The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(04-22-2020, 11:24 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-22-2020, 01:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-22-2020, 01:17 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: At this point, I'd be more likely to say it's the trigger or initial cause and say that we are now entering the 4T. In my opinion, big government hasn't done a very good job up to this point.

I would go further.  I would say the economic thinking daydream believers who ignore science when they don’t want to believe a problem exists failed miserably and are still protesting to make the disaster more complete.  

I think you see the Coronavirus well enough, but you are still unwilling to see, say, global warming.  It is not quick enough.  I does not force itself on you as much as the virus does.  Some see neither, but stand ready to ignore the science, to cry hoax or fake news and do nothing.  They won’t until the scale of the disaster is of the Atlanta or Berlin scale.  I don’t think the rest of us want to let it get that big.

In case you aren't aware, we have a compound crisis that's going on right now. I think we are all aware that COVID19 exists and the threat that it represents to the lives of some people. The liberals seem to be stuck on the COVID19 crisis and not paying as much attention to the growing economic related crisis that's going to financially cripple some states and cause all kinds of problems. Personally, I don't care if you go to your graves with your blindfolds on and blame us with your final breaths.

We have the looming End of Scarcity in which further industrial production cannot lead to improvement in people's lives, and this ensures that people will not work as many hours to produce basic human needs. More income can at best go into experiences if those are available, into more government expenditures without production of tangible goods (as in education), paying off debts, waste, war, or elite indulgence. Over the last forty years the American economy has trended in the latter direction. That may have been close to running its course.

COVID-19 is a huge disruption of the American economy. We had to choose between reduced economic activity with consequent losses of jobs, income, and tax revenues to avoid even more mass death. Mass death at a certain level creates a huge number ov vacant buildings, huge drops in real-estate valuations, huge cuts in property-tax collections, mortgages becoming uncollectable, unused infrastructure with high maintenance costs, and huge gaps in people capable of doing certain jobs. If you want to know what a city with large tracts of vacant and abandoned buildings is like, then just look at Detroit. Several million people dying from a plague could have such an effect. Worst hit would be the newest, outlying suburbs as renters in such places move closer to downtown to reduce commutes.

Quote:According to science, the State of Minnesota was covered by a thick sheet of glacial ice at one time. According to science, the deserts of Africa and the Middle East were fertile plains at one time and portions of sunken ancient cities were above water at one time too. According to science, the continents used to be one gigantic land mass at one time as well. I referred to the issue of global warming as climate change before climate change became the issue. Also, according to science, China is still twice as bad as us right now. You can't blame us for China.

You have your times mixed up; the Ice Age is well attested; the "Green Sahara" is shown to have happened when the sunreached its most northerly point on the ecliptic was closer to the perigee (summers were hotter and shorter in the northern hemisphere, so the summer rains got farther north, but winters were colder and longer, so Mediterranean storms dipped further south in the winter). During the coldest parts of the Ice Age, sea levels were lower -- but there were no large cities.

After COVID-19  may come the Singularity in which machines are capable of outperforming us intellectually. Around 2100, global ming has the potential to unleash huge amounts of water from Antarctic ice which will result in the inundation of much prime farm land.

[gabrielle]

(04-22-2020, 12:40 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-21-2020, 07:27 PM)gabrielle Wrote:

(04-21-2020, 04:51 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-21-2020, 02:51 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-21-2020, 02:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: How much longer do you expect working  people to continue going without and sacrificing? You don't seem to be looking at the big picture as usual and you don't seem to be going through what they're going through right now either.

The big picture shows us the need for sacrifice. We are all going through this together.

Conservatives almost never see the big picture; that's why they are conservatives. They react to some personal incident and change their views on what's good for the country and their own interest based on that (e.g. Aspie Millennial). They are parochial and provincial. Rural people tend toward that direction; that's why they vote red by 4 to 1 margins.

We aren't all going through this the same way together. The so called big picture relating to blues in particular has always seemed limited compared to the Bigger Picture as it relates to the bulk of the country these days. You don't seem like the type who could kill a wild animal, gut it, skin it and butcher it without a problem. I doubt you would be able to go out and find fish to catch and be able to process them to eat either. Yes. The rural people may seem parochial and provincial and irrelevant to you.

