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Generational Dynamics World View
(12-17-2020, 02:02 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 16-Dec-2020 World View: We're all going to die anyway

Cool Breeze Wrote:>   Regarding John's, it is an interesting post. I just wanted to say
>   that I didn't predict anything (I actually believe a crisis of
>   some sort financially is nearly guaranteed and with potential for
>   war). But the larger point is, what do these predictions mean if
>   we are dead in the long run, anyway? Or we just cycle to another
>   bad run for our grandkids? Especially if these are supposed to be
>   so dire, as many on here "predict."

>   This is why in particular timing matter for predictions. Severity
>   does too. Everyone "knows" financial issues will come and that
>   wars will come. If you can't even name a time period, though, it
>   does little. I think only a small minority of people believe
>   foolishly that wars won't happen again or economic crashes won't,
>   to some degree. Yes, those are religious thinkers. Shit, most
>   religious thinkers these days are the lefty progressives with
>   their climate change as eschatology and "progress" with
>   scientism. Basically, the underpinnings of murderous ideologies
>   repackaged as communism 2.0

You raise important questions that I've always had to deal with.  All
I can do is tell how I've handled them.

"What do these predictions mean if we are dead in the long run?"

Ideally we think beyond our current time. Civil engineers design bridges to last, and with clear lifespans. A bridge likely to collapse sixty years into the future with no warning is some horrible design unless it is intended to be replaced perhaps fifty-five years later. 


Quote:I've told many people just to ignore these predictions.  Unless you're
psychopathically obsessed, like me, or unless you have specific plans,
like building an underground bunker to live in, then you might as well
just go on living your life and enjoying it, and just let people like
me worry about how it's going to end.  If there's a war, then both of
us will probably die at the same time, but you'll have lived a happy,
optimistic life, and I'll have lived a sad, depressive life.  We'll
both be just as dead, but you'll be better off, at least in the Karmic
sense, because you'll have been happier.

There are some things about which we can do nothing. Asteroid collision with the Earth? Supervolcano eruption? Nearby gamma-ray burst? We can do nothing about those. If one is in Naples, Italy and Mount Vesuvius is about to blow, then you had better have well-rehearsed plans for getting out of there. 

Cataclysmic wars? We need beware of electing the sorts of leaders who make such possible. Global warming? If we care anything for our grandchildren... or someone else's grandchildren... we do things to at the least slow it into something that we can deal with. 

With engineering projects there is appropriate maintenance.   



Quote:Another way of looking at it is that I can tell you that the camel's
back is going to break at some point, but I can't tell you which straw
will break the camel's back.  But if you know that the camel's back
is going to break at some point, then you can take action, such
as getting another camel.

You stop well short. How many oily rags can you safely hoard? I do not hoard them. 


Quote:But I don't think it's right to say that just because we can't
predict a specific time for something that it might not occur for
centuries.  As I said, there have been multiple massive wars in
the last century and in every century, so you can expect a world
war "soon," whatever that means, but certainly a lot sooner than
the next century.

Eighty-year cycles indicate when brinkmanship fails because people get desperate and war looks like a profitable and easy enterprise when someone thinks that victory is certain and the loser will pay for having lost through reparations, property confiscation, or enslavement. With a sociopathic leader such as... you know who the candidates are... rules and can suppress dissent and make caution more dangerous to a person than is what is ordinarily suicidal recklessness, apocalyptic war is inevitable.   


Quote:What Generational Dynamics does is to at least provide a timeline
associated with dystopic predictions, via generational cycles (which
are fairly fixed).  So we can look at the dates of the last few major
Western financial crises (1637, 1720, 1789, 1857, 1929), and you can
make probabilistic estimates of when the next crisis can occur.

2008. 2008. 2008.

The arch-conservative economist Friedrich Hayek (1898-1992) explained how speculative booms lead to financial panics. Speculative booms look lie easy ways to make huge incomes... easier than starting a business, adding plant and equipment, maintenance, building or rebuilding public infrastructure, investing in human capital, doing research and development... and over a few years they devour capital that could be used for the less glamorous, real growth. Speculative investment crowds out other investment while failing to make life better. But it is a waste, and the destruction comes with the waste. The illusion of prosperity builds, but it depends on one more fool buying in. When there are no more customers the boom implodes. Once the boom implodes the capital for making money in other, more old-fashioned, ways  vanish, too for some time. 

