Kryptos said:

Tipote said:

Kryptos said:

It's interesting you mention suicide. I was thinking not that long ago-a high suicide rate shows that a society is relatively good at taking care of its people. Specifically, a high suicide rate means that not only are people not dying of natural causes, they also have the free time to grow despondent and depressed.

---

This sounds really counter-intuitive to me. Why would a high suicide rate show that society is good at taking care of people?

Kryptos said:

I was also just reading a piece in the NYT on the Siege Mentality:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/opinion/roy-moore-conservative-evangelicals.html

I think this is also relevant-all these death cult members, suicide bombers, all that, they are basically suicidal young men who see no hope for themselves, and then blame society as the "other" who does nothing but shit on them from day one. Even though it's patently false, in many cases. See: republicans still talking about Obamacare death panels.

---

What are you saying is patently false in many cases? That alienated groups are shat on?

I agree the siege mentality is definitely significant in this discussion.

The fact that this generation has shittier prospects than the previous generation is certainly cause for concern.

---

A high suicide rate simply means that a society is good at taking care of the base physical needs of its population. Food, shelter, safety, etc. Mental needs, validation, all that stuff at the top of the needs pyramid, well, that's a bit more complicated, we haven't figured that out yet.

And yes, I am arguing that in many cases, "alienated" groups are alienated by themselves, and no-one else. Like the white guy crying racial prejudice when he loses his job to a better qualified and cheaper paid minority. It's a continuation of the siege mentality: You're not under siege if you're not a victim, so you better self-alienate, because then you can go back to being the victim under siege.

Or, if you want an example that can't be discounted as "bleedin' heart libtard talk": The guy with the gun is in most cases the most powerful guy in the room, at least physically speaking. Which makes it a little sad, and a little mind blowing, when they try to act out as the weak underdog (see, ISIS, NRA). But that's how they do. They're the true underdog, fighting for good old-fashioned Islam/Christianity/Mass shootings/Whatever.

As for shittier prospects than the previous generations: I don't know if I fully agree with this. I would agree that from the perspective of previous generations, there are shittier prospects, yes. You don't turn 18 and go work at the local factory/war recruiting office anymore. You now have options. As a result of those options, many old, stable, staple, even industries are dying out. So this means less opportunity in terms of the old definition, but there's plenty more opportunities made available by the internet and new technologies and jobs.

Even if we were to count recent economic policies, which ever since Reagan's "Guns-and-Butter" Reaganomics have mostly screwed the ability for upward mobility, (and continue to do so), I think there are enough loopholes being left behind for the new generations. Sure, most of these loopholes have a entrance exam that mostly consists of weighing daddy's wallet, but a smart and or lucky cookie will still figure out a way to thumb the scale. Bitcoin millionaires come to mind.

One thing I am worried about, however, is the recent explosion in fiscal irresponsibility. Optimistic projections for the new tax bill say it will cement the deficit at $1T/year, if the economy continues going gangbusters. In the almost mathematically certain downturn of the future, well, that deficit prediction becomes $2T/year. With corporate debt making up half the GDP, and corporate taxes going down, I see some rapid inflation coming up. I figure this is the "correction" that the GOP will use as a new method to weigh daddy's wallet. Once everyone is a millionaire, no-one is.

---

ballsalsa said:

I was a very conservative 12 year old.  The older I get, the more I find that i care about people other than myself, which has inexorably led to my becoming more liberal in my views.

---

Do you put your conservative beginnings down to your parents political beliefs?

I feel the same way about caring for others and its relation to my political leanings.

I think I was influenced a lot by Star Trek TNG too . To me it just seems rational that blind selfishness only creates more rationale to be selfish, and that seems to be our current world system. It just seems rational to pool resources and coordinate.

When I was a younger, my dad was running refugee camps all over the world (for free), we even had an Iranian refugee living with us at one point. I think that definitely brought me up with a sense of connection to the other.. as well as from growing up in more than one country - In the US I was English, in England I was French/American and in France I am English.

Falcon91Wolvrn03 said:

I switched because conservative's biggest focus seems to be tax cuts for the rich, which leaves far less money to spend on things like education, infrastructure, etc and increases the debt, hurting future generations.  Their next biggest focus seems to be limiting individual freedoms, by legislating morals, such as fighting drugs, public nudity, etc.

---

qman said:

I guess my initial move into liberalism came from my dislike of religion. I was raised Catholic but by age 11-12 I already knew it was bullshit. I associated religion with conservatism and that pushed me into the other direction.

---

Quote:

It's very easy to be liberal growing up in an upper middle class community and never seeing the other side of the tracks. I lived a very sheltered life until I went off to college and experienced the real world.

---

relic said:

i was a diehard conservative until i grew up and learned that about 75% of what i thought i knew was bullshit..

