. Group A there is roughly a 50% chance two people will share a birthday. Same with group B. There are 4 outcomes again. 1) A has a shared pair and B does not, B does and A does not, 3) both do, 4) both don't. So a 75% chance that at least one of the groups had a shared pair of birthdays. It's actually lower than a group of 46, because you can't compare people across groups.
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The explanation for millennials supporting communism is actually quite simple. It's the education system. It has been overrun with radical instructors. There have always been some around, but there are more than ever now. Social media hasn't helped either. It gives radical individuals a platform to influence others, and as we all know, many of the younger generation are addicted to it. I am just old enough to have missed this as a late generation Xer. It was starting to creep into our society back in the 1990s, but we were still more or less taught the evils of communism still at that time. This has really come about in the last 20 or less years. I am also just old enough that I clearly remember the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc regimes in the early 90's. They do not because they were small children or not even born yet. These people have been brought up in a world where they have continually told the system is unfair, and grew up being sheltered and given participation trophies for everything. While I agree not everything is fair in life, I still believe that hard work and persistence pays off. But what is really different in terms of viewpoint is the definition of fair. Fair is opportunity, not necessarily results. Having the opportunity to succeed is true fairness, even if it is a difficult process. To me, it is the epitome of unfair to equally compensate everyone regardless of their efforts and skills. Some people work harder than others, and some have more skills than others, and for the most part, a free market economy rewards that. Being equally compensated for simply existing in class comparison to someone with a higher skill set and better work ethic, as in communism, is unfair. The only way some will learn is to gain success and have it taken away in the name of "fairness". It needs to hit them personally.
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Me, a gen Xer, and my silent generation mother (very end, born 1944) were just talking today about how much better teachers were when I was in school compared to now. They all wanted you to learn, and they encouraged critical thought as opposed to indoctrination and one sided views. We were always presented all viewpoints, then graded on the quality of our presentation rather than our opinions, even if it countered theirs. I am pretty conservative in my overall viewpoints of most things and clearly remember having some very obvious liberal teachers that were still fair towards my viewpoint and I still remember as some of my favorites. That doesn't happen anymore. And I didn't stop to think about that most of my teachers were indeed of the silent generation. I still remember my 6th grade teacher we were his final class before his retirement. Which would have made him a minimum of 55 years old in 1988, so if he is still alive today would be pushing 90 or in his 90's. Irrelevant to this point, yet still interesting, my 78 year old mother's kindergarten teacher just died last year, and had to be nearly 100. She was still substituting when I was well in to school, probably like middle school, which would have made her close to 70 and then and still teaching. Impressive.
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AOC is a very bad representative of her generation. I myself am generation X, but I have alot of millennial friends. It's a slow process, but many are turning around and seeing reality as they get older. People on the right are all concerned with the latest polls about patriotism, religion, and such. But those are authorities, religion and the state. When have young people ever liked authority? Most will grow up, but not all. The left will continue to target the younger generations just like they always have, because they know that their viewpoint is emotional, and younger people tend to be more emotional and less logical. But they grow up. Yes, they have worked this generation harder than any in the past, but I still have hope for the country. At the end of the day, the United States is still a mostly capitalist, demand economy, freedom loving, anti authoritarian country, and will remain so, no matter how much the extremists try to ruin it.
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To think that in the time of America's founders, medicine hadn't really advanced much from medieval times and back is one of many indicators of how quickly we have progressed now just since the industrial revolution. I mean they were still bleeding out illness with leeches. Even within the last century we didn't understand things like radiation, lead poisoning, etc, just to name a few and suffered setbacks but fortunately avoided catastrophy is amazing. What are we doing now that is terrible that we don't yet know is terrible? Or 100 years from now what will we be doing wrong? Or even tomorrow? As technology progresses, so does risk, exponentially. Yes we can't live in the stone age forever either, but what new technological wonder could spell our doom, and what if it takes generations to figure it out and it's too late? Not trying to be overly pessimistic, but realistic. Will it be AI, will it be some future "wonder" energy source, will it be something completely unforseen? And will we react quickly enough? We have already avoided many "Great Filters", but many more will come. Will we be ready?
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IAmaPersion agreed, college did used to cost much less, but one big difference was you didn't have to have it just to get your foot in the door. My dad, back in the 1970's, was hired into a job that then required a high school diploma, but today requires a bachelor's degree. He took it upon himself to get a bachelor's going nights after work on his own dime. This eventually got him a promotion, into a job that later required an MBA, but he never got one. Today, colleges know this, so their product is more in demand, hence a higher cost. Outside of medical school, engineering, teaching, and other specific disciplines that required college, back 40 years ago, college was in many ways more for self enrichment than it was a requirement.
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And for the record, I have a Master's degree, and now hold a job that only requires a high school diploma and a 3-month certificate program, and I make more money and am happier with the job in general than my old job that required a master's. Mainly because my current job pays off productivity rather than salary. Not commission, as in sales, but in piecework calculated based on work completed and gross revenue brought into the business. You can treat that however you see fit. You can work part time, choose to take easier work, and make a basic wage, or, you can work more hours, opt for harder tasks that bring in more revenue, and make $40-50 an hour, or more. And I just can't tell you how much more satisfying it is to get out of a job what you put into it. It makes you like the job more and want to work more, at least it does so for me.
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Doesn't matter how overused or clichè that line is, it's still true, has been true for all of civilization, and will continue forever. It's how humans are wired. Things get good and easy and we get complacent, and by default complacency will begin to make everything rot, then things go downhill, we panic, we suffer for a time, then we dig in and correct it. I don't care who it is, we are all guilty of complacency. This is why things like communism and Keynesianism only work on paper and not in reality. Both systems rely on the people (in the case of communism) or the government (in the case of Keynesianism) working to full capacity even when the times are good. We all know it never actually happens like that. People: "ah, production is booming, I can let off the gas a little and everyone else will pick up the slack". Government : "ah, the economy is booming, no need to put that surplus towards paying down the debt".
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It is a fun exercise, but the thing about any sport is the unpredictable nature of teams strength from year to year. While yes, the "big 6" have been dominant now for over a decade, people forget that Manchester City was a 3rd division side less than two decades ago, and teams like Wigan Athletic, Nottingham Forest, Blackburn Rovers, and the now defunct Wimbledon FC were mainstays of the top flight in the 1980s and 90s, with Blackburn even winning the title in the mid 90s. Almost unthinkable now. While this exercise was fun and interesting, it would be impossible to account for a huge financial takeover of some lowly small club, as well as taking into account promotion and relegation, injuries to key players, financial problems, etc. Who knows, 5-10 years from now Salford City could be the next Manchester City with the investment that has been put into that club. Or you can have one of the big clubs going down because if financial issues or league sanctions. It happened to Rangers of the Scottish Premier League, who were one of two dominant teams for the last century, but they had a spell where their club went into administration and was liquidated and had to rejoin at the 4th division. Could that happen to the likes of a team like Manchester United or Liverpool or Chelsea? Unlikely but not impossible.
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In New York, if you basically have to beat someone with a "deadly instrument", which includes a club, a knife, a hammer, and a handful of other weapons, in order to get felony assault. If you just beat them up with no weapon and cause "substantial" physical harm, it is assault 3rd, a misdemeanor. If you spit on someone, grab them, or punch them but only cause minor bruising, it's harassment 2nd, not even a crime, a violation. New York laws are totally biased in favor of the perpetrator.
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Most of that region, Virginia, what later became West Virginia, Maryland, southern PA, was predominantly Scots-Irish-Welsh. This too is one side of my family's heritage, they come from south west Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh. Of note, this where the term "hillbilly" comes from, or so I have been told although this also could just be lore. All the Scots-Irish that lived in the hills of Southern PA and Virginia, and apparently William was a common name among them.
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Biden and Democrats immediately went in and blamed guns, of course. But the question I have that nobody ever asks them is, if it is the fault of guns, then why 40-50 years ago did this kind of thing basically never happen, when access to guns was much, much easier? My answer, it may be opinion but nonetheless, is two things. One, 24/7 hate and violence spewed on the TV and the internet. Two, nowhere exists any longer to separate mentally ill people from society. 50 years ago many of these people would have been locked up in a padded room. Yes, that doesn't come without its problems, but there also weren't mass killings on a regular basis.
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I don't always agree with Joe in terms of sociopolitical aspects, in fact more often than not I don't. I still enjoy his work because he is brilliant, he explains things in a way people can understand, and he can present a counter point to my own beliefs that is fair and rational and challenges me, which is a good a thing. Agreement does not need to always be reached to respect another point of view of it is presented logically and tastefully.
That said, I mostly agree with Joe on this subject and think he does a very good job in his analysis. It is rather obvious to me that he is to the left politically of my positions in general, but where we come together is that we both believe in capitalism, but just like him, I believe it does need another round of major revamping like was done 100 years ago. I was impressed that he didn't just jump to the conclusion that we must scrap the system and just start over with socialism, which many other critics of the modern American system do, and they are wrong. Capitalism is indeed a system that brought many positives to our society, but when left unchecked for too long can get a bit out of control and leave too many people behind. It is time for some adjustments indeed. It is the same concept as freedom. If you take it for granted and get lazy and just "let the system work itself out", you eventually lose it. Capitalism, just like any other economic system, will also turn into an oligarchical nightmare if not continuously tweaked and checked. For example I believe strongly that every different type of labour has a different market value. Assembling a part on an assembly line, while important to the whole process, requires less skill and education than managing the companies finances, so naturally the assembly line worker should not be paid as much as the CFO. However, if the company enjoys success, the assembly line worker does not often see much of any of the fruits of this success, hence why the gap in wealth has grown so dramatically. Putting some of that additional profit back into the hands of the bottom tier workers is not only fair, but even throw fair out the window and it is also productive and increases morale, and has often been a model of success in many companies that have experimented with it. Even big evil Walmart has had profit sharing for lowly sales associates. Yes that's a drop in the bucket, but it is a start.
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@domitron Interesting stuff and good discussion. And yes, of course there is the "political" element to all of this. I've heard the "chemtrails" theory thrown about too, it's more or less tin foil hat stuff. You get the religious extremists that believe they should have 27 babies because "God wants it that way", and others (I really don't know how to classify them,) that view humanity as some sort of cancer on the planet and we should all consider not reproducing. And those that say "the government wants to kill us all" really aren't stopping to think about that more people mean more tax revenues, so why would they do that? You mentioned that as well. Of course there should be middle ground on all of this. I think as a species we have a long way to go, and what I comes down to is will we survive long enough to reach that point. One thing I think (and hope) comes with that maturity is things being less politicized. Like for example, maybe we should just be responsible, not waste resources, reuse what we can, etc, not for a political cause but for our own well being.
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@RellyR510 incorrect again. Majority of holders of 4-year degrees are Republican/conservative, and by a pretty decent margin. I will give you that liberals do have a slight advantage in advanced degree holders, however, that is only about 2% of the entire population, and liberals literally lead that category by a few percentage points. The lowest levels of education, such as less than a high school diploma, are majority left as well. The left is basically the dregs of society, and the elites, which make for odd bedfellows, and the right is everyone in the middle, education wise.
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@hookyjo72 Don't buy an RX-8. I had an '05 for three years and it was in the shop more than it was in my driveway, and I bought it new. Don't get me wrong, I loved every second of driving it, but it was a mechanical nightmare, and even the fit and finish of the car was shoddy under it's attractive exterior. The wall on the rotary combustion chamber (don't know the proper name if there is one) cracked and let in moisture and the engine seized at 27K. It was basically the equivalent of a traditional cylinder throwing a rod but not as dramatic the technician said. I did get a new upgraded engine under warranty but had more problems with it, though granted not as severe.
Best handling car I have ever driven thought hands down, and I have driven a Z06, a Cayman, a Boxster S, a 370Z, and lots of other higher end sports cars and they have nothing on the handling of the RX-8, though all with the exception of the Boxster were faster in a straight line. I miss the fun parts but don't miss the headaches. I traded it for a Mazdaspeed 6 and that car, in my opinion, was better, though be it kind of plain looking. If you like Mazdas that's the car to get, but they are hard to find because they only sold about 10K in the U.S. I kind of regret selling mine, but I had lost my job at the time and couldn't justify keeping a third car.
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Way to set up a nice strawman. Maybe to some, the concept of God is a nice "catch-all" to explain everything away, but generalizing all who believe in a higher power as such simpletons is clearly just a strawman argument you propose to sound witty and clever, which I'm afraid accomplishes neither.
The origins of the universe and the existence of an intelligent designer are really just a proverbial chicken and egg dilemma. It comes down to one simple question...is the universe infinitely old and will exist on through infinity, or does it have a beginning and an end? Well, science has theorized it does have a beginning, and an end. So the beginning is what we are concerned with here, and there are really only 3 possible explanations. It spontaneously came out of nothing, it budded off of another older universe in the multiverse, or, it was created by some higher intelligence outside the scope of this universe. So, ask a scientist which one it was, and the answer you will get is that nobody knows. So believing that the third option was the right one makes one no more stupid than believing either of the other two possibilities, because none have been proven.