Roughly eight years passed between Black Monday and Hitler's Anschluss against Austria. The difference this time is that the American political system backed the banks quickly to protect savers, payrolls, and the accounts on which businesses draw for payables and which they deposit receivables...It was the destructive bank runs of 1931 that turned a recession into a full-blown depression. 

Question: did we need to have a full-blown depression to undo the rising inequality in America? If such is necessary, then we are far from out of trouble. 

If we do not have a shooting war involving Americans we have mass death similar in scale to a bungled war. COVID-19 exposes the structural weaknesses of societies and the absurdities of the philosophical basis of those societies. The plutocratic ideal that the society works best that above all else rewards the super-rich for being super-rich will create a contradiction of a materialistic culture in which almost everyone is a failure.


Quote:You can start with generational trends to get an estimated date range, and
then you can can look at the list of previous crises and try to figure
out what they had in common that would predict another crisis, in
order to narrow the date range.  That's what I've tried to do, without
attempting to set a specific date.  So I can refer to exponential
growing interlocking global debt, or I can refer to the CCP's
increasing belligerence and delusional insanity, and I can quote the
saying, "If something can't go on forever, then it won't."  And I can
talk about how "La Belle Époque" ended with WW I, or I can talk about
how the Roaring Twenties ended with the stock market crash, and that
can provide clues about when the crisis will occur, but no definite
time.  As I said, I can tell you that the camel's back is going to
break at some point, and I can give you a probabilistic estimate of
when it will happen, but I can't tell you for sure which straw will
break the camel's back.

It is wise to stop well short of stressing an engineering object, a processing assembly, or a social order even to near its breaking point. So avoid heating some flammable oil beyond its auto-ignition point...
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
(12-17-2020, 05:09 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It is wise to stop well short of stressing an engineering object, a processing assembly, or a social order even to near its breaking point. So avoid heating some flammable oil beyond its auto-ignition point...

The red philosophy of not solving problems hits home above. War was cost effective once, at least for the winner. We are learning with nukes, insurgency and proxy war that it is cost effective no longer. Elites think speculative booms are great. We are learning, some of us, not so great. Repairing or replacing bridges is prudent. We will get around to it someday. Likely, just after we get around to dealing with the environment.

Yes, collecting oily rags is a bad hobby to have. We do know better. Some of us. The problem is those who never learn.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
** 17-Dec-2020 World View: China does not honor its agreement

Guest Wrote:> "US slams China for no-show at meeting on maritime security Top US
> admiral says China’s failure to appear at meetings this week shows
> Beijing ‘does not honour its agreements’."
> https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/1...e-security
>

This refers to a meeting about the South China Sea. The Chinese
Communists see America as being increasingly weak, especially after
they've successfully inflicted the Wuhan Coronavirus on America, and
so they don't feel they even need to bother with these meetings. The
Chinese Communists are feeling increasingly confident of their
delusional worldview, which makes them increasingly unstable and
dangerous.

** 16-Dec-20 World View -- China escalates hostility with Australia through threatened coal ban
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e201216
Reply
** 17-Dec-2020 World View: Working from home

Guest Wrote:> This is the black swan I expect. I haven't been in the office
> since March. I was told the soonest I might be back is July
> 2021... if they even want me back in the office at all. I'm a
> programmer/cloud guy/engineer. So, my job is safe. But, why on
> earth would you pay a secretary $50K a year (with benefits) or an
> HR person $75K a year (with benefits) or whatever when you could
> hire a Ukrainian (or Indian or whatever) for $10K a year (with out
> benefits)... it's all the same if it's 100% virtual.

> If work stays 100% virtual like it probably will for most people,
> everyone who is not super skilled in a very specialized area is
> going to have their job very much at risk. You don't need an H1B
> visa to bring the person into America so they can work virtually
> from the same time zone. I know a lot of very smart/competent
> Ukrainians that wouldn't mind working Graveyard shift to get a
> "high paying" job working for a US Tech company. All it takes is a
> decision by the employer to hire someone over seas. There are no
> restrictions on that for 99% of jobs.