---

Kryptos said:

A high suicide rate simply means that a society is good at taking care of the base physical needs of its population. Food, shelter, safety, etc. Mental needs, validation, all that stuff at the top of the needs pyramid, well, that's a bit more complicated, we haven't figured that out yet.

---

Quote:

And yes, I am arguing that in many cases, "alienated" groups are alienated by themselves, and no-one else. Like the white guy crying racial prejudice when he loses his job to a better qualified and cheaper paid minority. It's a continuation of the siege mentality: You're not under siege if you're not a victim, so you better self-alienate, because then you can go back to being the victim under siege.

---

I agree with you but I would also say that this is where intersectionality comes in. It's the case that on a class basis, many people - whites and people of colour - are alienated. But white working class can stamp on working class people of colour and ignore the real enemy.

Who can blame them when the billionaire-owned media is saturated with messages like..

Quote:

As for shittier prospects than the previous generations: I don't know if I fully agree with this. I would agree that from the perspective of previous generations, there are shittier prospects, yes. You don't turn 18 and go work at the local factory/war recruiting office anymore. You now have options. As a result of those options, many old, stable, staple, even industries are dying out. So this means less opportunity in terms of the old definition, but there's plenty more opportunities made available by the internet and new technologies and jobs.

---

Quote:

Sure, most of these loopholes have a entrance exam that mostly consists of weighing daddy's wallet, but a smart and or lucky cookie will still figure out a way to thumb the scale. Bitcoin millionaires come to mind.

---

Quote:

One thing I am worried about, however, is the recent explosion in fiscal irresponsibility. Optimistic projections for the new tax bill say it will cement the deficit at $1T/year, if the economy continues going gangbusters. In the almost mathematically certain downturn of the future, well, that deficit prediction becomes $2T/year. With corporate debt making up half the GDP, and corporate taxes going down, I see some rapid inflation coming up. I figure this is the "correction" that the GOP will use as a new method to weigh daddy's wallet. Once everyone is a millionaire, no-one is.

---

krypto2000 said:

I think the left and right are suffering from the same problem, they're being bleed dry, squeezed for everything they have, their opportunities are being squandered be it jobs, healthcare, upward mobility, what have you, it all ties together. The only place we really differ is in our identity of the cause.

As a leftist I of course think its the wealthy, the elites, etc putting downward pressure on us. The right thinks it's due to immigration, socialists policy, etc. From my perspective those ideas are put in their head by the wealthy elite. What's real? Well I have my view.

As far as extremist reactions go, I mean that's natural. You can only push someone but so far, take but so much from them until they have no rational options left so what do they do? Either give up and submit or respond irrationally. I for one would rather die for what I believe in than cower over and submit. Call that extremists if you will, but it's human nature, we all have it in us. If you take food from someone and leave them with no means to survive they're going to steal it, it's not because they're bad people, it's because that's the only option they have left.

Beyond that it's also in the wealthy elites interests to sow chaos, disorder, and confusion among us. It's well established that they send out 'agent provocateurs' to break up peaceful protests and label them as aggressors. They then go on the news and say things such as 'antifa attacks such and such' or 'nazis do such and such.' I'll see whole reddit threads posted by bots, voted on by bots, and commented on by bots. A lot of it is hard to tell, but some of it is just obvious. Every account is less than 30 days old, there's generic strings of comment threads, some of which even seem disjointed and unrelated, broken english, generic usernames, etc, etc. You can't even tell what is fucking real anymore. This is a dystopia I never imagined. I really wish Huxley had written this timeline, at least give me some moksha medicine to help me cope, we just have SSRIs.

---

good post

Tipote said:

ballsalsa said:

I was a very conservative 12 year old.  The older I get, the more I find that i care about people other than myself, which has inexorably led to my becoming more liberal in my views.

---

Do you put your conservative beginnings down to your parents political beliefs?

I feel the same way about caring for others and its relation to my political leanings.

I think I was influenced a lot by Star Trek TNG too . To me it just seems rational that blind selfishness only creates more rationale to be selfish, and that seems to be our current world system. It just seems rational to pool resources and coordinate.

When I was a younger, my dad was running refugee camps all over the world (for free), we even had an Iranian refugee living with us at one point. I think that definitely brought me up with a sense of connection to the other.. as well as from growing up in more than one country - In the US I was English, in England I was French/American and in France I am English.

Falcon91Wolvrn03 said:

I switched because conservative's biggest focus seems to be tax cuts for the rich, which leaves far less money to spend on things like education, infrastructure, etc and increases the debt, hurting future generations.  Their next biggest focus seems to be limiting individual freedoms, by legislating morals, such as fighting drugs, public nudity, etc.

---

This is something I respect a lot about you, Falc, that you review the data and let that inform your positions.

How old were you when you switched, if you don't mind me asking?

qman said:

I guess my initial move into liberalism came from my dislike of religion. I was raised Catholic but by age 11-12 I already knew it was bullshit. I associated religion with conservatism and that pushed me into the other direction.