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In the United States, the term liberal has become synonymous with left wing, socialism, Marxism, unfortunately. True Western Liberalism is what is in the U.S. Constitution. Personal freedoms. Limited government. More in line with what Americans call libertarian. Traditionally liberals favored personal liberty and self rule and conservatives favored the monarchy. Today liberal and conservative have more or less just become generic terms for left and right, and ironically with the left more in favor of central planning, and the right more in favor smaller government and states rights. From a neutral prospective, the left will sacrifice liberty for equality, where the right will sacrifice equality for liberty. The right will pejoratively speak of the left as redistributing wealth, and legislating political correctness, where the left will pejoratively accuse the right of more or less wanting a free for all and survival of the fittest. There are of course factions of each side that may be more libertarian or authoritarian than their base. It's of course complicated. While I am not a fan of far right elements that want to do things like legislate religion into law, I feel as a libertarian and a true believer in Western Liberalism, the only choice is to side with the right as the left's ideals of central planning do no appeal to me from a personal liberty standpoint. In other words, I'd rather take my chances that I might hit economic hard times and not have the government safety net, than fear being imprisoned for not using a person's "proper pronouns".
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Well it's not always so cut and dry. Technological progress also creates unforseen problems in the future as we have to adapt to figure out how to handle the technology. There is always the potential of a catastrophe as a direct result of technology, a good potential example being AI and the predicted "singularity". But you have to sometimes make sacrifices to get further ahead. You just have to be careful that it isn't a "great filter" that you unleashed on humanity, but how can we know until it happens. You can predict all you want, but negative effects can come out of left field. You may be able to mitigate them, or, it could start off a chain reaction to total annihilation.
Addendum: I personally don't think if we are to annihilate ourselves, it will be through anything that already has predicted negative side effects, e.g. AI, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, or one that we know absolutely would annihilate us like nuclear war. We may get to laxed and cause some major problems, but we are aware of the problems that can come and should be able to stop them before completely wiping ourselves out. The biggest threat I think will come from something yet to be discovered that is believed to be a "wonder solution". Something we are convinced cannot possibly fail. Whether that be medicine, an energy source, or something completely outside of anything could predict now, if it were to happen it would be ushered in as the savior of humanity and ultimately be our doom.
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Many good points. Politically I am probably somewhere in between our presenter here and you. I think another point worth mentioning is the lefts view of socioeconomics as a zero sum game. "White people have had too much of the 'pie' for too long, time to cut into their piece and take more of our own" is roughly their mentality. But the world isn't a pie, especially abstract concepts such as the economy, wealth, power, influence, etc. Markets can grow and contract, and so can ideas, and so can one of their favorite concepts, that of "social constructs". These people are being taught you have to take away from others to make gains for yourself, but that isn't true. Wealth especially can be created, but if course so can ideas as well. There isn't a finite amount of these things that one must "seize" in order to get ahead, but they are taught as such.
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I compare the modern era more to the Weimar Republic era in Germany right before WWII and Hitler's rise to power, but instead of a far right regime, it is a far left regime taking power. Your average German enlisted man did not believe the ideology of Hitler and the SS, yet they still killed millions of their own citizens because they followed the orders to do so, in this case being Jews, Gypsys, homosexuals, ethnic minorities, and the physically inferior. Don't think for one second our military wouldn't also just follow orders and kill off those whom they were ordered to take out, namely white conservatives and Christians, or anyone who goes against the left wing orthodoxy. I firmly believe that if there were another January 6th type right wing protest, and the military were ordered to open fire on protesters, they would do it without hesitation.
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You are pretty accurate in saying the current generation will be the next boomers, that is if the historical cycle of every 4th generation repeating traits holds true. Every 2nd generation has some common traits as well but not as strong as every 4th, and ones right next to each other tend to conflict. Gen Z is the new silent generation, and my cohort of gen X was like a mini silent generation. Notice how in all 3 there were certainly some big events during the coming of age years, but nothing in comparison to Vietnam or 9/11. The silent generation was in n between the world wars and very young during the depression so it was more the one before them that those things as their defining events. I guess we had the end of the cold war, and Z had the big recession and polarization in the political atmosphere (right vs left, protests, tea party, antifa, Trump, Obama, etc), but nothing as grand as the other generations.
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What the boss or owner makes is irrelevant. The business owner takes on all the risk. I personally, an paid by the piece in my job. I get anywhere from about 10% to 25% of the gross revenue from each piece I do the work on and take in revenue for. My boss gets the rest. And that's fine with me. Why? Because with his 75-90%, he has to pay the business expenses (rent, utilities, equipment, paper, office supplies, employee wages, insurance, advertising, franchise fees, state and federal taxes, payroll taxes, employee education, software licensing, and countless other small costs that add up). If he spends a $100K on all that, and his business grosses $120K, he makes $20K. Sure, if his business grosses $250K in a year, he makes $150K, but there is no guarantee of that. I make what I make, guaranteed, whether he makes or loses money. I take on no risk. He takes on all risk.
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Minimum wage is tough to live on, I won't disagree with that, but it is doable, and not to mention, you should be aspiring for more. It is meant to be for entry level low skill work only. I can tell you though that living off $12-13 an hour is not only doable, but can be done comfortably, because I did it for several years when I was young and first out of college. It was the mid 2000's, so yes, adjusted for inflation, it was closer to $16-18 an hour today, but still not alot of money. I still managed to have my own apartment, that wasn't all that bad, an economy car that was only a few years old, furnishings in my apartment from thrift stores and scratch and dent sales, and a business wardrobe courtesy of TJ Maxx and Targét. It is possible to be comfortable in almost any monetary situation if you practice common sense, thrift, and patience. It definitely helped that I didn't have any student loan debt, but that was mostly because of hard work and smart decisions. I went to community college first for free on scholarship and lived at home, then finished up at state university, which was relatively cheap, on partial scholarship, and paid for the rest with part time work, and a very small inheritance my cousins and I got from my grandparents (seriously small, around $5K each). So about 95% of it was paid for from working hard in school to get scholarships, and working hard in my part time retail job and saving.
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Let's be honest here, while yes, leaders here in the United States supposedly have to follow constitutional law, there are many bends and loopholes exploited through "executive privilege" by just about every President in history. The President in this country has full control of the justice department, the attorney general, and major influence over the CIA, FBI, military, etc. Executive orders are quite commonplace. Maybe nothing to the extent of what has happened in El Salvador has happened here, but i say if it is working for them that we mind our own business, because we are certainly not perfect here.
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Polls used to mean something. Now they are way too biased. They basically mean nothing now. And don't forget what it really comes down to is a handful of swing states. If Trump holds all the traditional "red" states, and crucially, Ohio and Florida, he will only need ONE of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, or Minnesota (I throw that one in there because he only lost MN by about 0.3% in 2016). New Hampshire is also winnable, but on its own isn't worth enough electoral votes. Chalk up Virginia and Colorado, and probably Nevada. They are gone. In my opinion, we need to focus on Florida and Wisconsin. Obviously there are few paths to victory without Florida, and as we all know it is always super close in that state. Ohio is more or less safe. Wisconsin should be our best shot of the remaining swing states.
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There is a huge difference between liberal and socialist. Socialists are not liberal, they are authoritarian leftists. Wanting the government to control everything is not a liberal ideal, it is socialist. Opposing law and order is not liberal, it is anarchist. In fact, being pro law and order is not necessarily conservative, a conservative stance tends to favor a more rigid system of law an order, but a true liberal will still favor a strong system of law and order as long as it doesn't interfere with individual liberty. I consider myself to be a (classical) liberal. I am 100% for a secure border. But wait, what about the individual liberties of illegal immigrants? Well, I am all for immigrants coming here legally and following the rules. If you come here illegally, you infringe on the liberties of citizens by taking their jobs, taking their benefits, and in some cases committing crimes against citizens when you shouldn't even be here. We need to put our own citizens first. Maybe that is considered a right wing ideal, but a country can't function that doesn't put its own citizens first. Look at Sweden, and even Germany. You can be idealistically liberal, but still put your country and its citizens first. This is how Democrats used to be, years ago. Both parties were patriotic, but had opposing ideas on how to run things. Now you have one party who stands up for our country and one who criticizes it and says it should be more like other countries. To me, there is obviously only one choice. Even though I don't agree with everything Republicans stand for, I will vote Republican forever unless there is some major change down the road. I always have, and always will. If nothing else, they are for gun rights, economic freedom and lower taxes, and border security. And Donald Trump, in my opinion, is really the best person we can have as our President right here and now. He puts America first, and he has his own style, and doesn't buckle to the establishment of either side. He is his own man. And anyone who believes in the power of the individual should absolutely love him.
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Intelligent and technological life on other planets would likely take a similar form to humans simply because it's a structure that works for moving about, manipulating tools, etc. They more than likely would be upright and bipedal, as creating and using tools would be difficult if you stood and walked on all fours, or more appendages. Crucially, they would be land dwelling and not ocean bound, because as John Michael Godier says, "good luck smelting metal under water". They may not resemble us superficially, but structure wise i would put my bets on them being fairly similar. Nature tends to go with things that work. Structures that don't work go extinct, like the dodo bird, which was good enough being a flightless bird until new types of predators were introduced to their formerly closed environment. Just the same an octopus may be very intelligent, but no octopus like creatures on other planets are building and launching rockets from under water anytime soon.
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@therealspeedwagon1451 Here's another interesting fact. New York has 63 counties. 8 are "blue", 55 are "red". Yet NY is known as a very dark "blue" state. It's once again rural/suburban vs urban. The "blue" counties are New York (Manhattan), Kings (Bronx), Brooklyn, Queens, Erie (Buffalo), Monroe (Rochester), Oneida (Syracuse), and Tompkins (Ithaca, not a big city but a college town and the most liberal county in the state). Even the counties bordering NYC tend to go Republican like Westchester and Rockland, as well as Staten Island which is actually a New York City borough, and the counties of Long Island.
When Republican George Pataki won the governorship in the 1990's it took all 55 of those "red" and red-leaning counties, plus flipping I believe it was Erie and maybe Oneida county to just eek out a victory. He was helped in his reelection by a 3rd party candidate from Monroe county running and essentially taking it away from the Democrats. But if course in typical New York style, I would certainly not call Pataki conservative. He was center right at the furthest. Of course he positioned himself further to the right in his failed presidential primary run for the Republican party in 2016.
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100% correct, but this is the problem. All of us who enjoy living under constitutional law, and don't want a bunch of rules legislated from the bench enforced nationwide would get by just fine, cut the others loose and we will survive on our own. But all the left wing socialists and communists who want it their way need us. They need us for our tax revenue and our labour. Their system only works if everyone basically does the same thing and everyone who is productive gets taxed to support the non productive, the illegals, and the criminals. There is no individual merit. It is collectivism, and must be achieved by a collective of more or less drones. These are the people who fight the system and insist everyone do it THEIR WAY. People like me, in the other hand, say have a ball doing your way, I'll hang out over here doing it my way...and if your way fails, don't come crying to me looking for a handout.
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More doomerism from the cult of climate change. Let's just all be barren and childless, and maybe even off ourselves because we've been fed a line of BS by opportunistic politicians. The earth is a planet. The climate changes. It always has, and always will. Malenkovich cycles, solar minima/maxima, axial tilt, ice ages. Did you know we are in an interglacial period? Throughout the majority of the Earths history there is no ice at the poles. We have it now, it is receding as we move away from an ice age, it is going back to "normal". There will be many fluctuations in between, as there was between the last ice age and now. For the other reasons I mentioned above. Ditch the doomer cap, ditch the propaganda, ditch the paid mouthpieces in the media and their paid "scientists" that are ordered to give the results that fit the narrative. Be an independent thinker. Read research from the doubters. The ones that don't get the big government grants. Do some research yourself regarding these subjects. It will open your eyes. Hundreds of people thought Jim Jones was a living God. Most of them drank the Kool aid. A few didn't, and they escaped. Don't be a Kool aid drinker.
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Everything is black and white (no pun intended) with the far left, or more accurately, everything is viewed in absolutes. You are with us or you are against us. You are "anti" racist or you are racist. No. Doesn't work that way. You can be neither and plenty of people are neither. Count me as one of them. Do I oppose racism? Absolutely. Do I agree with the laws that forbid institutional racist practices? Yes. But do I think there should be laws regulating personal views and actions involving race? Absolutely not. You 100% have the right to be a shitty person, and being racist is no different. It is not up to nannys in government to control our behavior...if people want to act like nasty people, then they can reap what they sow.
