Generational Dynamics World View

[Bob Butler 54]

Well, I don’t fear people either. Autocratic governments are still aggressive. They need containment or they will seize resources and territory. But that is a different mechanism than people fearing or hating one another.

I think the hate is more relevant than the fear. The leaders who have decided that it would be profitable to use violence will have an advantage in force before they make that decision. The aggressor is more apt to hate another culture than to fear it. The Rape of Nanking was not about protecting Japanese women. It was the about the aggressive culture aggressing.

I might add that I am more interested in the reasons the elites and leaders might think a war profitable than what the army fears or hates. This seems to me to be more relevant. War has long been a racket, with the profit of the leadership more important than the feeling of the troops. Like, why were the Japanese near the Marco Polo bridge in the first place? The leaders wanted an excuse, and encouraged the troops to go make one.

Agree that xenophobia is not the same as racism.

I am a bit amused by the crisis war predictions. China will make war with India, Tiawan, the Philippines, the US, Japan, Hong Kong, China…. Anyone else? It seems to me the bigger racket would involve peaceful trading. They would gain more in Africa leveraging their economy and at lower risk than with war. That may be why most of the crisis interval has gone by without their committing to anything.

[Bob Butler 54]

The more I think of it, the more xenophobia is the wrong word.

War used to be cost effective.  Somewhere between the invention of the machine gun and the nuke, it became not cost effective.  War on a grand scale become a losing proposition.  It became no longer an effective racket.

The problem is the aggressor.  It is not enough to fear an outsider coming onto your territory and throwing his weight around.  You have to make the aggressor acknowledge that going onto another’s turf and throwing his weight around is a bad idea.

Which is true enough in the Information Age.  You are much more apt to get nuked out of existence or tied down in a hopeless insurgency than to profit these days.

The word I came up with tentatively was assaultmania.  It is an obsession with attacking others.  It does correctly identify the problem, which is not fear of being invaded, but an obsession with invading others.  It is a belief that war can be a successful racket.

Now, you seem to believe China has assaultmania.  I’m dubious.  Are they that eager to treat others with force?  Do they believe they can do better with peaceful means?  Do they believe there are better rackets?

This may be part of why no major powers have initiated crisis wars lately.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 13-Jun-2020 World View: Crisis war predictions

(06-13-2020, 09:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > I am a bit amused by the crisis war predictions. China will make
> war with India, Tiawan, the Philippines, the US, Japan, Hong Kong,
> China.... Anyone else?

Yeah, that IS amusing.

[Classic-Xer]

(06-06-2020, 01:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-06-2020, 12:39 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: "A black man’s death was blamed on democrat cops in a democrat city with a democrat police chief and a democrat mayor in a democrat state with a democrat governor. Then democrats got together and burned democrat cities. The democrat mayors and police chiefs allowed black businesses and neighborhoods to burn. Black people died in the riots."

It's all Trump's fault.

There is a reason the people are looking to the Democrats to change the violence and racism of the police.  Changing the culture is not easy.  The mass protests are necessary if you are going to get a cultural reboot.

Trump?  It is not directly his fault.  He did encourage racism for his personal gain.  He did change the atmosphere to encourage the open display of racism.  It might have effected things but there is no direct link.  It is not acceptable to a lot of people.  I assume you watch the news?

More of a concern is that he would rather intensify the violence than listen to the people.  That is more an after the event reaction.  I believe it will hurt him in November.

You know, I believe the resurgence of racism and its open display was in answer to Obama.  Trump was one enabling factor.  On the other hand, the current wave of protests is a response to the resurgence of racism.   You go to one extreme and you swing to the other…. Then you swing back and then some.

The racist resurgence went against the arrow of progress.  In particular, it goes against equality.  In the long run, I anticipated that equality would continue long term gains.  I confess, I didn’t anticipate the American push for all men being equal under law coming this hard and this soon.  Still, there it is.

Which culture needs to be changed, the fucked up blue culture that we've seen several times and know exists that people like you tend to ignore and often dismiss and claim as minor or blame on us or blame on a couple of groups that you associate with us or the police culture that don't pay enough that you expect to deal with their shit and deal with liberal shit and deal with petty liberal politicians trying to make names for themselves every fucking day. Like I've said, we're going to have cops and will probably be adding more cops as blue cities are cutting funds and losing cops like crazy.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-14-2020, 12:05 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Which culture needs to be changed, the fucked up blue culture that we've seen several times  and know exists that people like you tend to ignore and often dismiss and claim as minor or blame on us or blame on a couple of groups that you associate with us or the police  culture that don't pay enough that you expect to deal with their shit and deal with liberal shit and deal with petty liberal politicians trying to make names for themselves every fucking day. Like I've said, we're going to have cops and will probably be adding more cops as blue cities are cutting funds and losing cops like crazy.

The American culture needs to be changed.