---

I think this is common too. I had a similar journey. I even fell into the arrogant dawkins atheism for a while but that didn't last long. 

Quote:

It's very easy to be liberal growing up in an upper middle class community and never seeing the other side of the tracks. I lived a very sheltered life until I went off to college and experienced the real world.

---

What about the "real world" or college opened your mind to racist arguments? Or was that something you had time for before?

---

Tipote said:

How old were you when you switched, if you don't mind me asking?

---

Tipote said:

ballsalsa said:

I was a very conservative 12 year old.  The older I get, the more I find that i care about people other than myself, which has inexorably led to my becoming more liberal in my views.

---

Do you put your conservative beginnings down to your parents political beliefs?

---

somewhat.  My dad is super-duper smart, so I assimilated a lot of his worldview. As a young person, i was more inclined to see issues as black and white, especially moral issues.  Once I became a man, I started to drag him left with me, and now he's probably more liberal than I am.  My mom is mostly apolitical.  She got into it pretty seriously in the last election, but ended up screwing herself by registering as "American Independent".

qman said:

Kryptos said:

Quote box deleted for readability

---

"With corporate debt making up half the GDP"

Please explain.

---

qman said:

I came from a highly competitive environment growing up and I thought the rest of the world also did the same thing, I was proven wrong.

---

Quote:

I came to observe that there were differences between the cultures and ethnic groups, the everyone is the same just didn't make sense anymore as I left my sheltered life.

---

Quote:

"racist arguments"
I call this acknowledging some of the differences and not running away from it for the fear of being labeled a "bigot".. Again, this has nothing to do with "superior" or "inferior" population groups, it's about embracing the diversity instead of being in fear of it.

---

Kryptos said:

1) No, pick any time. We can safely discount everything before the invention of fertilizer, because everyone starved before that. Nowadays, productivity is way up, and I would argue standard of living is also way up. What 50 years ago was an unimaginable luxury (fridge, TV) now exists in literally every household, even if they can't afford the power to run either. If we're talking about buying power, that's a different story, but is unrelated to standard of living.

---

True, there are many advances but if our generation doesn't have enough money to work and live, let alone have kids and support them, then surely that is a problem for society? Cling on to the existance of the fridge if you must but I think the future prospects of people tend to go beyond food refrigeration technology.

I am no economist but I'm sure others here would agree that wages have been stagnant for a long time despite everything getting more expensive.





(from here)

Quote:

I never put much stock in the whole "housing market reflect the health of the economy" bullshit.

---

It doesn't give a complete picture, of course. But its certainly indicative of the issues we have today.

If rent was reasonable then it wouldn't be such an issue. In places like Berlin there is a big renting culture. Instead, those lucky enough to be helped by family wealth, can buy property and have that level of security.. everyone else gets to pay extortionate rent for the cupboard under the stairs they live in.

There is investment in the UK for luxury builds for the mega rich, and social housing is sold off without being replaced - always fucking the little guy for the benefit of the rich.

Social housing is left to degrade to such an extent that it is not fit for human habitation and crimes like the Grenfell fire happen.. and the victims are blamed for not only being precariat class but for being largely people of colour.

Capitalism splits up families and communities and makes life about the endless pursuit of money while society fucks over the poorest the most. In the UK, there have been thousands of deaths attributed to government austerity.

Landmark study links Tory austerity to 120,000 deaths

The level of in-work poverty is shocking. And yet you think suicide is a good sign in society?

No wonder our generation are putting off having children completely or at least delay it for a while, even killing themselves. And what does that do for our population? If we don't have a minimum number of children then it affects our entire society.

Millennials say no to kids, population 'replacement level' turns negative

Quote:

That's economics 101. Bone or ye shall be boned. Changing this basic rule would be unjust to the free market. The thing is, we are living much better than most of human history. We are living to excess. We are living unsustainably.

---

Quote:

If we want to live without class inequalities, we're gonna have to make some fundamental changes to the system. It's natural for someone to rise to where they are, and build themselves a little floor to stand on. The thing is, that floor looks a whole lot like a ceiling from below.

---

I agree we need fundamental changes to the system.

Is it natural to have such gross inequality though?

Quote:

If what I expect happens, I figure there will be a lost generation. Maybe us, as the young end of millennial. Maybe our kids. We'll do a whole lot of complaining.

---

sprinkles said:

what if you are like me and start off radical?  what then?

---

Tipote said:

[Quote block deleted for readability

---

Quote:

So you say bone or be boned and youre surprised why people are killing themselves in such high numbers.

---

koods said:

Quote:

So you say bone or be boned and youre surprised why people are killing themselves in such high numbers.

---

Are they? World wide homicide rates have never been lower in all of human history

---

now you're satisfied with the historically low homicide rate?