Look, this "legislated morality" has been tried time and time again by the religious right, and swiftly (and might I add, correctly) mocked by the left. The temperance movement, censorship in music, laws in conservative states forbidding adultery and [consentual] sodomy. Legislating perceived moral behavior by government doesn't work, and the far left is just attempting their own version of this here. But don't be fooled, there is a deeper agenda. None of this is being done in the name of fairness and equality, but rather for control. It's part of human nature that we be free to be morally bankrupt if we so choose, to think otherwise is utopian and unrealistic...if you want to be a racist, a drunk, unfaithful to your partner, or just downright nasty, go right ahead...but when you have a harder time holding down a job, having friends, etc, then that is your own problem to deal with.
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Sure, because inflation is good for heavy debtors, and who are the heaviest of them all? Well, the government, but also many big businesses, even if successful, often run in the red. Yes, private citizens have debt, mortgages, car loans, credit cards, etc, but who inflation will hurt the most is those of us who actually contribute to a retirement account.
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This whole notion that 'ABC' and 'XYZ' are rights therefore should be free is absolutely absurd. Are these things supposed to just be provided by magical elves? Trains, tracks, busses, etc cost money to build, operate, and maintain. Hospitals cost money to build, operate, and maintain. You can't just demand things and will them into existence for free. It's not like throwing a tantrum to mom and dad and magically getting the item the next day. There is no magic mom and dad of the world that will just give you everything you want for free. It doesn't work that way. This, folks, is the end result of years and years of spoiled children, helicopter parents, and participation trophies coming to fruition.
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With leads Trump had in Wisconsin and Michigan, and out of what had been reported and what was still available, I crunched the numbers and figured out that Biden would roughly need the remaining votes to go around 90/10 in his favor to pull ahead. And yet that happened. I don't believe it. Even in the absolute most Democrat heavy districts it is like 70/30 maybe 75/25 at worst. Just do the math. As Pennsylvania stands now Trump leads by over 600,000 and they estimate 1.4 million still uncounted. To overcome that deficit, Biden needs over a million of that 1.4 million, because if Biden gets a million, Trump gets 400,000, so a net gain of 600,000 for Biden. That's over a 2/3 difference. I can't see that [legitimately] happening. It will take fraud, double voting, dead people voting, etc to get that type of a margin.
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Well, many fundamentalists still do not believe in things like the big bang theory, evolution, etc, and believe the earth is 6,000 years old and every excerpt from the Bible is meant to be taken literally. But of course not everyone who believes in a higher power thinks that way. But yet of course such dogma does make it difficult to take organized religion seriously. That's kind of where I find myself. I believe in God, and I also believe in the science, which I think is possible. In my opinion, a defined beginning to the universe implies intelligent design (of course does not prove it, but implies it), whereas, like the narrator here said, an infinitely old universe would imply otherwise. This, and the fact that abiogenic conception is yet to be discovered anywhere points me again towards intelligent design. So am I religious? No. While I have no problem with organized religion existing and people practicing it, I just don't care to participate. But I believe in God, and more or less one of Christian origins...not so much that I take the Bible literally because I don't, but in that the lessons it teaches and rules it gives to be a good and pious person in the eyes of God is pretty sound, even if sensationalized by ancient humans. So I don't know what that makes me. Somewhere in between a Christian and an agnostic I guess.
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@123mneil Yeah I read some other comments you made on some of the other threads and could see you had a similar way of thinking to mine on the matter, so I wanted to respond to your thread. What you say about church and religion in general is about where I am. I always say "I didn't leave the church, the church left me". And yes, I agree 100% that the Bible was never meant to be taken literally or scientifically, to me I view it as more of a moral guide (in some regards), and more of a window on how ancient people saw the world. It is interesting in that regard, and you can't really argue against teachings to be kind and honest and such...if God does indeed exist you would have to think that is what he would want from us.
But yeah, the ritualistic stuff turned me off, as well as the people who "went to church so they could be seen at church", which sadly I felt was most. I feel much more comfortable having my own personal beliefs, which as I said are rooted very much in Christianity but are not fundamentalist, and are not necessarily following some stringent set of rules that some text or some man says I should follow. I think just living a good and honest life is what is important, and if one does believe in God or any higher power, then their personal relationship with them is what really matters, not what some group says. I believe because I think it is rational to think the universe came from something rather than nothing, and because there is so much complexity and harmony among matter down to the molecular level that it is hard for me to accept it is all just random.
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It's interesting, because as a mid 40's gen xer who had their childhood in the 1980's and young adulthood in the late 90's to early 2000's, we didn't have nearly all the wonderful modern technology at our disposal like young people today, yet so many of them seem to be miserable. I mean we were still exclusively using landline phones through the end of my college years, nobody had cellphones. Internet was a new thing that people just messed around with a little here and there. It was a lot simpler time in that regard, but as my grandfather always said "times change but people don't" and that's true.
What i almost find to be depressing is the teenage and young men in their early 20's that I interact with whether at a store, or even that come as customers to my business, is that so many say they envy me. Not me, personally, but my age. They wished they could have been young when I was. Honestly at the time I didn't think much of it, but it's a tough go of it out there now for young people so i can see why they say this but it's sad at the same time. A little while back a young guy of probably 16-17 was my cashier at the supermarket. I forgot my shoppers card so had my wife text me a picture of the bar code for him to scan. I said "ain't technology great?"...to which he replied nah man, i would have rather been around in your era. This really says something to me about the downward spiral we are in.
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Yes, but age is a factor as well. So depending on how old you are, the passage of time will feel different. I am in my late 40's and feel it big time. There are many reasons for it. The scientific one is every passing year is a smaller fraction of your life lived, so it seems quicker. I also think it's because life becomes more routine as you get older. All the random adventures of your teens and 20's no longer happen. Life just becomes, work, eat, sleep, pay your bills, care for your kids, etc. Mundane stuff. No more impromptu road trips. No more big parties. No more meeting random interesting people at random locations and times. All in the past. But yes, I do feel like 2020 and the years after have been different, and more accelerated. One big reason was the already diminished social life I still had compared to when I was young is even small now because so many people weirded out and never came back. Now life is more routine and mundane than ever.
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I think we can definitely pick apart the whole "bad things exist therefore there can't be God" argument. Religion is more or less based around hardship and suffering and overcoming it through salvation in one form or another. I would argue that suffering MUST exist for God to exist, because without suffering everyone would live a life of indulgence and have no need for salvation until it was too late and they were already dead. Not to mention most religious texts do illustrate a reason for "bad stuff", whether that be sin, the devil, an angry god, retribution/punishment, etc. So you may not adhere to any particular religion that lays out these reasons (or any at all), but the reasons are stated nonetheless.
The evidence of existence argument is a much better one. And he was correct in his assessment that religion is faith based and not evidence based. You can't really argue that point. One chooses to have faith in something intangible to them, or they choose not to. And I don't see this as a criticism of religion, in fact most religions do not claim proof, but rather encourage faith. I see it more as an exercise in freewill. You choose to believe in a higher power or you don't.
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Unpopular opinion, but I blame both big government and big corporations equally. While it is traditional for those on the right to just blame government, and those on the left to just blame corporations, I think the blame really goes to both. The fact is that both have gotten too big, too powerful, and too interconnected. Elites that control both essentially control everything that effects our day to day lives. In theory, both the State and free enterprise are supposed to keep each other in check. Rather, they have essentially become one in the same and seized every scrap of power and wealth. Look at any leading politicians portfolio and you will see they have large stakes in many of these top companies, as well as political influence. On the other side, look at the political power top executives at these companies have gained. People like Bill Gates making public statements about how all the peons should be living their lives, and the government and media treating it as if he has the power to actually enforce it. Which brings us to the third wheel in all of this. The media. Another entity that was supposed to be on the side of the public, and supposed to be an independent outlet to expose the wrongs in both the government and corporate world. But instead, they have just become lapdogs for both, and feed us nothing but an endless line of drivel and propaganda.
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Every era has its problems, tell someone from Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia, or Iraq how great and peaceful and stable the 1990's were. How cute that you think you and "your generation" is so virtuous and just and making a difference. You are nothing new or special, there have always been those that think like that, it is just a lot more common now that social media and instant gratification exists to massage your egos. Of course times change and nobody denies that, but what is funny is you are just another example of one who views yourself on a par with the "Greatest Generation" of the depression and WWII era, when in reality you are much more in line with the "Me Generation" of the 60's and 70's. But with one large difference...they were actually rebelling the status quo, whereas you are just following the whims of billionaires and celebrities who don't care about you or your causes, but only fein compassion for financial and power gain.
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You raise some good points, the technology aspect is not entirely correct, as in they did send the first man into space, and they were toe to toe with the U.S. in terms of nuclear capabilities, but yes civilian technology was way behind the West of you look at things like automobiles and personal tech, but that was all a result of them pouring all their resources into their military and beating the U.S. at all costs as a show of power. They were indeed the 2nd superpower of the world for a time, though be it briefly in the grand scheme. What would be interesting to me would to see an alternate history where Russia embraced Western liberal ideals early on and stuck with it, because whether you are talking the Czarist days, or the Soviet Union days, and beyond the collapse to the Russian Federation days, it hasn't ever really been a free liberal country the likes of Great Britain, U.S., or the inventors of Western liberalism themselves, the Dutch. Would they have become dominant and stayed that way? Interesting to ponder. Interesting situation in modern times is the actual not-really-communist, communist China, who have more of an oligarchical crony capitalist system and are poised to take over as the #1 world superpower. The Soviets certainly had the Oligarchy, but the capitalism not so much. But let's be real here, who doesn't have some degree of oligarchy...the United States certainly does...just look how 2 families have basically dominated the political landscape for 3+ decades now (Bushes and Clintons), then you have people like Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, etc, akin to the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and Carnegies of yore. And when it comes down to it, who is REALLY pulling the strings?
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@subtropicalpermaculture Do you? Because real actual communism has never been done in practice, and likely never will be. Not on any large scale anyway. Possibly you could have a very small, isolated community like a remote island that functions as communist, but communism in order to work requires basically an entire group of like minded individuals that won't be bothered by not getting out with benefits what they put in with labour. And you aren't going to find too many large groups like that, read : zero, because it is contradictory towards human nature and competitive instinct. At the end of the day, very few people actually care about the well being and equality of the group, they care about themselves and their family. Same goes for "communist" leaders. They have historically used as a tool to gain power. In an ideology that must be forced and isn't natural, someone has to be in charge, which by it's own nature makes the ideology unequal. Capitalism is far from perfect, but it at least can exist naturally as humans are naturally competitive.
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I live near Buffalo. I am from this general region but not the Buffalo metro area originally so I have no particular attachment to the city. Whenever I mention the poor state of the city here, people that are from here get visibly angry, with me and not with the actual situation. They like to sugar coat everything and bring up the small handful of urban renewal projects they have had here and just ignore all the decay, abandoned factories, poor infrastructure, etc. They often will just come back at me and criticize the small City in upstate New York where I am from, however I actually won't disagree with them, but I will also say that fact doesn't actually make Buffalo any better. They are just delusional about it. Or better yet, they just want to bury their heads in the sand. It's a smaller version of Philadelphia here, as Rudyard was talking about, once a thriving city that is now in massive decline. 100 years ago it was in the top 10 in the country and is now around 70th in population. Much of the industry is gone. With industry moving down south and out of the country, and the Erie canal losing relevance, this area took a huge hit. But people don't want to talk about it. Maybe they actually should, rather than ignore the problems. Just imagine the World's Fair was here at the turn of the 20th century, the one where President McKinley was assassinated. The World's Fair. Nothing of that level would ever come here again.
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And as a side note, most groups throughout history, regardless of their actions, branded themselves as righteous...the Nazis, the Bolsheviks, Khmer Rouge, The People's Temple, Heavens Gate, the list goes on. Not many will right up front brand themselves as evil or they will not get any followers, no, rather you convince your followers through manipulation that your evil actions are for "the greater good".
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Here is another big difference between the days of "Republicans buy shoes too", and today. Today, extremists like Pelosi, AOC, and company control the country. They want to push an extreme left agenda. At the same time, they hold all the cards when it comes to funding for big sports Therefore, it is in the best interests of owners of these teams to kiss the ring of these people to get more money (like they don't already have enough). Hence, owners and administration encourages this kind of nonsense from players. And it works. And it is all driven by greed. While yes, the players, who barely have a high school education and were pushed through college as basket weaving majors, probably really believe in this nonsense, the owners surely don't. The only thing they believe in is the almighty dollar.
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Interestingly, TREE(3) then must be the largest number (at least in concept since we don't know the actual proof) that we know of in existence that does not use any kind exponential operation to reach its sum. Graham's number does, it uses the arrow function, as well as Loaders number uses functions to increase. TREE (3), although he uses "TREE(x)" as a function, in it of itself uses no functions. It is just how many ways can you arrange these three items, not to the power of anything, it is just simple, yet incomprehensible at the same time!
Edit : I should say not TREE (3), but the concept of the TREE problem itself yields the largest results, because obviously TREE (4), or TREE (googol) is larger. One might argue that TREE itself is a function, and yes it can be used as one...but at it's "roots", TREE is actually just a game that increases one result at a time (though be it more time than the existence of the universe), but not exponential results. At no point in hypothetically solving TREE are you raising anything to a higher exponential power.
