Russian contractors fight US coalition forces.

[Gulo Blue]

I love the headline... really plays on the ignorance of the US public

"Don't be fooled" is way off, this story isn't picking up any traction at all. Don't need to fool people if they aren't paying attention.

 

[Michchamp]

"Don't be fooled" is way off, this story isn't picking up any traction at all. Don't need to fool people if they aren't paying attention.

given that it's an open secret we're fighting all across the planet, with unofficial congressional support, no debate, no civilian oversight, and we have weekly mass shootings here that kill 4+ people for no reason, it's getting harder and harder to shock the US populous into getting behind or even caring about something.

Not sure if the military cares. They learned and have so far practiced the lessons of Vietnam: 1) don't draft American kids, and 2) keep pictures of the murder and bloodshed out of the news. They have a blank checkbook to do whatever they want as long as they don't forget either lesson.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Really?

You agree with that?

I hate to burst your bubble but Abraham Maslow was only one of numerous behaviorists/behavioral psychologists who was saying this and things like it long before Kaczynski came along.

So the really short version of the manifesto is that the progression of technology makes the top half of Maslow's hierarchy inaccessible to most people.

 

[Gulo Blue]

given that it's an open secret we're fighting all across the planet, with unofficial congressional support, no debate, no civilian oversight, and we have weekly mass shootings here that kill 4+ people for no reason, it's getting harder and harder to shock the US populous into getting behind or even caring about something.

Not sure if the military cares. They learned and have so far practiced the lessons of Vietnam: 1) don't draft American kids, and 2) keep pictures of the murder and bloodshed out of the news. They have a blank checkbook to do whatever they want as long as they don't forget either lesson.

I wonder how they are reporting it in Russia? Three words into typing that question I realized they probably aren't.

 

[tinselwolverine]

So the really short version of the manifesto is that the progression of technology makes the top half of Maslow's hierarchy inaccessible to most people.

Right.

Most people are stupid.

Most people have always been stupid.

Has nothing to do with the progression of technology.

Just has to do with most people being stupid because most people are stupid.

We've talked about that here before.

Kaczinsky (sp?) didn't break any news.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Right.

Most people are stupid.

Most people have always been stupid.

Has nothing to do with the progression of technology.

Just has to do with most people being stupid because most people are stupid.

We've talked about that here before.

Kaczinsky (sp?) didn't break any news.

Stupid people used to be able to do work that put bread on the table. There was a greater need for the labor of stupid people than there were stupid people. Labor was the limiting factor. Technology is removing that limitation one job at a time.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Stupid people used to be able to do work that put bread on the table. There was a greater need for the labor of stupid people than there were stupid people. Labor was the limiting factor. Technology is removing that limitation one job at a time.

Right.

It probably won't happen in our lifetimes, but in the future the productive are just going to eat stupid people - don't you think?

Stalin just had them executed and buried, overlooking a food source right at his fingertips.

Stalin was not really visionary.

 

[Michchamp]

I wonder how they are reporting it in Russia? Three words into typing that question I realized they probably aren't.

the same way Time, CNN, Newsweek, ABC/NBC/CBS, etc. and even Fox News would report it if the opposite happened:

If it benefits the US govt/ie the Military? report it straight.

if it doesn't? don't report it at all, unless someone else will, then try to spin it, or report it on a Friday afternoon, when everyone is at the bar getting loaded.

you have to admit, since 2003, the Pentagon's PR Dept. has done a pretty damn top notch job of keeping the US population in the dark about what's going on in Afghanistan, Iraq, or any of teh 100 other places we're in! Impressive!

the only real screw ups are the several dozen or so minor flubs when they reported drone strikes on "militants" that turned out to be innocent weddings or picnics, and they got called out for it. but most people in the US just yawned, or ignored those. or accepted the rationale that "a couple" misses were okay since we were "probably" or at least "mostly" killing "bad guys" and all these things seem remote enough.

and then the Pat Tillman thing, and later Chelsea Manning's leak/wikileaks, the former of which just made Rumsfeld, et al have to attend a couple unplanned hearings, when his family wouldn't shut up about it, and the latter of which did have some actual consequences. but given The War On Terror will be seventeen years old this fall, only one PR scandal to affect policy is a pretty great track record!

 

[tinselwolverine]

Right.

It probably won't happen in our lifetimes, but in the future the productive are just going to eat stupid people - don't you think?

Stalin just had them executed and buried, overlooking a food source right at his fingertips.

Stalin was not really visionary.

Actually, Mao did that shit too - but even worse.

Stalin had people executed if they couldn't read - but Mao had people executed if they couldn't read CHINESE!!! - who the fuck can read Chinese??? - what the fuck???

 

[Michchamp]

Actually, Mao did that shit too - but even worse.