One of the features of this case was all sorts of video sowing the murderer cops altering the crime scene. The taser was moved next to the body in order to show false evidence of a threat. Shell casings showing weapons fire were picked up. In general that shows an awareness of guilt. If they believed it was a clean shoot, they would have wanted evidence to prove it. Instead, lots of video showing evidence tampering was generated. They were no more truthful than Fox News or Trump.

The Democrats have not tackled the racist cops. The people are leaving them little choice. The reds whining that the culture depends on racism to keep the {expletive deleted} in line has persisted. That mood has shifted. The militancy of the police unions has been challenged. The people are looking for justice and equality. These are American virtues, long expected, long not delivered.

The current red alliance is between racists, elites, and small government believers. I see the Tea Party and Black Lives Matter targeting two of the three. Thus far, the two movements have been successful. What is left is a hedonistic blindness to the Scientific evidence that the virus is targeting. The reds can push killing people in their own greed, and the results will show in November.

After the Revolution, the die hard royalists moved to Canada. After the Civil War, the slaveowners turned to KKK terrorist violence and Jim Crow. After World War II, McCarthy tried to push his personal standing by targeting good people who happened to believe the Great Depression had proven the combination of Capitalism and Democracy hadn’t worked very well.

The slave compromises give the conservatives the upper hand for much of the turnings. This is overturned in spades in the crisis heart and lately in the awakening. Naturally, the conservatives will whine and cry and fight for the old values. Naturally, the culture moves on. The culture’s greatest faults are attacked. Problems are addressed. The history books are written. The conservative old values are dumped on.

If you are so eager to stand with the racists, to threaten violence, to claim justice and equality are not called for, so be it.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 14-Jun-2020 World View: China on 'wartime footing', Pakistan, India face new surge of Covid-19 cases

I suppose it would be cruel and unfair to enjoy a tiny bit of
Schadenfreude over a major outbreak of Covid-19 in Beijing this
weekend, after weeks of CCP gloating about how they had been so
brilliant and the Chinese Communist government had been so much more
effective than democratic governments at controlling the outbreak.
And so, since that enjoyment would be clearly cruel and unfair, let's
not do that, and let's just be somber about this Beijing outbreak.

China has put Beijing on a "wartime footing" and Beijing’s largest
wholesale vegetable market – Xinfadi market -- was shot down on
Saturday, after 45 people out of 517 tested were positive for
Covid-19.

This is a really big deal, because Xinfadi provides 90% of Beijing's
vegetables and fruit, as well as much of the meat and fish. The
market employs or hosts some 10,000 workers and vendors, and all of
those will now have to be tested, an enormous job.

But Xinfadi also sells food to restaurants, stores and markets in many
places in China. The CCP will have to track all those down, and do
testing and contact tracing on all their employees and customers.

The Communists have "locked down" several neighborhoods around the the
market, but the question now is how closely they will follow the
successful model they used in Wuhan. In Wuhan, they locked down the
entire city, and blocked all flights to and from the city within
China, so that the virus would not spread elsewhere in China.
However, they permitted and encouraged flights to and from other
countries, so that the virus would be seeded in as many countries as
possible, so that China wouldn't be alone in fighting the virus.

So now the question is whether they're going to have to lock down all
of Beijing. That would be an economic problem, but it would also be
an enormous humiliation for the dictator Xi Jinping, whom the
Communists are portraying as the man who defeated Covid-19 in China,
with Beijing as a shining example. If the Beijing virus spread gets
out of hand, it could seriously destabilize Xi Jinping's dictatorship.

***
*** Impact on the Ladakh border confrontation
***

There's another possible consequence, related to the article that I
just posted on the India-China border confrontation in Ladakh.

** 13-Jun-20 World View -- China and India mobilize thousands of troops along border in Ladakh
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e200613


If the CCP is now distracted by a large virus outbreak in Beijing and
other provinces, then it could affect deployment of Chinese troops in
Ladakh -- and the effect could go either way. It may encourage the
CCP to delay further action or to speed up further action, depending
on the paranoic state of mind by Xi Jinping and the other CCP thugs on
any given day.

The Ladakh situation has two other players besides China -- India and
Pakistan. And the latter two countries are also suffering major
Covid-19 surges, further complicating the Covid-19 situation.

• Covid-19 cases in Pakistan

The novel coronavirus is spreading faster in Pakistan than almost
anywhere else in the world, yet most people there do not take the
pandemic seriously. As of Friday, COVID-19 cases in Pakistan had
reached 125,933. Infections have risen by more than 500% over the
last week.

But lockdown rules are being relaxed because of widely believed
conspiracy theories, such as the one put forth by Tariq Jameel,
Pakistan's most famous televised Islamic cleric, claiming that the
coronavirus is a sign of God's wrath over such sins as women dancing
and dressing immodestly.

Covid-19 cases are also surging in India's capital, Delhi. The total
number of 320,922 officially confirmed cases puts India fourth in the
world - after the US, Brazil and Russia - in the pandemic. The
Hindustan Times reports that Delhi is the third worst-hit state in
India after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

On Sunday, India announced that it would make 500 railway carriages
available to be converted to house 8,000 more beds for coronavirus
patients in Delhi.