> Americans have really screwed themselves with this
> Plandemic.

This isn't new with the pandemic. It really exploded in the late
1990s, when Indian consulting firms hired thousands of programmers to
work the "graveyard shift" in remediating Cobol software on IBM
mainframes in the United States for the Y2K problem. I was Technology
Editor for CFO Magazine at the time, and I was following that
situation very closely. It was an amazing success story.

The two examples you gave -- secretarial and human resources -- once
again were being displaced long before the pandemic -- not by
Ukrainians, but by technology. Prior to the 1980s, if you wanted to
write a memo, you would ask your secretary to come into your office
and take dictation. The ability to take fast dictation was an
important skill for secretaries, along with fast touch typing. Almost
all those secretarial jobs have been gone for decades. Similarly, HR
functions have been replaced by software. PeopleSoft led the way in
the 1990s (since acquired by Oracle) as a major HR management system.
Even Lotus 1-2-3 and other spreadsheet programs displaced a lot of HR
functions, just as WordPerfect displaced a lot of secretarial
functions.

People working at home is also a long-term trend, as I'm sure you
know. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it began to be common for
programmers to work at home and log on to their timesharing systems
with a modem over a phone line.

So these are all long-term trends, and the pandemic has sped up the
trends. However, there's an economic law that applies to these
situations -- the Law of Reversion of the Mean. When a trend value
speeds up temporarily, then it will compensate by slowing down later.

So for example, when there's a new crop of college graduates in June
2021 then, unlike you, they will be completely unfamiliar with
corporate cultures. They will have to work in the office for at least
a year or two to get to know everyone and to know how things get done.
So it would not surprise me in the least if, next summer, the trend to
working at home suffers a reversion.
Reply
** 18-Dec-2020 World View: Wartime safety

DaKardii Wrote:> So, here are the regions of the world ranked from what I believe
> will be the least safe to the most safe during the war:

> Extreme Risk
> -Anywhere in Asia
> -Eastern Europe
> -Southern Europe

> High Risk
> -East Africa
> -Micronesia
> -North Africa
> -Northern Europe
> -The United States and Canada

> Medium Risk
> -Anywhere in South America
> -Australia and New Zealand
> -Caribbean
> -Central Africa
> -Central America
> -Polynesia
> -West Africa
> -Western Europe

> Low Risk
> -Melanesia
> -Southern Africa
>

That's an interesting list. How did you come up with it? Is it based
on general experience and research, or do you have some kind of point
system where you give each country points for each thing, and then add
up the points?

Also, do you have a way of distinguishing between different regions of
a country? For example, I would guess that western Australia might be
safer than eastern Australia.

This is a good time to repeat the advice that Higgenbotham has
posted in the past:

- If you have farming skills, then move to a farm in a remote
location.

- If you're a young and single male, then meet a well-to-do woman in a
country like Chile or Namibia and settle down with her.

Seasteading is another possibility that has been offered by VinceCate
in the past. You build or purchase a big floating structure (a
seastead) and then you and your family live on it for as many months
or years as necessary out in the middle of the ocean somewhere. To
keep it self-sustaining, you need to live on fish and seaweed. You
can generate electricity by capturing the power of the waves.

[Image: Seasteading_2.jpg]
  • Seasteading floating home project
Reply
(12-19-2020, 08:17 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Seasteading is another possibility that has been offered by VinceCate in the past.  You build or purchase a big floating structure (a seastead) and then you and your family live on it for as many months or years as necessary out in the middle of the ocean somewhere.  To keep it self-sustaining, you need to live on fish and seaweed.  You can generate electricity by capturing the power of the waves.

[Image: Seasteading_2.jpg]
  • Seasteading floating home project

Interesting.  One might make it slightly maneuverable to avoid running aground.  Perhaps you need only accept a tow or have a very small drive and a little foresight.  To harvest seaweed you need to be shallow, which would increase the running aground problem.  Perhaps some sort of outrigger could be used for seaweed farming.  Living on the edge of the Sargasso Sea might also make it more viable.