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@maximisatwat I think you are giving him way more credit than is due to him. Sure, the regular guy routine with him is a bit of a façade I am sure, but again I just don't think he is anywhere near that connected or that clever. He was a punk kid that participated in on the left side of the occupy wall street protests, he grew up, his views got a bit more moderate, and he got burned by wokeism and cancel culture enough that he distanced himself from that side. Not too dissimilar to Bill Maher, though Maher still identifies as politically left and openly despises Trump, and obviously has been around a lot longer and is more famous, and both of them are political opportunists. I don't dislike Pool, I also don't agree with about half of what he says there is a lot of tinfoil hat stuff tossed about. Bottom line is he just isn't nearly as big time as he is made out to be by this whole debacle. He's a guy on YouTube that says some things some people don't like, to me just a bit of a weirdo but every now and then he will have a good take on what's going on. The main reason anyone that thinks he's a threat does is because he has a fairly large subscriber count and gets a lot of views, but I just don't think he is all that influential. I mostly watch him for entertainment here and there. Many of his commenters are trolls and people making fun of him. He is not some dark operative.
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So it's actually simple if you break it down. I will use the gold/silver coin example. Our brains process the probability in regards to the BOX. Three boxes, eliminate one, leaves two, so a 50/50 chance. However, we must calculate the probability in regards to the COIN, not the BOX. That is the hang up. Most of us, including myself, overlooked that you draw a good coin, that it could be one of two gold coins from the same box. We are only counting the box itself, not the contents. Once the explanation came, it all made sense.
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I never had to live off minimum wage, but I did live off $10 an hour for awhile. Yeah, it wasn't a wild lifestyle by any means, but I swung it. I shared a cheap $335 a month apartment with a friend, which had free steam heat so there was no heating bill. We didn't have cable, we had a home antenna and got like 7 channels. We did have a VCR (it was 2002), no DVD player because back then they were like $500. I drove an 11 year old Ford Escort that got nearly 40 miles to the gallon. And my roommate and I actually cooked food at home everyday, rather than getting takeout. And we ate fairly well! Boiled dinner? Buy a slab of ham, a sack of potatoes, and a couple cabbages and that was dinner for the week! I even had money left over to go out and get a couple beers occasionally. Usually we just had people over and bought a 30 pack of Keystone for $7.99. Ah, the first couple random years out of college. I miss them in some ways. My parents said I could live with them, but I had no interest. Our generation was alot different than the current generation of recent college grads. Living back home with your parents was the ultimate failure.
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Want a good argument for the electoral system? The New York state gubernatorial race. New York City basically elects the governor of the state. The rest of the state might as well stuff coloring books in the ballot boxes. Now one may argue that NYC has the most population, so it's only fair. But on the other hand, they are mostly a monolithic voting Bloc (outside of Staten Island), with different priorities than the rest of the state. There is no diversity of ideas. Urban, suburban, and rural voters all have different needs. And even so, different localities have different needs. An urban voter in say Buffalo or Syracuse might have different needs than someone in NYC. But when one city contains nearly half the population of a state, that city calls the shots. And candidates from either party tend to cater to their needs in order to get elected. The same would apply to the U.S. as a whole, though not quite as dramatically. Candidates would cater to the needs of the mega population centers, and mostly ignore the rest of the country in a strictly popular vote system. Yes, occasionally you will get your George Pataki (not that he was great, but he's a great example), who won by a narrow margin by dominating upstate ballots, but 90% of the time you will get basically what California wants in a national election, since they have about a fifth of the entire nation's population, a huge margin of the rest of the country would have to in a sense "band together" to defeat them.
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There is a reason why CNN went from THE cable news GIANT, to a sad third of three, even behind lowly PMSNBC. Yes, I actually do remember when CNN was a credible news source. It was always Fox on the right, PMSNBC on the left, and CNN down the middle. They played it safe and they were actually quite popular. Now they tried to get "edgy" and their ratings have suffered. Heck, even their political roundtables used to be 4 Democrats, 4 Republicans, and a neutral host. Now it's 6 Democrats, 1 RINO, 1 conservative punching bag, and a heavily left biased host, who all gang up on the one conservative.
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Nobody respects anything when they don't have to earn it. They just complain more and more that what they are given for free isn't enough. They expect equal results over equal opportunity, which is exactly why many in this younger generation cry about free college and loan forgiveness because their $100K degrees didn't get them the dream job they expected would automatically be handed to them. The participation trophy generation (PTG) hasn't had to earn anything. So why would they respect anything? Including their own country. No, instead, their country is evil because they don't provide enough free things and guaranteed outcomes for them. Government is an extension of mom and dad. When mom and dad make you earn your way in life, you respect them, and yourself, and others. When mom and dad give you everything, you expect more and complain when you don't get it. The PTG wants a government that is just an extension of mom and dad. Cradle to grave coddling. They see countries like Denmark and Sweden and others with big social welfare systems...but choose to ignore all the other problems those countries have (many created by the system itself), and ignore the difference in demographics and just plain way of life there. No, the United States is not Sweden. It never will be, and it never should be.
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My grandfather died of esophageal and lung cancer and never smoked a day in his life. It was over 20 years ago so the medical expertise wasn't as good, but they think it started in his esophagus then spread, from a combination of a history of bad reflux and exposure to the chemicals at the shop he worked in. My great aunt smoked like a chimney until she was in her 80's, and not even exaggerating got literally bombed on wine and gin and tonics daily until the day she died and lived to be 94. But then her husband, my grandmother's brother, drank a fifth of Barton's whiskey every day and dropped dead at 57, which was before I was born so I only ever heard stories which could have been exaggerated and the dude could have just had a bad heart. The shit is all genetics to some degree and random chance. My aunt who is the daughter of my grandfather that died of cancer smokes a couple packs of mini cigars a day and is 74 years old and in fine health, and my dad, her brother, never smoked or drank and dropped at 66 from a heart attack. All blood related and all over the place. I'm 46 and smoke a pack a day but don't drink much anymore. Still getting a clean bill of health, but we will see what the future holds 🤞
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Well what the minority ideology is doing is trying to import enough people that will vote their way to outnumber and overthrow the majority. American leftism has always been the minority but it it is growing, yes through them controlling the education system, but also through importation of a whole new entitlement class. Even though registration of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents were traditionally pretty close, with even Democrats having a slight edge, there were always still a good number of conservative Democrats so rightist vs leftist numbers always favored the right by a substantial margin. Also a factor that modern Republican Presidents like Reagan and Trump have poached a good number of Democrats to their side. So now it's time not to throw out the system, but rather to throw a wrench in the gears and just import their way to a new majority. That's the downside of democracy in the modern world where not only can people in other countries be more mobile, but also it pays big for others to assist them, there are countless near failed states for them to come from, and we have all the benefits in the world to entice then with. Come to America, we'll take care of you, and by the way vote for us and don't forget who gave you all the free stuff when you vote the next time and the time after that. Don't like the majority? Import a new one. That's the left's game plan. While I do agree a democratic system is the best option, unfortunately it can be abused in this manner.
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The biggest problem, and I would assume it's probably been this way forever, is that the world is lumped into two categories, leaders and followers. Most are classed as followers immediately and are corraled into general learning which basically teaches you how to be a conformist and a good obedient worker. A handful of the elite and the brightest are set aside as "future leaders" and get a special track. But in reality that isn't true. Firstly, there is a third category of person, the independent thinker who neither follows nor leads. Secondly, leadership doesn't not correlate one to one with book smarts. I know a lot of very smart people that couldn't lead themselves out of a wet paper bag, and a lot of people of average at best intelligence that are charismatic. The world mostly shits on independent thinkers. Both other types have their place. I was one of those people that didn't fit either mould. I was smart enough to be in advanced classes, but I didn't have the attitude. They didn't know what to do with me. Too smart for general classes, to defiant and independent for any kind of leadership grooming. Because don't be fooled, you are only a "leader" if you want to lead the way they want you to lead. I have no interest in leading a bunch of idiots. But I also don't want to be an idiot that gets lead. It's a tough place to be.
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Cops that are commissioned officers in big agencies (like many State police) do make over $100K a year, but I really don't have a problem with it, a police lieutenant or captain isn't much different than a corporate officer or manager in the private sector. As for government employees, most really don't have huge incomes, comparatively speaking. I want to say a Congressperson makes mid-$100K range. Yes, alot compared to the average working stiff, but again, that's like middle to upper management wages in the private sector. Believe me, I am no fan of big government, but it's not their wages that are the problem, it's a drop in the bucket compared to A) the wasteful government programs they approve and sign into law, and B) all the side money they get from grift and "favors" for powerful lobbies. And in terms of item (A), that's a big problem because people don't tend to care about wasting money when it's not their own. Think about it. Who of any of us really cares how wasteful we are with company products and supplies? It doesn't come out of our paycheck. Maybe our of fear of the boss chewing you out, but otherwise no. But these public employees don't really have bosses to chew them out about wasting money, nor would anyone in a superior position care, so again that is a big part of the problem. That, and the fact that by the very nature of these jobs, we must rely on these so-called public servants to limit themselves. Only through policy they pass themselves could things such as spending be limited, or term limits be enacted. Hence why such things don't exist. Nobody, save for a handful of extremely honest people (and let's be real, many politicians are lawyers by trade), are going to limit themselves by choice.
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Ideally yes, but in practice this would be a very difficult task, as humans are a hierarchical species by nature, and there will always be unscrupulous individuals among us to take that to an extreme. I think it is something that can be overcome, but we still have a long way to go. It is a progression, not something you can start with. I am of the belief, though be it stark, that suffering is almost inevitable in order to progress towards something better in the future. We all live today on the groundwork built by serfs, slaves, and peasants, and future humans more enlightened than us may see us as the same. It seems to be a natural progression to go from total authoritarianism/monarchy/etc to democracy, to possibly later down the road total cooperation. Yes that sounds like Star Trek pie in the sky futurism, but I think we either find a way or we die off. Left and right politics need to eventually go out the door and common ground must be reached. Certainly seems impossible at this moment in time.
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I like the honesty in this video. Yes, renewable resources are the way forward, but yes we must also continue to use fossil fuels to bridge the gap. I often compare it, somewhat jokingly, to air travel but you could use many analogies. I say that just halting fossil fuel usage today in favor of renewable resources only would be like asking the Wright Brothers to fly you to Paris. These things take time, but we will get there eventually.
Keep in mind only about 20% of EVs out there are operating on renewable energy sources because that's roughly the percentage of our grid powered by wind and solar. The other 80% is coal, oil, and nuclear. Yes, nuclear isn't fossil fuel but it isn't exactly renewable either, there is a finite supply of materials. Not more than a few decades ago the percentage of renewable resources powering the grid were negligible. In another few decades maybe we will be double or even triple where we are now, which would be a great move forward. Who knows, there could be new ways and methods not even discovered yet that will take off in tge near future.
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@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Bottom line is you are using standards of one time period, modernity, to judge both yourself as well as a hypothetical person of an ancient period. That is an unfair assessment and quite frankly a red herring. In modern times any form of rape or pillaging is considered immoral, but at the same time, less emphasis is put on religion, community, military service, to site a few examples. If you were judged by a person from antiquity, they may say you are immoral because you don't go to church every week, you don't assist members of your village enough, and you didn't volunteer for military service, using their standards (hypothetical, I have no idea if you do these things or not, but we will assume not for arguments sake). They may even consider you or any modern person immoral for cussing, drinking alcohol, or using the Lord's name in vein, things that are common today and no big deal in general. The person from antiquity would put higher importance on these things, while believing that stealing from and raping a citizen from a conquered enemy's group is just a way of life, or may see it as retribution. YOU don't see it that way, nor do I or most civilized modern persons, but we are judging by OUR standards, not theirs. To judge any of us by THEIR standards would most likely have us falling way short. So you see why it is an unfair assessment. I would say rather than the North Korean example another commenter pointed out, an even better analogy would be using customs of two different cultures. Maybe a Japanese person would find a westener like you or I extremely rude because we didn't remove our footwear upon entering their home, where as we don't have this custom and don't see it as rude. For them to take the moral high ground on you or I in that regard is unfair.
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Most of the technology we use today was invented at the most recent, in the 1970's, and many things long before that. Heck, we even went to the moon in 1969, and haven't left low earth orbit since 1972. Sure, specific items have advanced quite a bit since the early models, but really not many completely new innovations in everyday technology have come about in decades.
EDIT : And before someone says "what about smartphones?", Phones have been around over 100 years, cellular technology since the 70's, computers since the 50's, and cameras since the 1800's. The smartphone is just an advancement in existing technologies.
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I was born in '76 (late gen X), so my childhood was the 80's and my high school, college, and beginning of young adulthood was in the 90's and early 2000's. Things that seemingly sucked at the time I now have nostalgia for, and I would suspect young people now will do the same when they are in their 40's.