So all three parties to the Ladakh border crisis -- China, India,
Pakistan -- are also embroiled in Covid-19 crises, with unpredictable
results.

---- Sources:

-- Beijing In 'Wartime Emergency Mode' Amid Fresh Cluster Of
Coronavirus Cases
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus...irus-cases
(NPR, 13-Jun-2020)

-- Beijing district in 'wartime emergency' after virus cluster at
major food market
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-healt...SKBN23K03V
(Reuters, 13-Jun-2020)

-- Beijing’s largest vegetables supplying base shut down as novel
coronavirus detected among some merchants
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1191455.shtml
(Global Times, 13-Jun-2020)

-- Pakistan’s Confused COVID-19 Response
https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/pakistan...-response/
(Diplomat, 9-Jun-2020)

-- Conspiracy theories help coronavirus take root in Pakistan
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Corona...n-Pakistan
(Nikkei, 13-Jun-2020)

-- Coronavirus threatens to upend Pakistan's long war against polio
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Coronav...inst-polio
(Nikkei, 3-Jun-2020)

-- Coronavirus: India to use 500 train carriages as wards in Delhi
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53039868
(BBC, 14-Jun-2020)

[David Horn]

(06-14-2020, 08:57 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-14-2020, 12:05 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Which culture needs to be changed, the fucked up blue culture that we've seen several times  and know exists that people like you tend to ignore and often dismiss and claim as minor or blame on us or blame on a couple of groups that you associate with us or the police  culture that don't pay enough that you expect to deal with their shit and deal with liberal shit and deal with petty liberal politicians trying to make names for themselves every fucking day. Like I've said, we're going to have cops and will probably be adding more cops as blue cities are cutting funds and losing cops like crazy.

The American culture needs to be changed.

One of the features of this case was all sorts of video sowing the murderer cops altering the crime scene.  The taser was moved next to the body in order to show false evidence of a threat.  Shell casings showing weapons fire were picked up.  In general that shows an awareness of guilt.  If they believed it was a clean shoot, they would have wanted evidence to prove it.  Instead, lots of video showing evidence tampering was generated.  They were no more truthful than Fox News or Trump.

The Democrats have not tackled the racist cops.  The people are leaving them little choice.  The reds whining that the culture depends on racism to keep the {expletive deleted} in line has persisted.  That mood has shifted.  The militancy of the police unions has been challenged.  The people are looking for justice and equality.  These are American virtues, long expected, long not delivered.

The current red alliance is between racists, elites, and small government believers.  I see the Tea Party and Black Lives Matter targeting two of the three.  Thus far, the two movements have been successful.  What is left is a hedonistic blindness to the Scientific evidence that the virus is targeting.  The reds can push killing people in their own greed, and the results will show in November.

After the Revolution, the die hard royalists moved to Canada.  After the Civil War, the slaveowners turned to KKK terrorist violence and Jim Crow.  After World War II, McCarthy tried to push his personal standing by targeting good people who happened to believe the Great Depression had proven the combination of Capitalism and Democracy hadn’t worked very well.

The slave compromises give the conservatives the upper hand for much of the turnings.  This is overturned in spades in the crisis heart and lately in the awakening.  Naturally, the conservatives will whine and cry and fight for the old values.  Naturally, the culture moves on.  The culture’s greatest faults are attacked.  Problems are addressed.  The history books are written.  The conservative old values are dumped on.

If you are so eager to stand with the racists, to threaten violence, to claim justice and equality are not called for, so be it.

I found it particularly interesting that he believes that the cops are underpaid, when the guy he's been defending managed to marry a Miss Minnesota and own two homes.  Poor him. 

[pbrower2a]

(06-14-2020, 12:05 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(06-06-2020, 01:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(06-06-2020, 12:39 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: "A black man’s death was blamed on democrat cops in a democrat city with a democrat police chief and a democrat mayor in a democrat state with a democrat governor. Then democrats got together and burned democrat cities. The democrat mayors and police chiefs allowed black businesses and neighborhoods to burn. Black people died in the riots."

It's all Trump's fault.

There is a reason the people are looking to the Democrats to change the violence and racism of the police.  Changing the culture is not easy.  The mass protests are necessary if you are going to get a cultural reboot.

Trump?  It is not directly his fault.  He did encourage racism for his personal gain.  He did change the atmosphere to encourage the open display of racism.  It might have effected things but there is no direct link.  It is not acceptable to a lot of people.  I assume you watch the news?

More of a concern is that he would rather intensify the violence than listen to the people.  That is more an after the event reaction.  I believe it will hurt him in November.

You know, I believe the resurgence of racism and its open display was in answer to Obama.  Trump was one enabling factor.  On the other hand, the current wave of protests is a response to the resurgence of racism.   You go to one extreme and you swing to the other…. Then you swing back and then some.