Well, if all the "reds" know how to hunt and fish, then when the shit goes down and America dissolves into total socio-economic collapse you guys will instantly assemble into a sustainable hunter-gatherer society and everything will be hunky-dory, right?  Perhaps you can start raising crops to buy protection from local warlords against the roving brigands.

Here's the Bigger Picture: Lift social distancing too soon and the virus surges back, even stronger.  The health care system is overwhelmed, and we have "many more body bags," as the director of the WHO put it.  A large number of those in the body bags will be health care workers, a generation of medical expertise that cannot be replaced.  If you think the suffering and sacrifice we are dealing with now is bad, just you wait and see how much worse it can get.

The reds know how to hunt, fish, trap, manufacture just about everything, fix/repair, invest, manage money and business, operate machinery, grow crops, work with concrete, mine, cut and process lumber, engineer, manage hospitals and nurses, nurse, doctor and so forth. I don't think blues understand how much the reds do and how much the reds know how to do these days.

Well, good for them.  Just so you know, though, they do all those things in blue states too.  Even in blue cities within red states. 

I think we all agree the economy is f--cked. Blues are sacrificing just as much as reds.  Unemployment is likely around 15% or more right now, I've read.  But I'm not really sure what you expect people to do.  The economic crisis we have right now is because of the Covid crisis.  The economy is only ever as healthy as the working people driving it.  We have to beat this health crisis, and the only way to do that is to trust our health care experts.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-22-2020, 04:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You have your times mixed up; the Ice Age is well attested; the "Green Sahara" is shown to have happened when the sunreached its most northerly point on the ecliptic was closer to the perigee (summers were hotter and shorter in the northern hemisphere, so the summer rains got farther north, but winters were colder and longer, so Mediterranean storms dipped further south in the winter). During the coldest parts of the Ice Age, sea levels were lower -- but there were no large cities.

I have also heard that that the time when the Sahara went from green lands to desert also coincided with the wide spread use of slash and burn agriculture by the humans.  Yep.  More greenhouse gasses.  Less land dedicated to forests.  The Sahara may have been the first casualty of human climate change.  

One temple of ancient Egypt shows palm trees, abundant greenery, abundant African wildlife, all growing within close proximity of the core Nile civilization.  Some are saying this was literal, was not any kind of fantasy.  The fall of the first wave of civilizations in the core of the Middle East corresponds to this period, when some of the best land for the development of human civilization went dry, when the action shifted to the north side of the Mediterranean.

[Blazkovitz]

(04-22-2020, 11:29 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: "Compound crisis"?   Does that mean multiple issues are playing out at the same time?

Yes, it's obvious. Economic inequalities, migration, climate change, culture war and now the virus.

These guys call it a cascade of crises:
http://culturalcreatives.org/emerging-wisdom-culture/

[pbrower2a]

(04-22-2020, 10:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-22-2020, 04:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You have your times mixed up; the Ice Age is well attested; the "Green Sahara" is shown to have happened when the sun reached its most northerly point on the ecliptic was closer to the perigee (summers were hotter and shorter in the northern hemisphere, so the summer rains got farther north, but winters were colder and longer, so Mediterranean storms dipped further south in the winter). During the coldest parts of the Ice Age, sea levels were lower -- but there were no large cities.

I have also heard that that the time when the Sahara went from green lands to desert also coincided with the wide spread use of slash and burn agriculture by the humans.  Yep.  More greenhouse gasses.  Less land dedicated to forests.  The Sahara may have been the first casualty of human climate change.  

One temple of ancient Egypt shows palm trees, abundant greenery, abundant African wildlife, all growing within close proximity of the core Nile civilization.  Some are saying this was literal, was not any kind of fantasy.  The fall of the first wave of civilizations in the core of the Middle East corresponds to this period, when some of the best land for the development of human civilization went dry, when the action shifted to the north side of the Mediterranean.

Interesting connection. I've never seen that, but it makes some sense.

Arnold Toynbee tells us that when the Sahara was green, the Nile Valley was practically uninhabited. It was simply too difficult for people to exploit because it was thick in reeds when much of the rest of North Africa was highly habitable. But as the Sahara desiccated people got desperate and found their way to the Nile Valley, chopped the reeds and channeled the river into small plots of land, and survived. Others went south into African savannas and would be lost to history or north to the Mediterranean zone of climate in the Maghreb and some coastal zones of Libya. People who failed to move starved.