Stalin had people executed if they couldn't read - but Mao had people executed if they couldn't read CHINESE!!! - who the fuck can read Chinese??? - what the fuck???

we don't do things like that! we're so great!

if someone can't read English, we just mock them and insist they don't deserve to earn enough per hour to feed their family, or be entitled to any sort of legal rights.

but our government will not send people to find them and kill them, except by accident, like if they get pulled over by a trigger happy cop.

however, we will send agents to come through them in a private, for-profit prison for some period of time, before deporting them back to wherever they came from, which depending on why they left, MIGHT be a death sentence, but that's hardly our problem.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Right.

It probably won't happen in our lifetimes, but in the future the productive are just going to eat stupid people - don't you think?

Stalin just had them executed and buried, overlooking a food source right at his fingertips.

Stalin was not really visionary.

I don't think the employment thing is a way out there futuristic idea. I think it's already started. I had no problem getting summer jobs in highschool and college and know that a decade later, people with equal employability couldn't find squat. 20% of the country had a disability as of 2010. This is masking an unemployment problem; doctors are doing this for people that could be working. There is correlation between the unemployment rate and new disability applications. The "gig" economy, while too new to be reflected in government stats yet, it is estimated to involve 34% of the workforce. A lot of the gig economy is legit work (though unscrupulous tax dodging on the part of employers); I think a lot of it is people accepting underemployment because they can't find better options.

And soylent exists, though I have heard it gives you gas.

 

[tinselwolverine]

we don't do things like that! we're so great!

if someone can't read English, we just mock them and insist they don't deserve to earn enough per hour to feed their family, or be entitled to any sort of legal rights.

but our government will not send people to find them and kill them, except by accident, like if they get pulled over by a trigger happy cop.

however, we will send agents to come through them in a private, for-profit prison for some period of time, before deporting them back to wherever they came from, which depending on why they left, MIGHT be a death sentence, but that's hardly our problem.

Right.

Our execution process for the illiterate is procedural, gradual and systemic, not capricious and arbitrary as it was under Stalin and Mao.

But as Millenials and the generations beyond become disgusted with us distracting them from their using their technology - that will change.

They'll become like Stalin and Mao.

But smarter.

They'll eat us, as opposed to burying us.

 

[tinselwolverine]

I don't think the employment thing is a way out there futuristic idea. I think it's already started. I had no problem getting summer jobs in highschool and college and know that a decade later, people with equal employability couldn't find squat. 20% of the country had a disability as of 2010. This is masking an unemployment problem; doctors are doing this for people that could be working. There is correlation between the unemployment rate and new disability applications. The "gig" economy, while too new to be reflected in government stats yet, it is estimated to involve 34% of the workforce. A lot of the gig economy is legit work (though unscrupulous tax dodging on the part of employers); I think a lot of it is people accepting underemployment because they can't find better options.

And soylent exists, though I have heard it gives you gas.

Right.

There have always been public doles going back to and before the Roman days of bread and circuses.

People in power who control the food supply generally come up with ways to keep the starving masses from killing them.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Right.

There have always been public doles going back to and before the Roman days of bread and circuses.

People in power who control the food supply generally come up with ways to keep the starving masses from killing them.

I'm claiming things are changing and you're claiming they aren't.

Right?

 

[tinselwolverine]

I'm claiming things are changing and you're claiming they aren't.

Right?

Pretty much.

You're the smartest guy on this board and I'm the second smartest.

You're smarter in your own ways and I'm smarter in mine.

But you're a little smarter overall and I'm fine with that.

You may have heard this adage - "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

I guess I'm a cynic, and you're an optimist.

Maybe either way, we end up in the same place.

This post kind of reminds me of the discussion between Jesus and Satan during Jesus's 40 days in the desert.

 

[Gulo Blue]

You may have heard this adage - "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

I guess I'm a cynic, and you're an optimist.

I'm a long-term optimist, but a near-term pessimist with some of this stuff. In a perfect world, I think I'd be a small l libertarian, thinking the government giving people tons of stuff is a mistake that's long-term bad for us. I hold conservative views on why the US has prospered economically to date. But I think things have changed and are going to keep changing in ways where what worked in the past will have unacceptable results in ways we haven't seen before. People starving in an age of plenty. People without work during a stock market boom. Practical limitations to the ideology. Someday, I believe we'll be able to go back ('cause I'm an optimist.) Even if we agree T-rex doesn't want to be fed, right now there are few wild goats and soon there will be fewer. I hope and think we can build a world where T-rex can hunt, but in the meantime, we have to feed the T-rex. If that means single payer health care or universal income, so be it. It's better than having a starving T-rex.

 

[Gulo Blue]

You're smarter in your own ways and I'm smarter in mine.

You are a brilliant flatterer.

 

[tinselwolverine]

You are a brilliant flatterer.

But nothing on the Jesus/Satan optimistic/cynic metaphor?

I set that up for a slam dunk.

Or maybe it was a slam dunk itself.

Anyways...

 

[Gulo Blue]

But nothing on the Jesus/Satan optimistic/cynic metaphor?

I set that up for a slam dunk.

Or maybe it was a slam dunk itself.

Anyways...

Set up for a slam dunk for someone with your skill set. I'm more of a free throw shooter.