The racist resurgence went against the arrow of progress.  In particular, it goes against equality.  In the long run, I anticipated that equality would continue long term gains.  I confess, I didn’t anticipate the American push for all men being equal under law coming this hard and this soon.  Still, there it is.

Which culture needs to be changed, the fucked up blue culture that we've seen several times  and know exists that people like you tend to ignore and often dismiss and claim as minor or blame on us or blame on a couple of groups that you associate with us or the police  culture that don't pay enough that you expect to deal with their shit and deal with liberal shit and deal with petty liberal politicians trying to make names for themselves every fucking day. Like I've said, we're going to have cops and will probably be adding more cops as blue cities are cutting funds and losing cops like crazy.

America has no monolithic "blue" culture. "Blue culture" includes much diversity in class, ethnicity, and religion. That "Blue" America is itself so diverse reflects the weakness of "Red" culture. Start with music: "Red" America surely listens to much more country music than the rest of America. Country music may be honest in expression of realities of personal life in much of America, but it seems to be rather light on intellectual content and musical innovation. 

We "Blue" Americans are, if white, decidedly better educated than the rest of America. If Asian, much better educated. To be sure there are some ill-educated blacks and Hispanics, but the black bourgeoisie and middle-class Hispanics recognize the poor in their own ethnic group as people to uplift. Middle-class white people of "Red" America seem not to do much for poor white people in the Mountain and Deep South.

I do not have a problem with relatively-conservative parts of "Red" America getting "Blue" results with limited resources. Maybe we in "Blue" America could pick up some pointers. On the other hand, some very "Red" areas are very poor.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 14-Jun-2020 World View: Blue Americans

(06-14-2020, 12:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > America has no monolithic "blue" culture. "Blue culture" includes
> much diversity in class, ethnicity, and religion. That "Blue"
> America is itself so diverse reflects the weakness of "Red"
> culture. Start with music: "Red" America surely listens to much
> more country music than the rest of America. Country music may be
> honest in expression of realities of personal life in much of
> America, but it seems to be rather light on intellectual content
> and musical innovation.

> We "Blue" Americans are, if white, decidedly better educated than
> the rest of America. If Asian, much better educated. To be sure
> there are some ill-educated blacks and Hispanics, but the black
> bourgeoisie and middle-class Hispanics recognize the poor in their
> own ethnic group as people to uplift. Middle-class white people of
> "Red" America seem not to do much for poor white people in the
> Mountain and Deep South.

> I do not have a problem with relatively-conservative parts of
> "Red" America getting "Blue" results with limited resources. Maybe
> we in "Blue" America could pick up some pointers. On the other
> hand, some very "Red" areas are very poor.

This is the one of the most delusional and idiotic things I've every
seen. It's almost unbelievable.

But thank you for posting it, because it gives us other people some
insight into the worst of the far-left mind. I'll save what you
wrote, and quote it in the future as the workings of a left-wing mind.

You've often posted things so ridiculous that I speculated that you
must be a politician or something related, since you couldn't possibly
believe what you're writing, but now I see that you do.

I guess that explains why you believe that Tea Partiers are racist
"teabaggers."

I guest that explains why you believe that Trump supporters are in
Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables -- racist, sexist,
homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it."

I guess that explains why you believe, along with Biden, that most
Trump supporters are not "decent people."

So let me be clear. You live in the CNN bubble, among people who have
absolutely no idea what's going on, but sit there are tell each other
how clever and intelligent you are, and how the people outside are
stupid racist white supremacists. I listen to all the channels, so I
know. CNN is a sewer, and being in the CNN bubble means that most
Trump supporters are far more intelligent than you.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 14-Jun-2020 World View: Helicopter money

Higgenbotham Wrote:> I think I understand your (and Vince's) view on the Depression.
> That view is regardless of what the Fed did between the late 1990s
> and now, there will be a Depression and its magnitude will be
> approximately the same, but it will just occur later. Is that
> right? If the target for the ultimate low in the Dow was some
> percentage of the trend line, it remains approximately the same
> percentage of the trend line regardless of how long it takes for
> the Depression to materialize or by what manner and how long the
> Fed holds it off.

What happened is so incredible that it's almost beyond belief. Milton
Friedman "proved" that the 1930s Great Depression could have been
avoided if only the Fed had lowered interest rates by a couple of
points. That's a totally ridiculous conclusion, but that's what he
claimed, and both Greenspan and Bernanke believed him.

Alan Greenspan in 1996 knew there was a growing bubble, as indicated
by his "irrational exuberance" speech, but decided it would be better
to deal with it later. As you know, I followed every speech that
Greenspan made for years. In 2004, he said there was a housing
bubble, but it was a good thing, because it meant that households had
more money. In 2005, Greenspan began to get alarmed, but he never
admitted specifically that there had been a housing bubble.