Has he solutions for these off the cuff objections?
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(12-19-2020, 05:11 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(12-17-2020, 05:09 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It is wise to stop well short of stressing an engineering object, a processing assembly, or a social order even to near its breaking point. So avoid heating some flammable oil beyond its auto-ignition point...

The red philosophy of not solving problems hits home above.  War was cost effective once, at least for the winner.  We are learning with nukes, insurgency and proxy war that it is cost effective no longer.  Elites think speculative booms are great.  We are learning, some of us, not so great.  Repairing or replacing bridges is prudent.  We will get around to it someday.  Likely, just after we get around to dealing with the environment.

Yes, collecting oily rags is a bad hobby to have.  We do know better.  Some of us.  The problem is those who never learn.

Some nitpicks:

1. The red "philosophy" comes with blindness to the consequences. Others may see the problem, but those deep into the "red" philosophy dig in deeper, seeing a fault in failure to go along with what to them seems undeniable except to the foolish and wicked. It's in part the Dunning-Kruger effect in which people who become more attached to their follies as they  refuse to learn about them. Comforting illusion or inconvenient truth?

2. War is cost-effective for warriors who can plunder, feudal lords who can take over the lands or serfs of another feudal lord across the border or subjugate freehold farmers into serfdom. That of course is in the Agricultural Age, when birthrates were high.  The classic horrors of Malthus (war, plagues, and famine) were available to cull the population of any country whose population outgrew its food supplies, which was easy to do with limited land and poor farming techniques. 

In more recent times, wars are unattractive drudgery to those who have just undergone the last Crisis War; they usually get disappointing results in a 2T. They become much more attractive when youth are more expendable in a 3T and profit overtakes all as an objective. Then comes the Crisis, and the perception of cost-benefit ration becomes more favorable to war... especially among leaders who have a low regard for the value of human life but bloated ideas of their own competence as leaders. 

To be sure, rearmament may not itself cause war; it is lucrative in part because it is exempt from market decisions. It poses one huge risk: despots see the shiny new warships, bombers, fighters, cannons, missiles, and tanks and of course solders as toys.   

War is much more unpredictable than its initiators think. The dog-and-pony shows create the image of soldiers and sailors of unqualified loyalty to the Leader. Initial aggression such as subversion and diplomatic bullying can pay off very well, only to intensify the climate of danger. Then come the casualty lists, with the worst ones getting worse and worse. Perception and reality are two different things.

3. It is the speculative booms that lead to financial panics that destabilize politics and often bring the worst in political life. The generational cycles suggests that:

In the immediate aftermath of a financial panic (this is typically when a 3T becomes a 4T), capital is gutted. Because there is no capital to invest in a speculative boom, there is no such boom. Early in a 4T expenditures go into recovery measures, but should there be a major war, the government gets every resource possible invested into the war. 

In a 1T there isn't much loose capital lying around. People remember what happened in the last such boom. People have plenty of ideas of how to spend their money. Economic inequality is at a minimum, and shortages related to a 4T get resolved. Capital goes into plant and equipment, into real estate for common use, and perhaps some infrastructure. 

In a 2T life, or at least culture, gets less materialistic. People try to 'find themselves' and trade  off drudgery of the factory for something less likely to create things in favor of creating something more abstract and 'meaningful'. 

In a 3T people quit pretending that there is any noble purpose in life, but economic inequality gets more severe. Fewer people have big chunks of money, and people look for easy income. That means speculation. 

Every adult generation renounces the speculative boom once it happens, and the children of the last years of the heady boom  have their own ideas, vague as they might be, that wild speculation is a good way to go broke. People who have no idea of how the last speculative boom went bad have their own rationales for participation in it. Thus come such rationales as 

"It's the only game in town"
"The Good Lord isn't making any more real estate"
"I'll be smart enough to time the market"
"Taxes will eat my gains if I sell out"
"Nothing else pays off adequately"
"We are going into a new era with new rules, and this boom is a portent"

People may not be considering this:

"The only game in town may be a fraud -- a Ponzi scheme or a chain letter".
"Anything can be overpriced". 
"You can't realize gains unless there is a buyer"
"A zero or near-zero return from savings is better than huge losses"
"You are better to pay taxes on income than to lack income or absorb losses"
"No, there is no new era with new rules -- just another hustle". 