We didn't have internet or cell phones. For a handful of people maybe their dad had a "car phone" but it was tremendously expensive to use minutes on, and was huge and cumbersome. There was no way to "digitally" mobilize. I clearly remember Fridays at lunch in school talking to everyone trying to get an idea of what was going on that weekend. You only had a landline at home and so did everyone else, so you started making calls, or if fortunate somebody who actually knew what was going on called you, not just someone calling to ask you the scoop. Then when all else failed you cruised looking for something to do. We bitched relentlessly about it when there was "nothing going on" or we couldn't find it, and ended up at some closed park somewhere pounding a few beers or smoking a joint, hoping the cops wouldn't roll by. Now I look back at those times and am nostalgic for all the random crazy things some of those otherwise dull nights brought. And I think that's what I miss, the complete randomness of that era. Now everyone knows exactly what everyone else is doing all the time at the flick of a screen, and sadly most aren't doing anything but sitting home feeling sorry for themselves, or pining away for all the "cool things" they see others posting.
But yeah, overall I think that's it. I'm a middle aged adult now so I have a different perspective, but TOO much information is available at your fingertips now. Before you had to get off your butt and go discover more for yourself. It sucked at the time but looking back it was an adventure. My old friends and I don't reminisce the planned stuff we did, but rather the random, chaotic misadventures we often found ourselves in. That being all but an element of the past now took away a valuable experience from younger generations. Maybe this is an "ok boomer" style rant, but even as an adult I miss the days of just putting in an honest days work then retiring to my own time. Now the boss or a customer can call me anytime anywhere on my cellphone and at the drop of a hat I am logging on working from home.
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Most likely the left would try to crush the right through economic means, as they control the majority of large cities, and in the current day control many of the largest most powerful companies. The right controls the rural areas, the farms, most of the guns, and by their nature has a better raw survival instinct. It would be more comparable to the colonial rebels fighting the British army and ruling class in the Revolutionary War but a modern version. It would be straight up guerilla warfare on the right, while the left's best angle to take would be to take away any economic power from the right before they can get started. It's already happening to some degree with things like social shaming, banning, etc, and will come to a head if they ever install any type of social credit system. Like Rudyard says, don't poke the bear. Get the right leadership and a bunch of disorganized militia men and rebels will become a real problem for the elites that control the economics and big business in this country. I agree the right would ultimately prevail, but it won't be as easy of a fight as some may think.
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Not necessarily if you take into account it is a text written thousands of years ago by people with much less scientific understanding, and that it written in a very sensationalist manner. If you take it literally, then sure, but what I think too many people both hardcore fundamentalist believers as well as staunch atheists think is that it must be taken literally. Rather, it is just a sensational story written by men. God created the earth in 6 days, Methuselah lived a thousand years, Goliath was a giant, Jesus turned water into wine. The first one is up for broad interpretation, one common one being that each "day" may have been a billion years or some other long period. The others can absolutely be compared to modern ways of speaking. One might say a very large person is a giant, or that a very old person is "a thousand years old", or that someone "turned a few dollars into thousands" through investment, that doesn't mean they waved a magic wand over a $10 bill and made it into thousands, just as "turning water to wine" very well can mean bringing wine to replace the water.
If you read any ancient religious text, or even non religious, this is how nearly all of them are written. Accounts of Christ, Muhammad, William Wallace, Beowulf, heck even George Washington, and countless others are massively sensationalized, but that doesn't mean these individuals didn't actually exist, nor that they were not actually special individuals.
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Don't get me wrong, everyone in government likes to tax and spend, but Democrats have a particular liking to it. If you look up the top 10 most heavily taxed states (all taxes, including property, income, sales, and other taxes such as "sin" taxes on alcohol tobacco and firearms/ammunition) 8 of the top 10 are "blue" states, one is "red" and one is a swing state. Policy in terms of taxes play a huge role. Stuff like social policy really is a matter of personal preference. If you are liberal you tend to want to be where it's liberal, conservative where it's conservative. That doesn't matter so much. A liberal state is going to lose conservatives and a conservative state is going to lose liberals. But taxes. Taxes are a different story. And of course cost of living, which also impacted by taxes. Economic policy, by and large, determines population shift. Climate a factor as well but that can't be controlled, and honestly California has nearly perfect climate and people are still leaving. There's a reason Texas, Florida, and Tennessee are growing. They have low taxes.
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Yes, there is no doubt that in the last 30-40 years things have changed drastically, internet, cell phones, social media, AI, etc, and these have absolutely had a huge societal impact. However I am in the camp with those who say bigger charges happened from the late 1800s to the 1950s. Residential electricity, indoor plumbing, automobiles, airplanes, jets, rockets, all a pretty big deal going from living by candlelight, heating with a fireplace, doing your business in an outhouse, and riding horses for transportation. Prior to this er many, many people lived and died in the confines of their own small village. All these things opened up the world. Modern technology has enhanced all of this, but these innovations of 100 or so years ago brought us from a more or less society of small villages, almost tribal in nature, to a national society, to an international one. Yes you could take a train or a steamship long distances back then, but your average person didn't, and couldn't. Just merely day to day life was massively hard work then, even if you had the money (which most didn't), you couldn't afford to leave the homestead for extended periods of time.
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Resources are going to be the biggest hurdle to galactic domination. Sure, once you're out there in space you have lots of resources at your disposal, but getting there is going to be very hard, even if your technology is very advanced. Just think about the materials, the cost, the man hours, the planning, the building, of just one space shuttle or one large telescope. Now think about orders of magnitude greater. You aren't going to get far in space in a tin can. Could you even obtain the resources to build large space faring vessels, or solar collectors to power everything? That's more heavy metals than are in the earth. So just mine some asteroids? Well you need to make all the equipment to not only do that, but to get there, and it's all going to need power as well. Not saying impossible, but extremely difficult and maybe just the fancy of science fiction.
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The presenter of this video actually sums up how I feel about it quite well. While it may very well be a real issue, the questions come from a variety of factors such as historical anomalies in climate as well as the plain and simple fact that we don't have a broad data range to compare against when speaking about industrialization because in terms of human history our time as an industrial species is a drop in the bucket. But more importantly, and he touches on this as well, is the way that the subject has become hyper politicized and almost cult like among some, and it is 100% accurate to say as he did that those who predict the most "doom and gloom" will get the most attention, so it is the most advantageous to be the most extreme in your predictions. It muddys the water with the whole issue for me. Even if the actual truth is somewhere between zero and Armageddon, which I totally believe it is, it is hard to really know or form an informed opinion on the matter with all the doomsday predictors out there and all the backing they receive socially, financially, and from the invisible but ever present "consensus", which in it if itself is a dangerous thing but that's a subject for another time. I am not a fan of hard consensus, even on an issue that may seem on the surface to be either benign or for the greater good, just because of simple historical examples of consensus like "heretics, witches, Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, mentally challenged, etc are evil/weak/possessed/etc and must be eradicated.
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If climate change is actually anywhere near as big an issue as some believe (I don't believe this but that's beside the point), and whether or not it is man made or natural, I do not think it will completely wipe out all of humanity. Even large swings in global temperatures, as this is not unprecedented and other species have adapted and survived it, and we will as well. Yes, many will perish, be displaced, have a much tougher go of things, but it will not cause complete annihilation. If it is a direct cause of human activity, the very changes themselves will quell the activities causing the changes, therefore unlikely reaching a "runaway" scenario. We aren't going to see earth turn into Venus from human activity, such a scale would require large scale natural events.
As for the notion of being buried under our own waste, I actually used to ponder this idea myself. However, any kind of long lasting dangerous waste, such as radioactive waste with half lives in the millions or billions of years, is but a small drop, current estimates are that all nuclear waste ever produced in all facilities in the world would basically only fill a football pitch a few inches deep. It would take many millions of years for this to become a serious problem, which hopefully in that time we will come up with more efficient methods of energy production. As for other long term wastes like plastics and such, yes this is a big problem currently but again if we are to continue on as a species I believe we must and will find better alternatives and eliminate this problem before it gets out of hand.
While I don't doubt there are many problems we face that are potential species-enders, I don't believe any of them at this time are insurmountable issues. Even when this planet faced an ice age, a small number of humans survived and kept the species going, a very small number like 6,000, but enough to avoid extinction.
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@wasdwasdedsf Well I'll interject my two cents in the matter just because I can't help myself. Your argument about a woman believing she's a man making her actually be a man in reality got my wheels turning. It's a valid point in that both the religious argument for evidence of God is much like the modernist left wing argument for non-existence of binary gender and you just are what you perceive yourself as. Both ideas are faith based, both ideas are inherently religious, in the sense that "wokeism" in it if itself is like a pseudo religion. Both the religious as well as the idealistic pseudo religious will use circular logic to try to prove their points. And both don't succeed.
I come from a completely different angle. It must be noted that I do believe in God, however I am not religious. I don't believe in God because it feels good or some person or book tells me to. That's where the religious part leaves the conversation. One must argue for the existence of God through logic rather than blind faith, which is in my opinion what religion does. Of course feel free to disagree, but as I see it we live in a universe dictated by cause and effect. Everything in existence must have a cause. This by its very nature leads to a bit of a circular logic problem itself. If everything must have a cause, which is the reality we experience, then where does it all start? Logic, in my opinion, then must dictate there is a prime mover. There is an infinite and eternal force that has no cause and no end that just exists and will always exist. I find this to be necessary or else all of reality enters a causal loop...what has jokingly been referred to as "turtles all the way down". That argument to me is absurd. There needs to be a beginning point at which cause and effect initiate. There is also the argument by some that everything just appeared out of complete nothingness, but I find that to be even more absurd, and completely defiant of the laws of physics and conservation of energy. There must be a prime mover. I believe that is God. Is this the God of any particular religion? No. Do any of the religions get any of it right? Maybe. But their method of attempting to prove it is weak. Not saying anything could prove or disprove it, but you can at least use logic to make a good theory about it. I think mine is descent, you may not and that's fine.
Some of your other points I don't agree with, however I don't think you are a troll like the other commenter said. If you really like these kind of conversations you should check out Closer to Truth's channel, the comments are loaded with them. Granted there are lots of actual trolls there both theist and atheist, but lots of good debates and discussions as well. And the video material is pretty good most of the time.
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@ryanharrington5066 Yeah I would never advocate such a thing, just curious as to how Canada would handle such a hypothetical situation. I agree it would cause more trouble for both countries than it's worth. Again, all this kind of talk is just that, talk. Chances are you won't see any U.S. states or Canadian provinces secede any time soon, outside maybe Quebec which would likely just be independent. There are definitely U.S. states that could pull it off economically, but in real world terms it wouldn't go well for a multitude of other reasons. Same is probably true for Alberta I would think. From what I know of it, it is definitely an economic powerhouse, but even if the very unlikely hypothetical scenario happened where they went totally independent it would create a landlocked country sandwiched in between the U.S. and Canada and cause a logistical nightmare for things like shipping. Not to say that I, as a fairly right leaning American in a very left wing state certainly wouldn't consider a move to a place like an independent Alberta, but again that's mostly just stuff of fantasy. I've never actually been out that way and wouldn't mind visiting some time. I've been to Ontario more times than I can even count, we literally used to drive across the border practically every weekend to go to bars when we were 19 and 20 because the drinking age there is 19 and 21 in NY. I visited Nova Scotia once 5 years ago. I hope things politically get better for Canadians. Shit I hope they get better for us too. I seriously think things will have to bottom out first before anything positive happens.
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There have been many fluctuations in global mean temperature up and down now ever since life has existed on this planet, and human activity influenced or not, it is something that will continue to happen. Can our activities tilt any future fluctuations beyond what they should be? Sure. How much so? We don't know for sure yet because we in the grand scheme of things have not been industrialized long. And the big question, can we make changes to our processes? Again, sure, but if course it won't be simple and we can't do it in haste, it's a fine balance of implementation of new cleaner technology with the gradual phase out of the old. It will take longer in some places than others, for example the United States because of its sheer land mass for transportation especially will be a challenge. Same for Canada, Russia, Australia. Cold temperatures make it even more of a challenge for battery cell technology in some of these areas. People will just have to learn to adapt to not only technological change but also any fluctuations in climate/weather/environment. We could solve all our issues with human related environmental issues tomorrow and the day will still come where we must adapt to natural changes, because they will come in time. Humanity will face times they will need to migrate closer to the poles or the equator depending on the changes in global temperature, whether or not we have anything to do with it or if it is natural, because the changes will always happen and if we are to be a long term species we have to adapt. The biggest question I would have is are we a species that is only equipped to survive during an interglacial period, or can we "weather the storm" of the particularly hot and cold periods?
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The system doesn't like a creative person. The system likes a nice well-oiled cog in the giant wheel. Creativity is too disruptive to routine, to bureaucracy, to tedium...all things the system and the wardens of the system like. Work for any large company and this is clear as day. When i worked for one of the world's largest banks, I of course immediately befriended the other "Winston Smith's/Neo's" in the machine. We would often joke about how many roadblocks to success, creativity, or progress the upper management would throw at us. Most kept their heads down and just went along with it because it was easier. I got out of there when I could.