The first settlers of the Nile Valley probably remembered the verdant Sahara. The Egyptians are not known for fantasy except in their religion.   But the Egyptians developed irrigation, large-scale building, and sailing... As Toynbee said, the optimum for human settlement is the environment that requires much sophistication to allow people to adapt, but not so much as to waste most such effort. The savannas of central Africa are fine for hunter-gatherers, and the desert is livable only for people who keep moving from one place of forage to the next -- if not completely barren.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-22-2020, 04:01 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-22-2020, 11:24 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: In case you aren't aware, we have a compound crisis that's going on right now. I think we are all aware that COVID19 exists and the threat that it represents to the lives of some people. The liberals seem to be stuck on the COVID19 crisis and not paying as much attention to the growing economic related crisis that's going to financially cripple some states and cause all kinds of problems. Personally, I don't care if you go to your graves with your blindfolds on and blame us with your final breaths.

The economic crisis will be with us regardless of the choices we make.  If we hunker down and ride out the viral attack, the economy will shrink, many businesses will fail and the recovery will be long and hard.  If, on the other hand, we decide to open the economy and the viral attack returns with a vengeance (see the Spanish Flu  in the fall of 1918), we'll have to retrench and start over and the economy will be devastated as well.  The economic trick isn't how the virus is addressed; its how the government props-up the economy with massive infusions of money … or it doesn't.

Mitch McConnell is already kvetching about the borrowed money, now that the business community is funded to his satisfaction. He misses the point.  Propping up the business half of the economy accomplishes nothing if the consumer half is devastated.  Consumers can't consume if they're flat broke. So regardless of the open/close decision, keeping the money coming is a must.

Yep. It's pretty much pick your poison at this point.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-22-2020, 07:39 PM)gabrielle Wrote: Well, good for them.  Just so you know, though, they do all those things in blue states too.  Even in blue cities within red states. 

I think we all agree the economy is f--cked. Blues are sacrificing just as much as reds.  Unemployment is likely around 15% or more right now, I've read.  But I'm not really sure what you expect people to do.  The economic crisis we have right now is because of the Covid crisis.  The economy is only ever as healthy as the working people driving it.  We have to beat this health crisis, and the only way to do that is to trust our health care experts.

It's going take a year or more to beat the COVID19 crisis. My issue with our governor, he talks a lot and dishes a lot information but doesn't give us any definitive information about time lines or goals related to economic recovery or loosening up and lifting restrictions and so forth. I figure the medical professionals, analysts and scientific related professional are going to get a handle the COVID19 crisis related stuff. My guess is unemployment is closer to 20% at the moment and will most likely be higher than that next month. My mother was a nurse for over forty years. I love/trust the nurses, doctors, first response folks and so forth like everyone else. But, the medical folks that we don't see that don't work in hospitals are now getting laid off too due to lack of work right now. So, something's got to give and attention must begin to shift from COVID19 to the economy pretty quick or we can expect to see all kinds of trouble from all the ripple effects that we aren't used to seeing going on all over the place. My governor ain't all that bad for Democratic governor but he needs to get his priorities straight and start setting some goals and objective relating to people's lives and the economy. I don't think virus is that dangerous to the bulk of us at this point.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-24-2020, 01:21 AM)taramarie Wrote: Speaking about poison, apparently trump suggested injecting with disinfectant into veins to combat covid as well as heat. Please guys tell me this is false i beg of you.

Sounds false to me.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-24-2020, 01:21 AM)taramarie Wrote: Speaking about poison, apparently trump suggested injecting with disinfectant into veins to combat covid as well as heat. Please guys tell me this is false i beg of you.

I found a BBC account of that press conference.  You probably read a blue press version of the briefing, where they went out of their way to look Trump look bad, but he kinda looked bad anyway.  He was doing his usual Happy Talk thing, trying to minimize the virus, so he went kinda wild with non main line medical cures.  Maybe he deserved to look bad.

Anyway, one article.  Form your own opinion.  Google ‘Trump disinfection heat’ to pick up a larger variety.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-22-2020, 04:01 PM)David Horn Wrote: The economic crisis will be with us regardless of the choices we make.  If we hunker down and ride out the viral attack, the economy will shrink, many businesses will fail and the recovery will be long and hard.  If, on the other hand, we decide to open the economy and the viral attack returns with a vengeance (see the Spanish Flu  in the fall of 1918), we'll have to retrench and start over and the economy will be devastated as well.  The economic trick isn't how the virus is addressed; its how the government props-up the economy with massive infusions of money … or it doesn't.