In a 4T, speculative booms are impossible. In a 1T they get crowded out. In a 2T people might get snookered by many things -- but not so much greedy investing. Late in a 3T people do really stupid things and seem to get away for them for a while. The elites aren;t so dumb about speculative booms for about yo years after the last Crash.

4. Rebuilding infrastructure may be crucial to improving the environment.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
** 19-Dec-2020 World View: Seasteading

London calling" Wrote:> Seasteading? [Expletive deleted]

Those interested in seasteading can read Vince Cate's last post on the
subject:

http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?...610#p48201

or can read Vince Cate's web site on the subject:

http://seastead.ai/

or can visit the site of the Seasteading Institute:

https://www.seasteading.org/
Reply
** 19-Dec-2020 World View: UK's Boris Johnson 'cancels Christmas' because of new virus variant

UK prime minister Boris Johnson has just given a nationwide speech to
the UK announcing a harsh new Christmas lockdown, requiring many
people to spend Christmas alone, and being described as "cancelling
Christmas."

Just two days ago, Johnson ridiculed the idea of a Christmas lockdown,
but says that the U-turn is required because scientists in the last
day have confirmed that the virus has mutated into a variant that is
spreading 70% faster than the previous variant. The new variant is
not more lethal, but it spreads much faster.

The new variant has been spreading rapidly in London and in eastern
England. The new lockdown is being imposed to prevent people from
carrying the new variant to other regions of England, in the hope of
slowing the spread of the new variant.

[Image: 2.57175118.jpg]
  • Growth of Covid-19 rates in different regions of England and
    UK (UK Press Association)

According to Johnson, they had been puzzled about why the virus had
been spreading more rapidly in eastern UK, and the confirmation of the
new variant solved the puzzle.

There are also numerous restrictions and lockdowns being announced
elsewhere, including Italy, France, Sweden, and Australia.

--- Sources:

-- New coronavirus variant – key questions answered
https://www.barrheadnews.com/news/nation...-answered/
(Press Association, UK, 19-Dec-2020)

-- Coronavirus live news: Boris Johnson announces new tier 4 and
tightens Christmas rules
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...19-cluster
(Guardian, London, 19-Dec-2020)

-- Speech - Prime Minister's statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 19
December 2020
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/p...ember-2020
(UK Government, 19-Dec-2020)
Reply
I don't know. If it looks like Christmas is going to be cancelled, you might find one of the reindeer has suddenly developed a red nose, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future might visit, or a large chorus might give the Grinch a swollen heart.

Boris ought to get a photo op with the Grinch while he can. Seemingly, an effort to cancel Christmas against COVUS fatigue leaves COVUS fatigue on top?

More seriously, does anyone think the Atlantic is wide enough to provide enough isolation until the vaccines take hold? Did a super strain involve itself in the recent blow ups in California and around Boston?
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
The secretiveness of reporting about COVID-19 gets me.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
** 20-Dec-2020 World View: Europeans desperately try to block spread of new virus variant

[Image: TELEMMGLPICT000229000207_trans_NvBQzQNjv...ELibA.jpeg]
  • Street art by artist Rebel Bear, on wall on Bath Street in
    Glasgow

UK media are speculating that the new harsh shutdowns will extend well
past Christmas until the new vaccines have been deployed, which means
that many people will be confined to their homes until March or April.
It's believed that the new vaccines will still be effective with the
new variant.

Listening to the various UK politicians talk about how the new variant
is "out of control," it's pretty clear that they're desperate and have
no idea what to do. The same is true in the US in the incoming Joe
Biden administration, where they have no absolutely clue what to say
or do except to rant that it's all Trump's fault.

See the following:

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



The Netherlands, Belgium and Italy are placing severe restrictions on
air travel to and from the UK. Germany may consider the same.
However, the new variant may already be spreading in those and other
countries.