But the bank is just one of so many things like this in the world. Public schools are the same way. It took me having kids to see it happening to them to realize it happened to me way back in the 1980's and 90's as well. The most brilliant, talented, artistic, what have you, all stifled because these types cause too many disturbances in the Matrix. I came to the conclusion years ago that life would be easier as an average intelligence, obedient, uncreative, unquestioning individual. But really who wants to live such a tedious life? Not me. If I had it to do all over again I actually wouldn't change much. Being more of a round peg certainly would have made my childhood and young adulthood easier, but I'm a square peg and proud of it and always will be, even if it makes things more difficult, if life isn't at least a little challenging it's a bore.
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She is the type of woman that in 10 years time may very well be sitting on a pile of cash, but will be alone, childless, and miserable, sitting at home with her 12 cats pining away for the life that "could have been", a life with a family and children and a partner. Seen it many times. Anyone can say what they want, but the reality is that females are built to bear offspring, period. It is hard coded into their genetics. All the modern drivel about chasing success and wealth is nonsense from a purely animalistic standpoint. The human animal is like and other animal in that regard. Females are built to reproduce and males are built to fight and hunt. Ask any 40 something spinster who it all passed by and they are miserable people full of regret. To some extent this also applies to males that remain bachelors for life. Humans are monogamous animals, and our primary function is to reproduce. A small minority of humans are wired differently, but almost everyone I know, man or woman, that tried to play bigshot and either holdout for perfection or simply was uninterested in a mate/family at a younger age, regretted it when they got older and were by themselves.
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@veganbutcherhackepeter The universe itself isn't "needed", but yet, here we are. What is needed, however, is something. This is because nothing can't stop being nothing, because nothing contains no time, no beginning, and no matter or energy to be a catalyst of 'something', and hence, no end...and it would have to end to become 'something', and since there is no time in complete nothingness, how could it end? An endpoint would imply a passage of time. God is but one of many possibilities, or rather, a super intelligence that at least would appear godlike to us. Something outside our time and space that exists infinitely. Or, there is some sort of infinite string of events with no beginning or end of which our universe is just one of these events. I think the existence of God, or a godlike entity is much more plausible than everything appearing out of nothing. I do not see any way how complete nothingness is even possible all things considered.
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@jonathanwilson3984 Correction. American Democrats USED TO be more or less centrist or in some cases centre right compared to most other countries. Today the vast majority are on an equal footing with democrat socialists, labour, left wing, etc of the rest of the world. Very few are even centre left, let alone centre right. There is now a very defined left and right wing in America in Democrats and Republicans, when historically the two major parties had many members that could fall into many places across the political spectrum, and mainly by region. Southern Democrats were conservative, and northern Republicans were liberal. This isn't so much the case any longer save for a handful of individuals. There are a few "mavericks" in each party, but most are lockstep with the party in both parties. Many individual citizens (not politicians) are outside the spectrum of both parties, whether more left, more right, or a completely separate ideology like libertarian and hate both of them, and count me as one of them as myself a libertarian.
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The sad truth is there are few real liberals remaining anywhere in the West anymore. And when I say liberal, I mean those who value liberty and freedom and personal responsibility, what today is often called libertarian, but isn't exactly libertarian, but rather more of a Jeffersonian, which is what I am. What we have today, mostly, is two competing factions of near-communist leftist, anti free speech, anti free thought radicals, versus the neocon, pro-war, pro-big business crushing the little guy, bible-thumping, teetotaling right. Common sense individualist, I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone, cherishers of liberty at all costs even if you disagree with opponents, is all but dead. So many things to blame, but we have hit such a downward spiral, and so many are so immersed in groupthink and defending "their side" at all costs that taking any other stance outside of an extreme in either direction gets you hated by all. You are too right for the left and too left for the right
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@TK-zj7cl ermany and Sweden are a complete mess, their economies are crumbling, and their immigration is out of control. Ask a Swede who lives in Stockholm or Malmo how nice it is to have "no go" zones in their cities, and rape gangs, and huge groups of foreigners living off their welfare system. Countries like Norway can't even be used for comparison because Norway is tiny compared to the United States, is something like 97% ethnic Norwegians, and has extremely strict immigration laws. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have an abundance of socialist policies AND have a wide open door to mass immigration. Who is going to pay for everything then? When millions a year are pouring in to a country and just taking benefits and not contributing, there is a big problem. I am no fan of socialism, my personal belief is that it destroys work ethic and individuality, but I will admit it can function in a small enough place, with a more or less closed society that is all in board with it. You simply cannot have it in a huge country where everyone has such vastly different ideas, and you let anyone who wants come in for free and live off the system without putting in. You just can't, it doesn't add up.
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I'm certainly not one to defend modernity, in fact usually I am quite the critic of it, however I will say times have changed but people haven't. Before phones/social media were the boogie man, it was chat rooms on AOL, before that TV, before that rock and roll, before that women showing more than their ankles and men going without a hat, before that God knows. But it's always been something, and we are all just stupid enough to get addicted to it. However where I really think it's different this time is the instant gratification aspect. You had to wait for your favorite TV show, your favorite song on the radio, etc, but now everything is at your fingertips when you want it. It's the bread and circuses of the modern era, and we all partake and let the world pass us by. Yes, I am here as well, but obviously, though I will say YouTube is my only guilty pleasure in terms of media, TV is awful so I don't watch it, and I do not participate in any social media like Facebook, Twitter/X or any of that garbage.
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It really boils down to individuaism vs collectivism. The appeal to the uneducated or ignorant person who views collectivism as ideal, is that they believe that a collectivist system will "stick it" to the rich man, and everyone will "share the wealth". In reality, what ends up happening is the very rich become even richer, and middle and upper middle classes just become equally poor along with you, the poor man who bought into this idea and will remain just as poor, or more poor as you ever were under a capitalist system.
Those who buy into the socialist ideals believe the economy is a zero sum game. In other words, it is like a giant pie that is always the same, and everyone can just get an equal "cut" and provide an equal share of the labour. Real economics do not work like that. The economy is not static or finite, it is organic, and capitalism creates a bigger pie. Yes, it doesn't necessarily get distributed evenly, and sometimes it's even unfair, but it's reality, it's human behavior, and it's the natural flow of supply and demand. Socialist theory just assumes you will always have X amount of workers needed to make product Z, and this can always be evenly distributed to population Y. But of course again, reality doesn't work like that. When war, or natural disaster, or drought, or other factors spring up, then all the sudden maybe half the workers producing toothbrushes or bread have to make bombs. This of course causes big issues with lack of supply and black markets, as we saw in the Soviet Union. Bottom line is it is unrealistic to think that all the work and all the goods can be evenly distributed, because in reality there are too many unknown and sporadic events that will throw off the balance. And that's not even getting into the fact that different types of labour have different value, which is another huge problem, and another long discussion for another time.
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@Alltracavenger Alot of interesting things going on here. First off, you have the left using their typical tactic of "if we can't make it into law, we will just economically crush the opposition" with the whole mandate for companies of 100+. This will unfortunately work for some who will fear losing employment, but there will be plenty of resistance as well as lawsuits. But what I find especially interesting is that how this regime has done everything in its power to crush small business, and don't think for one second that isn't because they are much harder to control.
I for one work for a small business of about 12 people, so I sure as hell won't be complying, but nor would I be even if I worked for a larger outfit. They WILL go further with this when they see that this mandate isn't enough to get what they want. I think next comes more strict restrictions on travel, attending public venues, etc, and this is where the biggest backlash will come because people are fed up with not being able to live a normal life. My wife and my mother both are pushing me to just comply because it is "easier". Well, maybe so, but when has being your own person, standing up for principles, or just plain having a libertarian view ever been EASY? Never. The world is unfortunately full of sheep both left and right (moreso left) and this is exactly what those in power count on. I'll keep my job, and frankly, what are you going to restrict me from? I haven't attended any professional sports competitions ever since those became political, I haven't flown in a plane in years because I drive everywhere, and concerts, festivals, etc I couldn't care less about. I just want to be left the hell alone and I think that's what most of us want. When they can't make laws they will just keep taking away "stuff" and economic freedom, that's their game.
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@netecrivernetecassassins2945 "Anything less than what's right". Pretty subjective statement. In his mind, and in the mind of everyone else with your views that the deceased's intentions were automatically benign and police are always wrong, the "right" thing is only one thing, and that's the guilty verdict he wants. It's like every other zealous political and religious argument out there. "My way" is the just and righteous way without question. But that simply isn't true. Doing the "right thing" is a careful analysis of the situation and an unbiased court decision, regardless of the outcome. You, me, and everyone else who just watches a video cannot call this, we are not experts, we are not the law, we are not the court. And maybe the legal system isn't always what we want it to be, but nothing can be perfect and we have to do our best to insure public safety and adequate justice.
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This is a great bit of advice in an age where identity has become bigger than ever with the popularity of social media. I might add to this that people generally tend to fall into 3 categories in terms of their social interaction, aggressive, submissive, or defensive. Better controlling your natural urge to trend more heavily in one of these directions is one big step towards the "scout" mentality you speak of. As someone myself who was always extremely defensive almost to a fault, I have learned to "lighten up" a bit as I have gotten older and except more criticism if it is constructive. And just about everyone could stand to lighten up a bit on issues that have no right or wrong answer and are simply a matter of opinion. Issues like abortion, gun control, environmentalism, etc will always be highly emotional and personal morality will always play a role in such issues, but subjects like which band is more talented, or, which sport is the best is purely a matter of personal taste and more people need to chill out a bit and show some respect for other points of view.
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First off, you can wipe your ass with a marketing degree...it is the "liberal arts" degree of the business world. Secondly, thos is nothing new. I graduated from college 23 years ago with a finance degree and it was the same then. You weren't going to just waltz into an $80K a year job, unless you have a degree in something very specialized like pharmacy or certain engineering degrees in high demand fields. Business degrees are a dime a dozen. Yes, you can specialize that degree and i selected finance over marketing or management because it seemed more specialized and less general. But again, yiu didn't just walk into a big job then. It was hard to even get a foot in the door. Had to temp for two years to essentially "prove myself" before getting a permanent hire. Then busted my butt for 5 years just to get a "senior" role, then hit the glass ceiling because "management requires a masters degree". Bailed from the corporate world, went into small business, and now am a minority partner in a small cpa and tax firm. Best thing I ever did. Took me until almost 40 to realize the rat race would never be won.
So anyways, the bottom line is this is nothing new. This generation doesn't have it particularly hard compared to the past few. Not since the boomer generation was young (1970s, early 80's), has the working world been where you could stroll into a big job just because you had a degree. Because back then it was a big deal. Now everyone has one so it doesn't mean nearly aa much.
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Agreed, in no way is the existence of God proven...so scientifically you cannot say as such, however religion works on belief and not proof. But it also goes beyond religion, I myself am not religious, yet I do believe in a higher power just because it seems rational to me. Of course others may find that irrational, and that is fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and beliefs. I am also fascinated by astrophysics and read much on the subject, and have no reason not to believe in many of the scientific theories associated with the studies.
But how then can I believe in God? Well, this may sound weird, but I think of it this way. Yes, no man has seen, touched, or proven that God exists. But at the same time no man, nor no probe even has seen, touched, or proven the existence of anything much beyond about Pluto, yet any rational person believes there is a whole universe beyond. Yet at the same time, how do we not know that we aren't living in a giant Truman show, where out around the Kuiper belt, the probes will crash into a giant holographic screen that keeps all of us living in some sort of simulation thinking we are real? We don't know. God, or any "intelligent designer", would be every bit as mysterious to our small minds as trying to prove the origins of the universe.
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I have absolutely zero faith that our military won't just follow orders like the German military did in WWII, and take out their own citizens. I think the catalyst for any possible upcoming revolution or civil war is something like another January 6th. The left is itching to have an excuse to weild their power and take out their opposition. Look how they have labeled that protest as an "insurrection", or "seditious", yet completely ignored situations like the CHOP/CHAZ in Seattle, burning down of police precincts, etc. If the right gets "too feisty" again, i believe their will bloodshed, and i don't think our military will side with any right wing rebels, regardless of the rank and files predominant political views. They will follow orders, plain and simple. And those giving the orders are dangerous radical Marxists. I think there is a good chance that police side with the civilians, but not the military. It's a complete different situation.
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@daniellarson3068 Ah yes, another "redistribute wealth" (as long as it is YOUR wealth and not MINE). Kind of like the anti police left that is always the first to call 911 and demand an officer come right over if a blade of grass is disturbed on YOUR lawn...then proceed to yell at them and say you pay their salary when they say there is nothing they can do for you. Your type is such a bunch of hypocrites. The only people that demand wealth redistribution are those that either A) have nothing themselves and would benefit personally from it, or B) have so much wealth and power that they have ways of getting out of theirs being taken. Wealth redistribution via punitive taxes does not make for a better society or a more "fair" society, maybe on paper, but in practice it makes for laziness, lack of ambition due to lack of rewards, crime, grift, black markets, and corruption. Humans are competitive by nature and most value their individuality. They want to get out of things what they put into it, and be individuals and not another cog in a giant wheel. If that's what you want, you are living the wrong place.