Mitch McConnell is already kvetching about the borrowed money, now that the business community is funded to his satisfaction. He misses the point.  Propping up the business half of the economy accomplishes nothing if the consumer half is devastated.  Consumers can't consume if they're flat broke. So regardless of the open/close decision, keeping the money coming is a must.

We seem to have been running on a debit economy.  It wasn’t just your average consumer.  Everybody mortgaged something.  If a factory needed to refurbish it’s equipment, an airline to purchase more planes, a farmer needing next year’s seeds, everybody was in debt.

This of course means, when you cannot meet your regular payments, that the bank own you, and the bank is not capable of running a business.  What they could end up after the Coronavirus problem is lots and lots of worthless stuff.

It is much easier to park a plane which you own than a plane which is mortgaged to the hilt and bleeding money.

As I see it, we won’t be really ready to recover until we have first lots of testing and PPE, and about a year after the initial infection, a vaccine.  By that time, the banks will own everything, and everything will be worthless.

Recovery may have to be way outside the box.  Part of it will have to be a lot of loan forgiveness.  Part of it is that if you want any sort of government help, you have to contribute something, be it immune employees or vital services or whatever.  Part of it is that some people get huge recompense, whether it be a CEO of a big company or a superstar of a sports league that is not playing.  They have to live like ordinary mortals for a time if their business it to survive, and the government could say if you want help, you have to help.

I don’t think the government can keep throwing money around for a year.  I think a lot of stuff will still be necessary.  I doubt Trump will be able to think outside the box.

Anyway, just a preliminary thought.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-23-2020, 10:45 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Interesting connection. I've never seen that, but it makes some sense.

Arnold Toynbee tells us that when the Sahara was green, the Nile Valley was practically uninhabited. It was simply too difficult for people to exploit because it was thick in reeds when much of the rest of North Africa was highly habitable. But as the Sahara desiccated people got desperate and found their way to the Nile Valley, chopped the reeds and channeled the river into small plots of land, and survived. Others went south into African savannas and would be lost to history or north to the Mediterranean zone of climate in the Maghreb and some coastal zones of Libya. People who failed to move starved.

The first settlers of the Nile Valley probably remembered the verdant Sahara. The Egyptians are not known for fantasy except in their religion.   But the Egyptians developed irrigation, large-scale building, and sailing... As Toynbee said, the optimum for human settlement is the environment that requires much sophistication to allow people to adapt, but not so much as to waste most such effort. The savannas of central Africa are fine for hunter-gatherers, and the desert is livable only for people who keep moving from one place of forage to the next -- if not completely barren.

I have been curious about the Bronze Age fall for a while.  1177 B.C.: the Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric Cline is one pretty much official account.  Less official is an internet armchair historian theory that claims ‘The Eye of the Sahara’ land pretty well matches the only description we have of Atlantis.  If the water level was shifting about that time, it is about plausible. For example, the Eye has the same circular structure, the dimensions are the same, and the proposed site of Atlantis is near the Atlas mountains.  Atlantis may be one of the ancient civilizations that went away when the Sahara dried up.

I’m not committed to it, but find it interesting.

[David Horn]

(04-24-2020, 01:21 AM)taramarie Wrote: Speaking about poison, apparently trump suggested injecting with disinfectant into veins to combat covid as well as heat. Please guys tell me this is false i beg of you.

Untrue!  He seems more disposed to drinking the stuff.  No medical staff required.

… and some people are just stupid enough to do it.  Lysol is running advertisements telling people not to follow the advice of the President of the United States: certainly a first!

[David Horn]

(04-24-2020, 01:48 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-22-2020, 07:39 PM)gabrielle Wrote: Well, good for them.  Just so you know, though, they do all those things in blue states too.  Even in blue cities within red states. 

I think we all agree the economy is f--cked. Blues are sacrificing just as much as reds.  Unemployment is likely around 15% or more right now, I've read.  But I'm not really sure what you expect people to do.  The economic crisis we have right now is because of the Covid crisis.  The economy is only ever as healthy as the working people driving it.  We have to beat this health crisis, and the only way to do that is to trust our health care experts.