Greenspan was bouncing around like a ping-pong ball in giving various
explanations for the housing bubble. In 2006, Greenspan gave a speech
blaming the housing bubble on the fall of the Berlin wall:

** Alan Greenspan blames the housing bubble on the fall of the Berlin Wall
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e061025


Meanwhile, Ben Bernanke also believed Milton Friedman's claim that the
1930s Great Depression could have been avoided by lowering interest
rates. He also adopted Friedman's prescription of "helicopter money,"
and the things that you're complaining about are things that he
concluded from Milton Friedman's "proof."

In fact, every central bank in the world has been doing the same
thing, using Milton Friedman's "helicopter money" to save the economy.

It's been 50-60 years since Friedman made his claims. His policies
were put into practice by Greenspan, Bernanke, and many other central
bankers, and all they've done is blow up the global financial bubble
even farther. Now that Friedman has been disproven, you'd think that
the central bankers would give up helicopter money, but they're
trapped, and can't escape, and can only hope that someone else gets
the blame when the bubble bursts.

With regard to your final question, we might say that the Dow will
fall 90%, as it did in the 1930s, no matter what the Dow is at the
time the bubble bursts. That seems like a reasonable assumption, or
at least good approximation, but what's different today from the 1930s
is that the bubble is global, affecting almost every central bank in
the world, and there's no way to tell how that will change things.
(Except that it will certainly lead to a world war.)

Higgenbotham Wrote:> I also remember a discussion a few years ago where you said that
> the longer the Dow is above the mean reversion line (what I
> referred to above as the trend line), the longer it would stay
> below the mean reversion line in the future in order to balance
> out the area above and below.

That, in fact, is the Law of Mean Reversion.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 14-Jun-2020 World View: Covid-19 vs Spanish Flu pandemic

With the number of Covid-19 cases globally continuing to rise, rapidly
in some places, it's clear that the pandemic is going to get far
worse, but that a lot of the analysis you hear on tv is delusional,
and tries to give the impression that the worst is over.

An exception is Michael Osterholm, Univ of Minnesota, infectious
disease epidemiologist, appeared on Fox News Sunday today.

His major point was this: "Only 5% of the population has been infected
so far. This virus will not slow down until 60-70% of the population
has been infected."

These figures mean that the Covid-19 pandemic will have the same
results as the 1917-19 Spanish Flu pandemic. I compared the two
pandemics in this article:

** 22-Mar-20 World View -- Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e200322


This means that some 20 million people will be infected, unless
a miracle vaccine is found quickly.

There have been 115,000 deaths so far. The CDC projects
125,000 to 140,000 deaths by July 4.

This suggests that there will be 2 million deaths before it's over,
unless a miracle vaccine or treatment is found quickly. This is
comparable to the Spanish Flu pandemic.

According to Osterholm:

Quote:> "So one way or another, we're gonna see lots of
> additional cases.

> Will reopening [end lockdowns] increase the number of cases? It
> should, and in some states it's substantially increasing, but in
> some states it's been dropping. We don't understand why.

> We're not driving this tiger - we're riding it. we're going to
> go from 5% of the population affected with all the pain, death,
> suffering and economic disruption that's occurred today. Trust
> me, we have a long ways to go to get to that 60 or 70% of people
> infected, unless we get a vaccine in time. How we're gonna get
> there is still unclear.

> My greatest concern is if cases did start to disappear across the
> country, suggesting that we're in a "trough," meaning a true wave
> change. We may have several months of few cases. That would
> suggest it could be like influenza, and come back with a very
> significant second wave late in the fall. ...

> The important thing is that we're not planning for the fact that
> we're going to see a very substantial part of the country becoming
> infected over the next 12-18 months, if we don't have a vaccine.
> We will never be blue and red again. We'll be covid
> colored."

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-14-2020, 07:36 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: So let me be clear.  You live in the CNN bubble, among people who have absolutely no idea what's going on, but sit there are tell each other how clever and intelligent you are, and how the people outside are stupid racist white supremacists.  I listen to all the channels, so I know.  CNN is a sewer, and being in the CNN bubble means that most Trump supporters are far more intelligent than you.

Well, again, if you have a political world view, how whacky you are hasn’t that much to do with intelligence.  If you buy into the CNN perspective or the Fox perspective, you are going to be called an idiot by those who have bought into the opposite regardless.  It does matter if you have a scientific world view, that you check what you are told against reality.  From that perspective, you have do do a lot of fact checking if you get into Fox or Trump.

Your ignoring or disregarding facts that disagree with your ideology is part of this effect.  If the facts disagree with the ideology, the ideology censors the facts out.  This is not stupidity.  This is how humans use worldviews as a short cut to arrive at solutions to problems or versions of how reality works.  If you can view others as not being stupid, but as having conflicting worldviews, you have the problem of considering how warped your own worldview is. If you make the effort to understand how other's worldviews came into existence, of how their culture solved problems using a particular perspective, you can modify your own worldview to accept the wisdom, with or without caveats that it works better or ill under various conditions that one culture might see regularly, but another does not.

