Fourth Turning is Here! And no one is here!

[pbrower2a]

(03-21-2020, 09:04 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-20-2020, 02:04 PM)jleagans Wrote: Message boards are dead y'all, is there a more frequently used place for Strauss Howe discussions ?  

Strauss Howe on reddit seems the most active, for a conversation forum to exist long-term its gonna need to be on Reddit.

Only Millennials and Gen Z should try to argue with me, as Gen X and Boomers can't be trusted to know anything in regards to technology   .

I don't think so.  There are already several options open for discussion, and all that's managed to do is to split the interested into isolated camps.  Reddit?  No, it's number two if that.  The most active discussion is on an invitation-only Facebook group.  I find Facebook irritating in the extreme and unsuited to discussion of long duration, so I don't use it.  Is Reddit better? No. So that leaves a forum like this one, that, for good or ill, creates an accessible archive as it's used -- clunky features and all. 

Forums (sic) were a logical outgrowth of Usenet, which was the wild west on steroids. They still support anonymity (a mixed blessing at best) and require moderation to keep them from being overrun with spam.  Facebook is structured, but lacks the ability to support discussions in more than superficial ways.  What does Reddit have going for it? 

And addressing your last comment:  I hope you realize that many in the Boom/X contingent on this forum were or still are active Techies.  I've been programming computers since 1966 (Fortran and assembly languages), and continues to work in the field until I retired in 2016.  I'll let others speak for themselves, but we older folks actually know how the hardware and software work, because we built a lot of it. Don't be condescending.

Not only spam -- but also hate speech. I have been attacked for being gay, black, or Jewish even if I am None of the Above... I remember being on one Forum in the 1990's and seeing a post right under mine that said that the Jewish hypocrisy  had gotten thick right under one of mine. I could not figure how it applied to me. But I was naive enough to slough it off as absurdity.

(OK, hypocrisy is the norm and not the exception in Humanity. Most of us have ideals which we cannot quite achieve, and the only non-hypocrites are (1) the extremely-rare saints, (2) people who believe in nothing other than themselves, and (3) people proud of their own evil. I doubt that any of us know any of the first; there just aren't many Francis of Assisi types out and about. People who believe in nothing but their own interests at the worst remind me of the Victor Ippolitovich Komarovsky of Doctor Zhivago (novel, film, or at some point opera) who plays both sides and goes with the winner with the expectation of being rewarded well for doing the dirty work of repression for the eventual winners. People proud of their own evil? If the second type is best to be avoided unless one needs someone to brutalize the losers of some nasty conflict, then the third is a type to be avoided at every imaginable cost. One cannot deal with that type without oneself being debased and degraded in the process).  

So I did not understand the distinction between "Jewish hypocrisy" and other sorts, let alone why it was supposedly so much worse. But if I didn't get the hint the first time, then that poster (whom I shall hereon call "Thomas the Liar") made clear that "my" never forget/never forgive religion was at fault for showing no mercy to people identifying with Nazi Germany. He attacked me for hating Nazis (wait a minute -- is it possible for any good person to not hate Nazis? I well know about "turning the other cheek", but then Jesus never met a Nazi.)  He claimed that (practically out of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, long known as a forgery) that Jews manipulated everything and exploit all gentiles. He claimed that the Holocaust was a hoax intended to make Gentiles all feel guilty.

I've known enough Jews to recognize that there is no Jewish monolith, that Jewish cultural life is excellent preparation for success at practically any honest endeavor. If Jews do well at commerce, law, politics, medicine, academia, culture, science, and even labor organizations,  it is because an inordinate number of competent people among them. They need no conspiracy; a successful society rewards the competent  well or loses the bounty that competence offers. Most seem to have a stake in fostering moral conduct among themselves; it is telling that one of the most renowned rabbis once answered the question:

"Is it not better to cheat a gentile than a fellow Jew?" with 

"No -- it is indeed far worse because such does great harm to our image and to our safety as a people".

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article...-stealing/

I neither denied not admitted being Jewish because I would eventually hurt him worse than he had hurt me. After all, I see nothing wrong with Jews and Judaism; moreover I like to be linked to winners.   I could blow off his accusations of my evil behavior as an alleged Jew because it was absurd. Eventually I got him to admit to his motivation as protecting... Germans and German-Americans, against whom Jews are supposedly relentless and merciless enemies. To that I had the perfect retort. In his smears he had attacked a German-American in the mistaken belief that I was Jewish. OK, we may be the gentiles most similar by culture to the descendants of the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim. I consider Jews my cultural and moral brethren. Most Germans and German-Americans consider Nazis a pure disgrace (as I have observed, the people who most loathe the Mafia are Italian-Americans, which is hardly surprising) as the worst syndicate of organized crime that ever existed. By attacking me for being Jewish he in no way protected me. To avoid trouble with Jews as a German or German-American one need only be anti-Nazi. That is easy. All that is necessary for hating Nazis is to have a moral compass.