It's going take a year or more to beat the COVID19 crisis. My issue with our governor, he talks a lot and dishes a lot information but doesn't give us any definitive information about time lines or goals related to economic recovery or loosening up and lifting restrictions and so forth. I figure the medical professionals, analysts and scientific related professional are going to get a handle the COVID19 crisis related stuff. My guess is unemployment is closer to 20% at the moment and will most likely be higher than that next month. My mother was a nurse for over forty years. I love/trust the nurses, doctors, first response folks and so forth like everyone else. But, the medical folks that we don't see that don't work in hospitals are now getting laid off too due to lack of work right now. So, something's got to give and attention must begin to shift from COVID19 to the economy pretty quick or we can expect to see all kinds of trouble from all the ripple effects that we aren't used to seeing going on all over the place. My governor ain't all that bad for Democratic governor but he needs to get his priorities straight and start setting some goals and objective relating to people's lives and the economy. I don't think virus is that dangerous to the bulk of us at this point.

You want what can't be.  This problem will run its course based entirely on how we all behave, and no politician can change that.  NYC stepped up, and that's amazing.  The city is full of free spirits who don't take well to authority, but this time they listened.  Other places haven't been tested yet.  We'll have to see when they are.

[David Horn]

(04-24-2020, 03:21 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: We seem to have been running on a debit economy.  It wasn’t just your average consumer.  Everybody mortgaged something.  If a factory needed to refurbish it’s equipment, an airline to purchase more planes, a farmer needing next year’s seeds, everybody was in debt.

This of course means, when you cannot meet your regular payments, that the bank own you, and the bank is not capable of running a business.  What they could end up after the Coronavirus problem is lots and lots of worthless stuff.

It is much easier to park a plane which you own than a plane which is mortgaged to the hilt and bleeding money.

Business 101 says leverage is good, every business, individual and public entity authorized to borrow does. And yes, the debtholders get the assets in bankruptcy. I suspect that this will be managed like so many other things. Apparently, the stock marketeers assumes they'll win regardless. God I hope not. We need a reset, and ones coming, one way or another. If we favor the already wealthy, and cover their shorts, things will get worst than nasty and fast.

Bob Butler 54 Wrote:As I see it, we won’t be really ready to recover until we have first lots of testing and PPE, and about a year after the initial infection, a vaccine.  By that time, the banks will own everything, and everything will be worthless.

Recovery may have to be way outside the box.  Part of it will have to be a lot of loan forgiveness.  Part of it is that if you want any sort of government help, you have to contribute something, be it immune employees or vital services or whatever.  Part of it is that some people get huge recompense, whether it be a CEO of a big company or a superstar of a sports league that is not playing.  They have to live like ordinary mortals for a time if their business it to survive, and the government could say if you want help, you have to help.

We can all wish for the mighty to fall -- at least a little. We know that the GOP is all-in for the mighty, so their success will mark our success in reverse.

Bob Butler 54 Wrote:I don’t think the government can keep throwing money around for a year.  I think a lot of stuff will still be necessary.  I doubt Trump will be able to think outside the box.

Anyway, just a preliminary thought.

If you listen to the MMT crowd, we should be monetizing this crisis right from the go. Serious economists of all stripes see us entering deflation, and plumping money into the economy may be the only way out of that.

[pbrower2a]

(04-24-2020, 03:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-23-2020, 10:45 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Interesting connection. I've never seen that, but it makes some sense.

Arnold Toynbee tells us that when the Sahara was green, the Nile Valley was practically uninhabited. It was simply too difficult for people to exploit because it was thick in reeds when much of the rest of North Africa was highly habitable. But as the Sahara desiccated people got desperate and found their way to the Nile Valley, chopped the reeds and channeled the river into small plots of land, and survived. Others went south into African savannas and would be lost to history or north to the Mediterranean zone of climate in the Maghreb and some coastal zones of Libya. People who failed to move starved.

The first settlers of the Nile Valley probably remembered the verdant Sahara. The Egyptians are not known for fantasy except in their religion.   But the Egyptians developed irrigation, large-scale building, and sailing... As Toynbee said, the optimum for human settlement is the environment that requires much sophistication to allow people to adapt, but not so much as to waste most such effort. The savannas of central Africa are fine for hunter-gatherers, and the desert is livable only for people who keep moving from one place of forage to the next -- if not completely barren.