Need we remind you? The Brexit disaster is closing in, and the UK
will officially leave the EU in ten days.

There has been a major outbreak in Sydney, Australia, where it is
currently summer.

---- Sources

-- COVID-19: New mutation in every part of UK except Northern Ireland,
expert says
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-shou...n-12161566
(Sky News, 20-Dec-2020)

-- Dutch ban UK flights, fearing the new coronavirus variant
https://apnews.com/article/europe-nether...b34be356b4
(AP, 20-Dec-2020)

---- Related 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
Reply
(12-20-2020, 08:55 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: UK media are speculating that the new harsh shutdowns will extend well past Christmas until the new vaccines have been deployed, which means that many people will be confined to their homes until March or April.  It's believed that the new vaccines will still be effective with the new variant.

Listening to the various UK politicians talk about how the new variant is "out of control," it's pretty clear that they're desperate and have no idea what to do.  The same is true in the US in the incoming Joe Biden administration, where they have no absolutely clue what to say or do except to rant that it's all Trump's fault...

It is clear that everybody does know what to do, but that COVID fatigue prevents the politicians and medical professionals from doing it.  The people, some of them, won't listen.  They will go with the unravelling concept of selfishness above the crisis idea of sacrificing for the common good.  It will take a Hiroshima level mass of death for them to reconsider if this is wise.  COVUS will have to oblige.  Even then, it looks like the death toll will not get high enough to wake people up before the vaccines take effect.  Maybe the new strains will change things, but people are pretty stubborn.

The Biden administration does know what to do, are planning on doing it publicly, and that it is all Trump's fault for encouraging the COVID fatigue.  Some ideologues just have their head in the sand ignoring readily available facts in spite of claiming to do the research.

And again, it is not stupidity, but an unwillingness to examine their beliefs.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
** 20-Dec-2020 World View: The Five Laws of Revolution

Moncef Marzouki, former Tunisian president, was interviewed
on al-Jazeera on Sunday, on the tenth anniversary of the Tunisian
revolution that led to the so-called "Arab Spring" throughout the
Mideast. He said that the Tunisian Revolution was "ordinary," because
it followed his "Five laws of revolution":

Five laws of revolution:
1 - every revolution has a high human cost.
2 - every revolution is followed by a counter revolution
3 - revolutions don't profit the people behind the revolution.
Other people profit.
4 - revolution is like a cat with offspring -- dictatorship breaks out,
good guys who were fighting together now are enemies.
5 - Most important law: It takes a very long time to achieve
the revolution's objectives.

He said that the Tunisian revolution contained three paradoxes:
1st paradox - they started out peaceful, but they led to terrible
civil wars in Libya, Syria, Yemen
2nd paradox - they were secular revolutions, but they gave power
to the Islamists.
3rd paradox - they were local revolutions, but became the
backgrounds [proxy wars] for foreign powers.
Reply
I wonder if non violence is an effective tool against autocratic governments. They just blatantly ignore the will of the people. Many of the things Marzouki mentions dance around that.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(12-21-2020, 01:24 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I wonder if non violence is an effective tool against autocratic governments.  They just blatantly ignore the will of the people.  Many of the things Marzouki mentions dance around that.

Gandhi was interviewed about that very thing: would he have used that tactic to resist the Nazis?  He argued that there has to be a layer of basic decency for non-violence to work. If there is none, the non-violent will be crushed long before any positive results can emerge.

Not definitive, but certainly weighty.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
** 21-Dec-2020 World View: Stalinist reign

Guest Wrote:> All I know is there's going to have to be a revolt or this country
> will resemble the Soviet Union at the height of Stalin's
> tyrannical reign.

It really is astonishing to watch what's going on.

We have the news being censored by twitter, facebook, cnn, msnbc, nyt,
wapost, and so forth, who are bragging about how they used censorship
and deceit to manipulate the election and win it for Biden. Now that
they election is over, they haven't stopped. After controlling the
election outcome, they've tasted the erotic thrill of power, and
they're not going to give it up, and will extend their censorship in
other directions.