But if you stick with one perspective, and call any other perspective stupid, you are going to miss a lot.

[Classic-Xer]

(06-14-2020, 12:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: America has no monolithic "blue" culture. "Blue culture" includes much diversity in class, ethnicity, and religion. That "Blue" America is itself so diverse reflects the weakness of "Red" culture. Start with music: "Red" America surely listens to much more country music than the rest of America. Country music may be honest in expression of realities of personal life in much of America, but it seems to be rather light on intellectual content and musical innovation. 

We "Blue" Americans are, if white, decidedly better educated than the rest of America. If Asian, much better educated. To be sure there are some ill-educated blacks and Hispanics, but the black bourgeoisie and middle-class Hispanics recognize the poor in their own ethnic group as people to uplift. Middle-class white people of "Red" America seem not to do much for poor white people in the Mountain and Deep South.

I do not have a problem with relatively-conservative parts of "Red" America getting "Blue" results with limited resources. Maybe we in "Blue" America could pick up some pointers. On the other hand, some very "Red" areas are very poor.

Are you really better educated than me overall? Are the blues really better educated than the reds overall? I don't think so myself. I mean that's what really counts and determines outcomes these days. I mean, look at you. You're living proof that education alone does not determine outcomes and the way you write and what you write about and the side you support proves it too. You have an economics degree. Me, I've just been in business for almost thirty years and I've just worked with thousands of people. I've  been through shit and dealt with shit that you couldn't handle or financially survive. I've been in situations with people that you couldn't manage or emotionally handle either. I've made decisions that you wouldn't have the balls or the heart to make either. Your economic degree means squat to me.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Many college degrees, in practice, don't lead to high paying careers. It means that one is well educated in terms of book learning, but not necessarily in the practical skills ones needs for success outside of school.

I think that the emphasis on college is a hold over from an earlier time, when relatively few went. Having a college degree might have seemed special at one time because they were scarce.

I recall an article I read once, probably at least ten years ago, that argued that many people would be better off if they went into some form of job training right out of high school.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 16-Jun-2020 World View: Pbrower and CNN

Pbrower's issues have nothing to do with education. He already knows
that his education isn't worth shit.

His problem is his vitriolic hatred of 63 million Tea Partiers and
Trump supporters, the same kind of hatred that Hutus had towards
Tutsis, or that Nazis had toward Jews. He's said as much many times,
and he's even sometimes used the same kinds of words that Hitler used.

The problem with CNN is not simply that it's biased. CNN is a sewer
that specifically caters to the kind of hatred that pbrower exhibits.
CNN is even contrasted to MS-NBC, which is backed up by a real news
department at NBC News that keeps the editorial content under control.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 16-Jun-2020 World View: North Korea demolishes inter-Korean liaison office

• The 'enraged people' of North Korea (KCNA)

The North Koreans destroyed a liaison office in North Korea near the
border with South Korea, by means of a "terrific explosion." The
office used to be used for North-South communications at any time, but
the North abandoned the office completely last week, so the action
could be considered symbolic.

North Korea has a history of throwing temper tantrums when it wants
attention. So blowing up an unused building is probably a message to
everyone -- South Korea, America, China -- to say "look at me and put
me back into the news, or I'll blow up something bigger."

One problem with trying to decode this new message is that North
Korea's government seems to be in chaos. The child dictator, Kim
Jong-un, has all but disappeared recently, amid rumors that he has
health problems, and may even be infected with Covid-19.

In his place, his hot chick sister Kim Yo-jong has taken over the job
of making hysterical statements and threats. So the sister may be
trying to prove that she can lead the country as well as her brother,
and to prove it she blew up an empty building and issued threats of
further action.

The issue here is the same as in the Ladakh situation. It's not that
any coherent planning is going on. It's that everything is in chaos,
and nobody knows what to do next. It's that nationalism and
xenophobia are at all-time highs, and in that chaotic atmosphere
someone may decide to shoot first and look later, and that could end
up triggering a military response and a larger war.

Right now, we really have no idea what the significance is of the
demolished liaison office, except that the North Koreans are throwing
some kind of temper tantrum. We can only guess where things will go
next.

---- Sources:

-- North Korean media says it’s now “too late” for the South to avoid
a crisis
https://www.nknews.org/2020/06/north-kor...-a-crisis/
(NKNews, 16-Jun-2020)


-- North Korea demolishes inter-Korean liaison office at Kaesong
https://www.nknews.org/2020/06/explosion...cal-press/
(NKNews, 16-Jun-2020)

-- North Korea blows up South Korea joint office in rebuke of Seoul
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/0...uiwfOd7l_A
(Japan Times, 16-Jun-2020)

-- North Korea blows up joint liaison office with South in Kaesong
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53060620
(BBC, 16-Jun-2020)

-- North Korea: What's behind the liaison office demolition?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53061613
(BBC, 16-Jun-2020)

-- North Korea blows up joint liaison office near border with South
Korea
https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/nor...a-1.633920
(Stars and Stripes, 16-Jun-2020)

-- North Korea's 'huge cover-up exposed' as Kim Jong-un's sister
threatens military action
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/129...action-spt
(Daily Express, London, 15-Jun-2020)

[John J. Xenakis]

** 16-Jun-2020 World View: Ladakh: Soldiers killed

Supposedly, tensions are supposed to decrease in the border
confrontation in Ladakh, because India and China are in talks to
actually do that -- decrease tensions.