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In my opinion, pure forms of any system have rarely existed. Communism is a great example, as basically every large nation state that deemed itself communist was really more like authoritarian socialism. Nazis as well had a mix of what is traditionally considered far right (nationalism, the concept of a "pure race", etc), there were absolutely socialistic elements as well, for example commerce and industry under heavy government control, which is the opposite of far right which would be anarchy. You can make the argument also that pure capitalism doesn't exist as well (it has historically in small pockets), but in terms of unbridled Laissez Faire capitalism, it is more or less impossible to sustain without the results being a huge gulf in class, therefore inevitably ending up in an uprising of the lower classes.
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@olwill1 n 1993 my dad bought our family's first foreign car, a Honda Accord, and that effectively was the end of anyone in my family ever buying an unreliable American car ever again. The only exception was my grandmother's old Buick I inherited, kept as a 2nd vehicle, and drove into the ground, but we have all pretty much just owned Japanese cars and had no problems with them. The European cars were a different story, temperamental and expensive to fix. I never had one but my parents had an Audi and a Volvo and they were nice cars to drive and ride in, but were money pits. My dad was definitely a Honda guy, had a couple Accords and a couple Acuras that were all really good. I myself like Nissans. Have owned a Sentra SE-R, a Rogue (1st gen, not the crappy 2nd gen), a Murano and a Frontier. Had a few Mazdas but all the problems I had with the RX-8 killed me on that brand. It was to date the only bad japanese car I have owned, and I attribute that to the gimmicky Wankel engine.
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It's a natural cycle. Push too far one way or the other and people rebel. The 1950's were very conservative, so the 1960's were the direct opposite, it created the hippie movement and free love and all that. Regardless of your own personal views on the matter, it isn't hard to see the last decade has pushed left and pushed back on young men, calling them predators, coining terms like "toxic masculinity", vilifying them, making them look like buffoons in commercials and media, telling them they are neanderthals and out of touch. Modern media pans stoicism and personal responsibility in favor of sensitivity and femininity and collectivism. It's been trending this way since the late 90's. The natural reaction is to rebel and push back when you feel insulted and demoralized. It's really not a surprise. The conservative status quo was rebelled against in the 60's and 70's, today, it's the liberal status quo that is getting the pushback. Again, it's natural and expected. It's not the Tate bros and the tough guys and male chauvinists that are upset, these guys are what they are and no amount of shaming is going to change them. It's regular guys. It's regular guys like me. Guys like me that are proud to be emotionally strong, proud to be masculine, but at the same time treat everyone with respect, love our mothers and our wives, and are descent people. We are the ones pushing back on this narrative because it is completely unfair and unjustified.
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You can fancy whatever you like, men, women, both, neither, blow up dolls, sheep, whatever, but that doesn't make you physically something different than what you are. You are a man or a woman, or maybe in extremely rare cases, a hermaphrodite, but what you fancy sexually or feel like inside doesn't change that absolute fact of nature. These people are willingly delusional.
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@jonathanfarley2023 Kaepernick didn't do anything illegal, and nobody said he did. The reason he couldn't get a job after his sideline protests was because he became a huge distraction that no team wanted to deal with. Other players have received similar treatment because of their lack of discipline that caused distractions, like Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson. It doesn't matter whether or not you, I, or any NFL team owner agrees or not with Kaepernick, what it comes down to is that a team needs to be about the team, the game, and discipline. You can't have one player running around being a media spectacle regardless of whether or not you like their message or their antics, it takes away from the team. It's just like in the military, lack of discipline by one member can drag down the whole platoon. My view on Kaepernick is he is free to believe, say, and do whatever he wants, but where he went wrong was doing it on the job. That, and in the aftermath nobody was obligated to hire him. I don't care if you are the greatest football player in the world. Look at Ryan Leaf. At one time he was a great player but a bad attitude and constant media circus turned him into absolute poison that nobody wanted on their team.
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Learn something people don't want to do and you will be indispensable. For me it was taxes. I worked for big companies for years pounding out spreadsheets and expense/P&L reports for years, was treated like crap, paid poorly, and let go at the drop of a hat (corporate downsizing). But corporate staff accountants are a dime a dozen. Nobody wants to do tax. People hate it. I actually like it since I learned it. Now I am in my 8th year of a small tax business and manage a location. I don't get paid exorbitantly by any means but I am paid fairly, with probably half my pay coming from straight production numbers (so much per tax return plus bonuses for my location hitting certain milestones). So I get out of it what I put into it. I rely on my boss for a job and he relies on me because reliable people that are actually proficient at doing taxes are hard to come by. I'm certainly not irreplaceable, nor is he for me because there are other tax firms, but we have a pretty good mutual understanding and business relationship. It's even to the point now that I go out for beers with him occasionally.
So the most important things are make yourself valuable, work for someone fair that pays you FAIR, doesn't have to be exorbitant, but fair, and build relationships. Not easy. You need the right people and right atmosphere, but it's possible. At 40 years old and laid off, unemployed, and with 15 years or so of corporate misery under my belt, I didn't think it was possible. Learning a new skill opened that door for me. I will admit I did get lucky to get a fair boss to work for.
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It is quite interesting to compare religion to simulation theory, and actually something quite clever that I never really thought of. I consider myself to be a pretty open person in terms of what our and the universe's origins could be, whether that be a deity or creator, a simulation, random chance, or something else beyond our grasp, I consider all to be possibilities, though be it I rank random chance pretty low. Though I wouldn't consider myself religious, I have always had an interest in some religious concepts, and to combine this with simulation theory makes it particularly interesting. I have always believed there is a chance we are living inside of some sort of "purgatory". Maybe this fit well with simulation theory in that this is some sort of test program where after you die, the bad programs get deleted and the good ones are re-uploaded to a better program, or possibly, are brought into the "real" realm with the designers/creators. Kind of a technological twist on the concept of heaven and hell.
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It's a funny thing, plastics. On one hand, it revolutionized convenience, portability, and low cost...on the other hand, it created a dilemma of the mass production of a product that is easy to make more of, but really hard to get rid of the old used pieces, properly anyways. Some may actually wonder how did people used to certain things before plastic was around, or at least as widely used as now? Well, for one thing you didn't use plastic cutlery and flatware for parties and picnics, you had a "picnic set" that was regular stainless steel silverware, although often thinner and lighter and of cheaper quality. I still use my grandparents "picnic silverware" from the 1940's, in fact, so that has certainly got some mileage on it.l, and what is funny is it is actually quite stylish now as it has that mid century art deco design to it. The old "Malloware" bowls are still kicking around too and I use them for food bowls for my cats. That stuff, while an antique form of plastic, is actually indestructible and can be used indefinitely as long as you don't put it in a microwave! As for food and consumables, especially beverages, most came in glass that was often refillable.
You can see why lightweight plastics became the norm, it definitely has lowered shipping costs with lightweight packaging, and has made serving large groups for parties and events simpler with disposable items, but has created a whole new problem with waste. That's the part we need to figure out. Unfortunately, not enough of us still have grandma's old picnic ware available, nor do they want to go through the bother of cleaning them after each use!
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It's real but it is massively exaggerated by alarmists, just like so many other things. While granted, we shouldn't all just be whistling through the graveyard, people need to chill out a bit and look for logical solutions to problems rather than continuously overreacting and beating everyone over the head with their particular pet problems. Should we find viable, alternative energy sources, control waste, and curb hyperconsumerism? Yes. Do we all need to start living like the Amish? No. That's the problem with the world now. Just on this one subject my take on it would be criticized by extremists oe side of being "denialism" and too "right wing", while the other side would say it is too "left wing" and I am too influenced by "fake news". The loudest voices out there are always the ones who are overly alarmist, or overly skeptical. You are criticized for taking a stance somewhere in between. You are told to either obsess over it and dump every ounce of effort into combating it, or flat out ignore it because it is fake. Being moderate about issues doesn't gain you a lot of friends, but it is the most logical approach. No the world is not ending, but yes, we can do a better job taking care of it.
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I hope things will get better, and if they do it will be because of young people like you. Yes, granted every generation when they are young are chastised by the older generations, saying they are lazy, worthless, coddled, etc, and many will grow out of it, but you seem to be starting out with a good mentality right off the bat. And you do bring up good points about your generation living through mostly shitty times. I'm 25 years older than you so I remember all the positive world events you guys missed out on, though we had our share of negative ones too. And don't forget it wasy generation the older people said were "slackers" that would never amount to anything. Though that is somewhat true, if not entirely from our own doing... generation X is roughly early 40s to late 50s now, which should be the prime generation for ruling business and government, yet it's still majority boomers in those positions because they just won't let go. And I don't feel bad hating on boomers because my parents aren't even boomers, they are/were late silent generation (dad's passed but mom is still around).
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The modern left represents everything the traditional left fought for centuries to change. Some lives being more important than others, some people having more rights than others, and these things being based on skin color, ethnicity, ideology, etc. Hence why modern leftists are not liberal. Tim is more of a traditional liberal, which today coincides more with libertarians. The far left is every bit as authoritarian, racist, sexist, classist, and bigoted as anybody on the far right ever has been, just for opposite causes and groups. Real mainstream liberals and real mainstream conservatives have more in common and it is the extremists that are the ones in opposition to the general consensus on how things ought to be. To me both a liberal and a conservative believe in equal treatment of everyone, they just differ in their approach, and differ in opinion in a few key areas, their means are different but their ends are similar. It's the extremists that are the problem, and they have hijacked the left in this country. They try to promote themselves as mainstream but they are not. A BLM activist is no different than a skinhead, except that the groups they favor are different. Their means and tactics, which is achieving goals through hate, fear, force, and terror, are the same.
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I have been a supporter of President Trump since very early on, and i think he made some very good moves as President in terms of policy, putting our country first which hasn't really been done since Reagan. That said, he does cone with a lot of baggage. Sure, you can argue that believing that is giving in to the left, but i disagree. Trump was the right candidate at the right time, but that time has passed, and my fear would be in another 4 years of Trump that nothing would get done because everyone would fight him tooth and nail from all sides. I support DeSantis as my candidate for the primaries, if he does not get the nomination, i will support Trump or likely anyone from the Republican side that would run in the general election, because the Democrats are so terrible for this country i could never support any of them. Even though i am not a Republican and don't agree with everything that party does, for the foreseeable future they are the only option.
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This ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a paradigm shift. For anyone above about 25-30 now, it feels really weird, because we were adults before it happened. We remember normal childhoods, and the older of us remember normal adulthoods. But what about the younger of us? What about those still in school when 2020 hit? The older ones may remember a normal childhood, but never had a normal adult life, and maybe never will. The very young will have not remembered anything before this. This is just normal life to them. And unless we as the older generations can get back to normal ourselves, they will never see what normal is, and this bizarro world will eventually become the new normal. Yes, I am talking to you my fellow Gen Xers, as well as millennials and older Gen Z. It rests on our shoulders. We need to make it happen unless we want to spend our twilight years in complete bizarro world weirddom.
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I agree with your conclusion, but not your reason. I think much of the heightened not only racism, but every other -ism you see today, is because of hyper polarization in politics, education, and media over the last 20 years. More than ever, we are being pushed into groups of our own kind and being told either we are the bad guy, or some other group is the bad guy. They fein a desire for "diversity", yet in practice push more segregation than ever. Terms like "cultural appropriation" are an example. 20-30 years ago, you could do something that would be considered an identity of a different culture and that was okay, today you are shaned for it. That's just one example but there are many. This kind of thing has bred resentment, clanism, and even hatred at the extreme levels. People are quite simply afraid to associate with different cultural groups now out of fear they will say or do something that is deemed offensive or otherwise frowned upon. People are afraid to speak freely or have open opinions out of fear of retaliation by "the mob". Many facts aren't even mentionable if they put a particular group, especially a minority group, in a negative light, again out of fear of being branded racist or bigoted. Being restricted in these ways had made people resentful of these groups, therefore in a sense defacto bigots. In this environment we all feel more comfortable around our own kind because we don't have to worry as much about our actions offending someone.
This is a bad place to be and this, in my opinion, has forced society to become less accepting of differences, ironically, after such a hard push to force acceptance. My belief is that in this push, guilt and fear has been used rather than proper education, experience, and compassion. For me personally, I am going to first sympathize with, which will lead to accepting, a group different from my own more by learning objectively about them, rather than being forced fed orders to not speak certain words, ideas, or be allowed to dress like them, eat like them, etc. Hence why I didn't think this push for supposed diversity of thought and diversity of culture is even true, rather an elaborate rouse to further divide us, make us hate each other, and therefore give more power to those in control when they say "You can't even get along, this proves that you need more control".