We have president-elect Biden still hiding out in his basement, even
though the election is over, and when he comes out of hiding for a
brief statement, the signs of dementia are obvious.

We have an incoming cabinet determined entirely by ethnicity and
gender. There isn't even any pretense that these people know what
they're doing. Their only qualifications are skin color and breast
size. I saw one of them on tv yesterday bragging about how excited
she was to have this job because she's going to going to bring about
the lunatic green new deal. She obviously had no clue what she was
talking about.

Trump always hires someone based on skills, and if he doesn't perform,
then he hears, "You're fired!" Skin color and breast size are
irrelevant for him. Trump's team is still managing the country, so
everything is ok for now, but who knows what will happen a month from
now, when the lunatics will be taking over?

How will this end? I've answered that question many times. It will
end with an existential threat to America, such as a Chinese attack on
American assets. This will immediately unite the country behind the
president who, we hope, will appoint a surrogate to run the country.
Perhaps Trump will come back in that role.

At any rate, the drift toward Stalinist Communism will be stopped at
that point, and the country will unite to face the existential threat.
Reply
** 22-Dec-2020 World View: Google censorship

John Wrote:> ** 21-Dec-2020 World View: Stalinist reign

> We have the news being censored by twitter, facebook, cnn, msnbc,
> nyt, wapost, and so forth, who are bragging about how they used
> censorship and deceit to manipulate the election and win it for
> Biden. Now that they election is over, they haven't stopped.
> After controlling the election outcome, they've tasted the erotic
> thrill of power, and they're not going to give it up, and will
> extend their censorship in other directions.


Higgenbotham Wrote:> It doesn't appear that anything from this forum shows up in google
> search anymore. I just searched for a random phrase you wrote on
> page 245 of this thread and got this from google search:

> No results found for "You're overlooking the generational
> issues. Whether the peace deal can succeed or fail has nothing to
> do with the details of the agreement.".

> I used to use google to search for things in this forum, as some
> things were easier to find using google than the search feature on
> here.

This isn't the least bit surprising. Google is bathing in the glory
of its victory in being responsible for bringing about Biden's
victory, and now they're flush with power and looking for other ways
to use their power.

Right now, no one is even paying attention. Before the election,
people were publishing analyses showing that, for example, Breitbart
and Zerohedge never appear in the google listings, even when you have
a 100% precise fit.

So today they're being a lot more aggressive in delisting sites that
don't conform to their Stalinist world view. It's not surprising that
the GD forum has been delisted. And with Stalinist censorship growing
every day in America, things could get a lot worse.

Right now, google is a God that can do whatever it wants. Having
gotten Biden elected, it can turn to other issues, like not listing
anything that promotes Taiwan independence or Hong Kong democracy.
Once you're God, you can do anything. And by the way, it's been known
for years that google reads your gmail and uses the information to
target ads.

Now that google, twitter and facebook have gotten Biden elected, it's
a fair question to ask who's running the Biden administration. If you
compare Trump to Biden, it's clear that Trump runs his administration,
while Biden doesn't have a clue what's going on, having been hiding in
the basement for a year, and with a team whose only qualifications are
skin color and breast size.

So who's running the Biden administration? Is it the big Wall Street
firms, as even liberals suggest? Or maybe with the Democrats in
completely compromised relationships with China, maybe China is
dictating Biden's policies. The only thing we can be certain of is
that his obvious dementia means that Biden is not running his
administration.
Reply
** 22-Dec-2020 Spam

This forum is being flooded with spam. I go to the trouble to keep
the Generational Dynamics forum free of spam. Why isn't anyone doing
the same in this forum? You aren't even bothering to take the simple
step of banning the spammers. This forum is a mess.
Reply
(12-22-2020, 07:41 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 22-Dec-2020 Spam

This forum is being flooded with spam.  I go to the trouble to keep
the Generational Dynamics forum free of spam.  Why isn't anyone doing
the same in this forum?  You aren't even bothering to take the simple
step of banning the spammers.  This forum is a mess.

We have no moderator or webmaster anymore.  I think Rags may be ill and unable to continue.  How we resolve that in internet-world is hard to say.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply


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