However, events on the ground say otherwise. On Monday evening, one
Indian army senior officer and two soldiers were killed in fighting
with Chinese soldiers. There are also unconfirmed reports of Chinese
casualties.

There were no shots fired. The deaths occurred from fist-fighting and
stone throwing.

Nonetheless, this is a major escalation. There have been border
confrontations for a long time, but this is the first time in decades
that someone has been actually killed.

As I've been saying, this situation is remarkably similar to the Marco
Polo Bridge incident that triggered World War II and the Rape of
Nanking. The deaths of three India soldiers, and possibly some
Chinese soldiers as well, is only going to lead to retribution, even
if Chinese and Indian diplomats are meeting in a room somewhere.

In fact, I would think that death from fistfighting and stonethrowing
is far more gruesome than death by gunshot. This will not be
forgotten by soldiers on either side, and they will want revenge.

A further recent development is that Chinese officials are using an
administrative change last August in Indian-administered Kashmir and
Jammu as a reason to say that the Chinese army is being "forced" to
intervene in Kashmir and Jammu and therefore in Ladakh. This is
significant since it could mean that China is preparing public opinion
for a Chinese invasion.


---- Sources:

-- India-China Ladakh border news live Updates: Army Officer, 2
Soldiers Killed In "Violent Face-Off" With China In Ladakh
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-ch...kh-2247070
(New Delhi TV, 16-Jun-2020)

-- Growing power differential is what lies behind China’s assertion in
Ladakh
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinio...n-6460681/
(Indian Express, 16-Jun-2020)

-- Editor Of Beijing Mouthpiece Global Times Acknowledges Casualties
For China
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/chinese-...es-2247130
(New Delhi TV, 16-Jun-2020)


--- Related articles:

** 13-Jun-20 World View -- China and India mobilize thousands of troops along border in Ladakh
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e200613


** 10-Aug-19 World View -- Pakistan-India relations downgraded as Kashmir is locked down
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e190810


*** 14-Jun-2020 World View: China on 'wartime footing', Pakistan, India face new surge of Covid-19 cases
*** http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=52793#p52793

[pbrower2a]

(06-16-2020, 01:24 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(06-14-2020, 12:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: America has no monolithic "blue" culture. "Blue culture" includes much diversity in class, ethnicity, and religion. That "Blue" America is itself so diverse reflects the weakness of "Red" culture. Start with music: "Red" America surely listens to much more country music than the rest of America. Country music may be honest in expression of realities of personal life in much of America, but it seems to be rather light on intellectual content and musical innovation. 

We "Blue" Americans are, if white, decidedly better educated than the rest of America. If Asian, much better educated. To be sure there are some ill-educated blacks and Hispanics, but the black bourgeoisie and middle-class Hispanics recognize the poor in their own ethnic group as people to uplift. Middle-class white people of "Red" America seem not to do much for poor white people in the Mountain and Deep South.

I do not have a problem with relatively-conservative parts of "Red" America getting "Blue" results with limited resources. Maybe we in "Blue" America could pick up some pointers. On the other hand, some very "Red" areas are very poor.

Are you really better educated than me overall? Are the blues really better educated than the reds overall? I don't think so myself. I mean that's what really counts and determines outcomes these days. I mean, look at you. You're living proof that education alone does not determine outcomes and the way you write and what you write about and the side you support proves it too. You have an economics degree. Me, I've just been in business for almost thirty years and I've just worked with thousands of people. I've  been through shit and dealt with shit  that you couldn't handle or financially survive. I've been in situations with people  that you couldn't manage or emotionally  handle either. I've made decisions that you wouldn't have the balls or the heart to make either. Your economic degree means squat to me.

Go ahead... put me to the test. Obviously I would lose to you if the topic were related to HVAC. I don't know everything, and some knowledge is specific to an occupation. Yes, even if it is a criminal act such as drug trafficking or arson for hire, neither of which I care to know about.

Education isn't everything. If I had to choose between character and education, then I would take character any day.  Character may be the difference between being able to do menial labor and not hating the world for it and harboring great resentments toward everything that lead one to do horrible things. Some people do quite well despite a lack of formal education. In general, people who have college degrees are more job-takers than job-creators. One reason is that people don't need much formal education to start a small business. With an MBA one is looking to be an employee, and not a business owner-operator.

Should the plutocratic tendency in America intensify, then 90% of the people will be suffering for about 2% who treat them badly because such is their prerogative in a pure plutocracy. To be sure, the top 2% typically has college degrees... but I can't be sure that the typical college offers any course in "character". The only schools that can inculcate character about which I know are the military academies. 