I have been curious about the Bronze Age fall for a while.  1177 B.C.: the Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric Cline is one pretty much official account.  Less official is an internet armchair historian theory that claims ‘The Eye of the Sahara’ land pretty well matches the only description we have of Atlantis.  If the water level was shifting about that time, it is about plausible.  For example, the Eye has the same circular structure, the dimensions are the same, and the proposed site of Atlantis is near the Atlas mountains.  Atlantis may be one of the ancient civilizations that went away when the Sahara dried up.

I’m not committed to it, but find it interesting.

Interesting discussion on antiquity... could be taken to some other thread, as it has little to do with the contemporary polarization on American politics. "Atlantis" has been applied in theory to

(1) the remarkable civilization of the Minoans that died off due to the effects of the eruption of the Santorini volcano

(2) South America, which such ancient seafarers as the Phoenicians  reached but later people forgot about

(3) Central America, which has pyramids somewhat similar to those of Egypt

(4) now-submerged lands in what is now the Persian-Arabian Gulf which might have been pleasant-enough places for advanced civilization by standards of the time, lands watered by the successor of the Tigris and Euphrates that got more melt-water from the Zagros Mountains of what is now western Iran and the highlands of eastern Turkey when winters in those areas were colder and snowier.

The Green Sahara is a new one to me. The irony is that the civilization that may have existed there had more connections to sub-Saharan Africa, which except for Ethiopia has been quite unimpressive for most of human history. The people of the Green Sahara were black -- not white. The styles of basket-weaving are typical of sub-Saharan Africa, and not of ancient Europe. The people depicted in the art are clearly Negroid.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-24-2020, 10:54 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(04-24-2020, 01:50 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(04-24-2020, 01:21 AM)taramarie Wrote: Speaking about poison, apparently trump suggested injecting with disinfectant into veins to combat covid as well as heat. Please guys tell me this is false i beg of you.

Sounds false to me.

I would hope so as hopefully no one is this stupid they would recommend this.

I have not heard of anyone injecting disinfectant, but my handy man tried spraying his hands with a bleach kitchen spray for a while.  Eventually, his hands gave a burning sensation, and he went back to gloves.

[Eric the Green]

(04-24-2020, 09:08 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(04-24-2020, 03:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-23-2020, 10:45 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Interesting connection. I've never seen that, but it makes some sense.

Arnold Toynbee tells us that when the Sahara was green, the Nile Valley was practically uninhabited. It was simply too difficult for people to exploit because it was thick in reeds when much of the rest of North Africa was highly habitable. But as the Sahara desiccated people got desperate and found their way to the Nile Valley, chopped the reeds and channeled the river into small plots of land, and survived. Others went south into African savannas and would be lost to history or north to the Mediterranean zone of climate in the Maghreb and some coastal zones of Libya. People who failed to move starved.

The first settlers of the Nile Valley probably remembered the verdant Sahara. The Egyptians are not known for fantasy except in their religion.   But the Egyptians developed irrigation, large-scale building, and sailing... As Toynbee said, the optimum for human settlement is the environment that requires much sophistication to allow people to adapt, but not so much as to waste most such effort. The savannas of central Africa are fine for hunter-gatherers, and the desert is livable only for people who keep moving from one place of forage to the next -- if not completely barren.

I have been curious about the Bronze Age fall for a while.  1177 B.C.: the Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric Cline is one pretty much official account.  Less official is an internet armchair historian theory that claims ‘The Eye of the Sahara’ land pretty well matches the only description we have of Atlantis.  If the water level was shifting about that time, it is about plausible.  For example, the Eye has the same circular structure, the dimensions are the same, and the proposed site of Atlantis is near the Atlas mountains.  Atlantis may be one of the ancient civilizations that went away when the Sahara dried up.

I’m not committed to it, but find it interesting.

Interesting discussion on antiquity... could be taken to some other thread, as it has little to do with the contemporary polarization on American politics. "Atlantis" has been applied in theory to

(1) the remarkable civilization of the Minoans that died off due to the effects of the eruption of the Santorini volcano

(2) South America, which such ancient seafarers as the Phoenicians  reached but later people forgot about

(3) Central America, which has pyramids somewhat similar to those of Egypt

(4) now-submerged lands in what is now the Persian-Arabian Gulf which might have been pleasant-enough places for advanced civilization by standards of the time, lands watered by the successor of the Tigris and Euphrates that got more melt-water from the Zagros Mountains of what is now western Iran and the highlands of eastern Turkey when winters in those areas were colder and snowier.