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@lawrencecrocker4870 Funny how a Canadian would talk so much shit on the United States when about 90% of your culture, entertainment, news, and interests revolve around the United States. I live just across the border and get CTV and CBC out of Toronto. I watch your news. Your news covers America more than American news does. You are all obsessed with America, so don't act like you don't care because you know you do. And you also know damn well that push comes to shove in any kind of global conflict the U.S. is going to protect you. I'm not calling Canada weak, in fact I actually have a lot of respect for Canada because I am a mature adult. I respect the contributions Canadians made in WWII. I respect your country as a free and civilized nation even though I may not agree with who is in charge right now, but to be honest, about 90% of the time I don't agree with our own government but I still love my country. America is a great country but far from perfect. I love it and think it's the best because I am a patriot, but I am not arrogant about it, I think anyone who lives in a free, civilized nation should live their own country the most, and if they don't there is something wrong with them.
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@fzrniko lol, my friend got his MBA and bragged to everyone about how he was going to be a big corporate officer at his company. Yeah, he got canned a few months later and now makes sales calls in a cubicle for about $30K a year. I manage an accounting and tax office. Yeah, I actually have a Master's degree as well, mine in economics, but that's not what got me the job. I quit my old job and started at the bottom at my current company, which required zero college and didn't care that I had college, and started me off at the same lousy wage as everyone else. Two years in and I am running a location. Been doing that now for another two years. Got there because I am good at what I do, not because of some piece of paper. One of our other managers who has a higher volume location and makes quite a bit more than me has a high school diploma, that's it. Maybe if my big shot friend who got his master's before anyone else I know did gets canned again, he can come work for me. Maybe your son can too. We start at $15 an hour. No extra pay for college degrees. Interested? Probably a better way to pay off those big student loans than serving coffee at Starbucks for $9.50 an hour.
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I will just lay out one scenario for you. A man the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime invades your home and says I am going to take everything you have, kill you, and rape your wife and children. Neither of you are armed. How do you prevent it? You don't. Now let's say both of you are armed, and you are well trained with your weapon, plus you have the tactical advantage of being in your own turf. Now you have an advantage. Sure guns can be used for evil, but there is no other equalizing force like a gun. If nobody has them, you are at the mercy of the biggest and the strongest.
And don't say "these things never happen", because they do. I personally knew and older couple that didn't have firearms, did experience a home invasion by two younger stronger men, and they raped and killed both of them and even burned their dog alive in front of them before killing them just for good measure. Evil is out there, don't kid yourself. Yes, evil may get their hands on a gun and cause terror, but in any one on one situation where you have to defend yourself, 100% of the time if it is against a bigger, stronger attacker you are much better off that both of you, even they, are armed because that at the very least gives you a chance.
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I think some of it is definitely how different people's brains process things, but also I think it is generational. I certainly could be wrong but I would guess you are a fair bit younger than me. I am 45, and while yes of course digital clocks have been around my whole life, until I was probably in my 20's outside of your bedside click which usually was always digital, they were mostly kind of gimmicky or "tech nerdy", especially digital wrist watches. So most clocks around the house and most places you went were almost exclusively analog, so you got accustomed to telling time in that "of, after, past, to" sense rather than concretely. For example if a clock says 7:35 I don't usually say "seven thirty-five", I say "25 of eight". Makes me wonder if Chicago was a modern band if the song "25 or 6 to 4" would be called "3:35 or 3:54" 😂
As for in the car on the speedometer, I did actually have a car about 15 years ago that had just a big analog tachometer with a small digital insert for the speed. I hated it at first, then got used to it, but never really was all that keen on it. However I will say that when I drove in Canada (which I do frequently living where you could practically throw a rock and land it on Canadian soil) I loved it because I could press a button and it showed km/h instead of mph and it was much easier than reading the little inner circle of numbers on an analog speedometer.
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There is also the old argument about the "self aware paperclip maker". AI that's only task and only drive is making paperclips endlessly. Yes, they may eventually exhaust their resources and be unable to make more paperclips, but rather than seek out new resources for paperclip making, they just shut down indefinitely because they are ill equipped to go searching for said resources, being paperclip makers and all, and not programmed to do anything else like explore or even move from the same spot. This theory, of course, does make the assumption that these machines are incapable, unwilling, or uninterested in evolving and/or learning/improving in any way that is outside the realm of its primary programming (it may work to become a more efficient paperclip maker and nothing else). Which certainly there is a possibility of such an entity, when ruling out that there will be an automatic human type desire to improve/preserve/replicate itself. As you point out, this doesn't necessarily have to be embedded in their logic just because we think this way. What we see as superintelligence may be deemed inefficient/unnecessary by an alien AI. Certainly an interesting angle on AI and how it may perform.
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100% these things are paid for, mostly by left wing organizations, many funded by the man mentioned above my comment.
True story my friend is a State Trooper and they had to go arrest these trees hugger protesters blocking trucks from a propane company a few years back. They had some sort of beef with the way they stored the propane. In our ridiculous blue state, the only penalty is a nominal fine, over and over again, for infinity, it never ramps up to jail time. This was a daily occurrence. So him and the other troopers would arrest the same people day after day, and just keep giving them BS violation tickets. They were like $150 or something, but these were a bunch of broke hippies so he asked one how the heck they could keep paying these fines, and they told him they don't pay them, their sponsor does. So basically they could obstruct a business consequence free. I'm sure it's the same deal here. Another fun fact if that story was one of they people he arrested multiple times was actor James Cromwell, of Star Trek fame 😂
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I'll add to this also that laws vary widely from state to state, which is also a problem. Some states you can walk into a gun shop and leave with handgun, no permit, no waiting period. Others require permits and some are very difficult to obtain. You have to prove that there is a threat to your home or business. I live in a state like that and I do have a permit, only because I manage a business that has large amounts of cash on site. I still had to jump through countless hoops to obtain it. If you have a permit from a "less strict" state, a "more strict" state will not recognize it. It's a bit of a mess. I could literally have a pistol permit from Pennsylvania, and pass through New York with my gun, and be arrested for unlicensed carry. And that's a felony. It's ridiculous. It can even vary within a state. New York, for example, you can be licensed with the state to carry, but you can't carry within the city limits of New York City because they have a 100% ban on carrying. Now who does that punish? Criminals, who disregard the laws and carry unlicensed arms to commit crimes, or law abiding citizens? It's a stupid law because because the only people that will follow it are people that wouldn't cause problems to begin with. Saying that making illegal to carry a gun prevents gun crime is as nonsensical as saying that because cocaine is illegal that nobody will use it.
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@nonec384 Well, unless you are from Iraq, Afghanistan, or are old enough to have lived in post WWII Philippines, you are not from a country that has actually been occupied by the United States. Influenced, embargoed or sanctioned by, meddled-in, gamed by, messed around with, perhaps, because the list is fairly long, but actually occupied? There aren't that many.
Also a shout-out to the knowing more that the people who actually lived through it, the speaking in riddles, and being convinced you are the smartest person in the room....vintage communist speak. Nobody is more impressed with you than you. Gotta give you an A for effort and persistence though.
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@GenerationX1984 Lol, "Reaganomics". Do you even know what that means, or did you get that term off a cracker jack box? Well, I happen to have a degree in economics, and what is colloquially termed as "Reaganomics", is supply side economics. That just means enhancement of the suppliers (e.g. manufacturers and companies) through tax breaks, incentives, etc. The end result is affordable consumer goods and more jobs. The opposite approach, taken by administrations on the left, is to highly tax companies, to artificially inflate wages, welfare, give out stimulus payments, incorporate punitive taxes for those whom they determine are "wealthy", and print money. What uneducated people like you don't understand is when money supply is more scarce and consumer goods are more plentiful, the power lies in the purchaser, as the dollar is stronger and products are more affordable. The opposite is true when there is a bloated money supply and scarcity of goods, as we see now. With "demand side" economics (not an official term, but essentially what Keynesianism is), the value of the dollar decreases because the supply is high among consumers, and the initial incentive to work and produce more is lessened because of the high supply of money (through such things as economic stimuli, artificially inflated minimum wage, etc). It's all great for a short period when everyone has a bunch of money and doesn't have to work as much, but the bubble bursts eventually and all that money is worth half as much and anything you want to buy with it costs twice as much because the supply is low due to people working and producing less. Much of this is common sense, but unfortunately that escapes too many of us.
So did Reagan ruin the economy? No, actually it has been a combination of GWB, Obama, and Biden administrations that have done this and we are paying for it now. Trying to print or tax your way out of economic hardship does not work, in fact, it has a reverse effect. Hence why my parents could live more comfortably off about $40K a year in the 80's than my wife and I can live off around $100K now.
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I am convinced, as a 40-something year old person, that life's monotony and uniformity as you get older is part of the reason. When you are young, every year is something different, you are in a different grade in school, you do different activities, and you discover new things all the time because you haven't been around that long. Once you hit your 30's or so, for most people, things tend to be the same week after week, year after year. Many people are in monogamous relationships. Many have jobs where they do similar things every day, year after year. There is no new challenge to look forward to each year. It sounds depressing, but it is true. I have found however, that changing jobs to one where I interact with different people every day has slowed things down a bit for me.
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@Nick-ds7yv Nice strawman attack. You basically just built up in your mind and artificial version of what you assumed I believe, then tore it down. Unfortunately, life doesn't work off assumptions.
Actually, I would be opposed to banning a communist party, a Nazi party, or any other party left right or center in the United States. It was before my time, but I disagree with the "red scare" and McCarthysm of the 50's, and I am as 180 degrees from a communist as you can be. Every political viewpoint, regardless of what I think or anyone else thinks about it, should have the opportunity to have a political party and that party the right to recruit, run for office, etc, so long as its mission is within legal bounds. Anything that is a rubbish idea will do itself in, or be limited to a handful of kooks. But let the kooks be. Did you know there is still a temperance party in this country? Yes, a party based on banning alcohol and having state religion. All sorts of oddball small parties exist, and I wouldn't be a libertarian if I was against the existence of any of them. Doesn't mean I agree with them. Doesn't mean I wouldn't favor exposing all the bad things about these parties publicly. But banning? No. You must have mistaken me for somebody far left or far right. I'm neither.
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On a similar note, NY state has raised the tobacco tax significantly. Yes, we can always point out the fact that smoking is bad for you, but that's nit tge point here and lots of things are bad for you. The point here is people aren't just going to stop buying cigarettes because the tax is high, they will just go elsewhere. There are reservations all over the state where national brands are 1/2 the cost and native brands about 1/6 the cost. There's also Pennsylvania right next door where costs are significantly lower. Who this hurts is business owners. You go to the corner store, you buy a pack of cigarettes, maybe you also buy a coffee or a soda, a sandwich, a gallon of milk, what have you. Now you don't go to that store anymore. You aren't just going to change people's habits through punitive taxation. You may get a few, but most just find other sources. I'd even argue the state itself will lose money. Smokers will suck it up and pay $10 a pack but they won't pay $15. At $10 a pack, most of that was still tax, i believe $7 or so. Now, for everyone that goes elsewhere, the state gets zero. If even half of regular smokers go elsewhere, they lose $7 a pack on each of them but only gain $5 on the rest. It's a losing effort, and I'd wager that at least half are going elsewhere. The reservations are booming. Not just the tobacco, but also much cheaper gasoline, and no sales tax on regular everyday products.
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There are many similarities to the United States, not just in your history and language, but you n geography. Same goes here with vast distances that, especially Europeans, can't relate to. Like I am from New York...so New York City, right? Not even close, it is a minimum 8 hour drive from where I live. And NY is just a medium size state. Go east to west in Texas or North to South in California and you are talking insane distances. We also have a sparsely populated interior, though be it not much desert, but more Mountains and vast flat plains, that people jokingly call "fly over country". Much of our north is very harsh in the winter (I know, I live there), and the West vast deserts. The Rocky Mountain range of a huge and was nearly impassable throughout history until rail was constructed through it which cost countless lives of workers (many Irish and Chinese for those of you wondering). What I think makes Australia so much less populated, aside from of course the fact it is a much younger country, is it's remote distance from most of the rest of the Western world.
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Pay close attention to who is the "they" that are encouraging young people, especially young women, to not have a family. This is almost exclusively the political left. There is good reason for them to encourage such a thing and that is because statistically speaking, adult women with families vote more politically conservative, and single adult women vote more politically left. I stay away from using the word "liberal", because the modern left is not liberal, they are statist, pro censorship, and anti free speech, which is all anti liberal. The "they" doesn't care about the future of humanity, they care about the future of their agenda. Convincing young women that men are evil and having a family is boring and constraining furthers their agenda. It's a whole other situation with young men. Young men, by their nature, are (supposed to be) full of testosterone, ready to fight, and right wing in their politics. "They" are convincing them to become weak and feminine. But this is a discussion for another time.
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