So you have dealt with thousands of people. So what. So does a retail sales clerk or a fast-food worker. The dealings in such environments are typically quite simple... "Welcome to (business name). How can I help you?" What is so complicated about finding a man's white Oxford-cloth shirt with a 17" neck and a 34-35 sleeve? Or asking some short-order cook for a cheeseburger and fries? If you want your job more complicated than that, then you go into some other line of work at the first opportunity. 

Before anyone assumes that better-educated people are better because they are smarter, such is not so. Life is simply easier for someone who has strong academic skills. It is easier to meet basic needs if one has an above-median income. For the poor people who insist on living large without doing anything valuable to any but themselves... crime is a temptation more difficult to resist. Yes, the typical armed robber or drug dealer is a dullard. 

But know well: well-educated people have done horrible things in the past. The main participants in the Enrob scandal mostly had advanced degrees. They got greedy and thought that they could get away with what they were doing. In The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer speaks of the "intellectual gangster", a smart and often cultured person who was able and willing to put his talents to the use of Adolf Hitler as a mass-killer, a brutal administrator of an occupied country, a plotter of aggressive warfare, a jurist serving Nazi "justice" (if there ever were an oxymoron, "Nazi justice" is possibly the worst), performing cruel experiments upon unwilling people, issuing Nazi propaganda, or designing the plant and equipment for mass murder as at extermination camps. So how could people do such despite having impressive education?

Repeat after me: 

Education isn't everything. If I had to choose between character and education, then I would take character any day.

Character is far more important. For many people, character is what allows them to do a job that they hate that pays badly and not hate Humanity for it... and to accept the role to which their limited talent consign them.

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-16-2020, 09:10 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Pbrower's issues have nothing to do with education.  He already knows that his education isn't worth shit.

His problem is his vitriolic hatred of 63 million Tea Partiers and Trump supporters, the same kind of hatred that Hutus had towards Tutsis, or that Nazis had toward Jews.  He's said as much many times, and he's even sometimes used the same kinds of words that Hitler used.

The problem with CNN is not simply that it's biased.  CNN is a sewer that specifically caters to the kind of hatred that pbrower exhibits.  CNN is even contrasted to MS-NBC, which is backed up by a real news department at NBC News that keeps the editorial content under control.

I generally don’t watch the actual CNN TV network, but I visit their web sight a lot.  I do not watch FOX much or visit their web sites.  I reviewed CNN’s web site looking for hate speech and found none.  Now, that isn’t to say they aren’t partisan.  In Trump, they have found much to dislike and say so clearly and truthfully.  But they are not like Xenakis in going for actual hate speech, in showing an emotional ideological bias.

Yes, Power is partisan.  Most people on this site are partisan.  No, he doesn’t have a lot of respect for the base of the other faction.  Most of the people here have not much respect for the other faction.

I have oft wondered how much the obsession with xenophobia comes from having xenophobia.  If you have strongly partisan beliefs, treat others that do not share those beliefs as stupid, you end up a pariah.  That has nothing do do with how accurate one’s predictions are.  If you make it a habit to mistreat others, you don’t expect them to stay in your social circle.

Education?  I have long thought that people choose their major because of what they like rather than what they will use in life.  Even my Electronics Engineering degree was centered more on how to bias transistors than how to interconnect integrated circuits.  They were centered on last decade’s technology.  I didn’t use it a lot professionally.  Liberal arts?  You might have fun learning nothing usable, and hand great amounts of money to colleges and universities who will gladly take it.  Generally, I do want to shake some sense in those who chase useless degrees.  

Still, my grand nephew picked up a writing degree, and has ended up a bank vice president.  My grand niece followed her passion towards the sea with an hard to break in professionally marine science degree, and worked a bunch of jobs that used the degree little before she finally managed to break into the right organization.  I have a picture of her cruising off a Cape Cod seal colony beach, counting seals bearing scars from close encounters with Great White Sharks.  Blue skies.  Gentle surf.  Life is rough.

Anyway, Pbower has studied his passion and reaped a benefit from it, if not a financial one.  If you happen to value life over dollars, that happens.

The reverse?  You have to be careful or you’ll end up a pariah.

[David Horn]

(06-16-2020, 09:01 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: Many college degrees, in practice, don't lead to high paying careers.  It means that one is well educated in terms of book learning,  but not necessarily in the practical skills ones needs for success outside of school.

I think that the emphasis on college is a hold over from an earlier time, when relatively few went.  Having a college degree might have seemed special at one time because they were scarce.

I recall an article I read once, probably at least ten years ago, that argued that many people would be better off if they went into some form of job training right out of high school.

High degrees of education and wealth attainment are neither mutually exclusive nor inclusive.  Yes, some degrees tend to track with high earning, but others don't.  The purpose of an education should be enlightenment, but most of us see the education-earning link instead.