The Green Sahara is a new one to me. The irony is that the civilization that may have existed there had more connections to sub-Saharan Africa, which except for Ethiopia has been quite unimpressive for most of human history. The people of the Green Sahara were black -- not white. The styles of basket-weaving are typical of sub-Saharan Africa, and not of ancient Europe. The people depicted in the art are clearly Negroid.

Sub-Sahara Africa civilization is not more-advanced in its history than others, but it has some impressive moments, and Africa has been a source of civilization for others. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa%27s...ilizations

“Between the first and the twelfth centuries, extraordinary events happened in Africa, events that transformed not just the history of the continent, but the history of the world.” - Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in Africa’s Great Civilizations

https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource...nt-africa/

https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource...in-africa/

[Classic-Xer]

(04-24-2020, 03:01 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-24-2020, 01:21 AM)taramarie Wrote: Speaking about poison, apparently trump suggested injecting with disinfectant into veins to combat covid as well as heat. Please guys tell me this is false i beg of you.

I found a BBC account of that press conference.  You probably read a blue press version of the briefing, where they went out of their way to look Trump look bad, but he kinda looked bad anyway.  He was doing his usual Happy Talk thing, trying to minimize the virus, so he went kinda wild with non main line medical cures.  Maybe he deserved to look bad.

Anyway, one article.  Form your own opinion.  Google ‘Trump disinfection heat’ to pick up a larger variety.

I can relate. I've got in trouble over sarcasm quite a few times over the years.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-24-2020, 09:08 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Interesting discussion on antiquity... could be taken to some other thread, as it has little to do with the contemporary polarization on American politics. "Atlantis" has been applied in theory to

(1) the remarkable civilization of the Minoans that died off due to the effects of the eruption of the Santorini volcano

(2) South America, which such ancient seafarers as the Phoenicians  reached but later people forgot about

(3) Central America, which has pyramids somewhat similar to those of Egypt

(4) now-submerged lands in what is now the Persian-Arabian Gulf which might have been pleasant-enough places for advanced civilization by standards of the time, lands watered by the successor of the Tigris and Euphrates that got more melt-water from the Zagros Mountains of what is now western Iran and the highlands of eastern Turkey when winters in those areas were colder and snowier.

The Green Sahara is a new one to me. The irony is that the civilization that may have existed there had more connections to sub-Saharan Africa, which except for Ethiopia has been quite unimpressive for most of human history. The people of the Green Sahara were black -- not white. The styles of basket-weaving are typical of sub-Saharan Africa, and not of ancient Europe. The people depicted in the art are clearly Negroid.

I don’t doubt that many of the above listed times and places are real.  Thing is, Plato traveled to Egypt a long time ago, talked to some of the priests there, and wrote what seems to be the sole source of the Atlantis myth.  Plato being Plato, his writings survived.  There is a record of concentric canals complete with dimensions.  The Eye of the Sahara is the one location where there are remnants of such a structure, the one place you can go and examine the ancient structures built on the rings.

The problem is sea level.  The legends have Atlantis sinking beneath the sea, while the Eye is currently high and dry.  That part of Africa was known to be effected by sea level change, but it is a mild stretch.  

Also, the proponents of the other theories were academics with credentials and positions, while the guy who made the Eye connection was an amateur who put his theory on the Internet.  Followers of S&H might be familiar with the bias in academia against theories not proposed by academics.

[Classic-Xer]

(04-24-2020, 08:07 AM)David Horn Wrote: You want what can't be.  This problem will run its course based entirely on how we all behave, and no politician can change that.  NYC stepped up, and that's amazing.  The city is full of free spirits who don't take well to authority, but this time they listened.  Other places haven't been tested yet.  We'll have to see when they are.

The private sector pretty much took over the COVID19 crisis the other day in Minnesota. As I've mentioned before, The State of Minnesota is broke right now and it's going more broke by the day as COVID19 panic continues to drive and influence the priority of the Governor's political team so to speak. You can't govern that way and can't continue inflicting significant losses and taking significant losses the way the State the state has doing it the last few months.