tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post4994881119097896690..comments2024-03-28T12:42:22.578-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Our phenomenal (recent) accomplishments in spaceDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-75518497406740542512016-10-04T19:49:01.892-07:002016-10-04T19:49:01.892-07:00Hi A.F
I read that article and while the author sa...Hi A.F<br />I read that article and while the author says that there are true homosexual bonds his examples don't seem to agree<br />In fact his examples seem to support Joan's premiseduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87337774661346384632016-10-04T09:29:45.506-07:002016-10-04T09:29:45.506-07:00I once read an article by a transgender biologist ...<i>I once read an article by a transgender biologist named Joan Roughgarden, who commented that bisexual behavior is extremely common in the Animal Kingdom, but exclusively homosexual behavior is nowhere to be seen except I humans.</i><br /><br />Just in case you didn't realize, Joan is wrong, from what I've read. Exclusive homosexual behavior is seen in the animal kingdom.<br /><br />For instance: http://www.bidstrup.com/sodomy.htm<br /><br /><i>Just as in humans, animals often form long-term same-sex relationships. In species in which this normally occurs in heterosexual couples, that shouldn't come as a great surprise, but it does come as a surprise in species where heterosexual pair-bonds don't normally form for long if at all. This is true of bottlenose dolphins, which are not known to form heterosexual pair bonds, but which do in fact form homosexual pair bonds, including sex, and often lasting for life.</i>A.F. Reynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23036305161372553942016-10-04T07:49:40.711-07:002016-10-04T07:49:40.711-07:00Paul SB:
I'll say more about religion when I ...Paul SB:<br /><i><br />I'll say more about religion when I get home from work.<br /></i><br /><br />Aaron Burr from "Hamilton", totally out of context:<br /><i><br />This should be fun.<br /></i>LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47714025909707808322016-10-04T07:44:37.806-07:002016-10-04T07:44:37.806-07:00Paul SB:
Dr.Brin did a review of the first film i...Paul SB:<br /><i><br />Dr.Brin did a review of the first film in the 300 series, and IIRC he did the second one as well, here. Needless to say, he roasted them to tiny cinders. I didn't bother to see either, but they sound like a real waste of time. Major disappointment!<br /></i><br /><br />When the movie came out--2006 IIRC--it was presented as an allegory for the war in Iraq. The white, European Greeks were avatars for modern western civilization, making the stand they have to against the Persians (i.e., Iranians), the avatars of Muslim terrorists. The movie was an implicit endorsement of W's involvement in the war, which is why I had to turn the film off about a third of the way through when I tried to watch it on video.<br /><br />The thing is, I enjoyed the graphic novel that the film was based on when it came out in 1999 or 2000 (before 9/11). And the movie was almost shot-for-shot identical to the comic. Yet, just knowing the point the movie was attempting to drive home made all the difference. As Dave Sim (Cerebus writer/artist) would say, "Once a thing is seen, it can't be un-seen."<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50050608191189481392016-10-04T07:37:15.278-07:002016-10-04T07:37:15.278-07:00Robert:
When the economy started improving, compa...Robert:<br /><i><br />When the economy started improving, companies started poaching each other's workers despite high unemployment. The general consensus was that it was better to steal someone else's worker than risk hiring someone who had been unemployed for a length of time.<br /><br />The longer you were unemployed, the more undesirable you were. Your job skills were considered atrophied (despite the fact even the best new employee poached from a top-notch company still needs training in that company's ways and methodologies).<br /><br />The end result was that there were job openings that were not being filled because companies did not want to take a chance with a voter - er, I mean potential employee who had not been working for a length of time.<br /><br />You had high unemployment... and high demand for employees. Select employees had their value increased as a result... but while companies spent more for those employees, there was no real improvement to the economy. Only once companies started hiring people who were unemployed for a period of time did the economy slowly start to recover.<br /></i><br /><br />First of all, I love how you tied the two issues together, and as far as unemployment being a disqualifying factor in finding a new job, you're singing my song. Imagine if a requirement for being admitted to a grocery store or restaurant was that you must not be hungry.<br /><br /><i><br />Democracy in the United States is suffering from a recession. It has been for decades now. The solution is not to poach voters from third parties. It is to get the people who don't vote or who have not voted before to actually vote for a change...<br /></i> <br /><br />In fairness, I don't think Democrats are going after committed Libertarians so much as they are trying to convince Democrats who are voting Third Party as a protest against Hillary to stay with the Democratic Party. Yes, they are also trying to poach Republicans who can't stomach Trump, but that's icing on the cake, not their electoral strategy in whole. They're not chasing disgruntled Republicans <b>at the expense</b> of other voters.<br /><br />That said, you are correct that a candidate who can bring out the vote from those who don't usually bother should do well. We saw some of that with Obama in 2008. The US government is designed to respond to the will of the <b>voters</b>, meaning the people who actually vote, not those who complain but don't vote.<br /><br />Great post!LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1559083475653403512016-10-04T07:27:12.354-07:002016-10-04T07:27:12.354-07:00Laurent Weppe:
Our host and many commenters often...Laurent Weppe:<br /><i><br />Our host and many commenters often praise the middle class as the Best Thing Ever to happen to civilization, but this rather rosy view of the petite bourgeoisie forgets that the Hitler, Le Pen, Trump, or Victor Orban rose to fame and in some cases to power because large swath of the oh-so-awesome middle-class willingly supporter authoritarian bullies <br /></i><br /><br />Dr Brin seems well aware of that, as he points out Hitler as an example of the political <b>center</b> going insane.<br /><br /><i><br />who peddled the notion that their middle-class voters could be guarantee warmth, food and hope <b>at the expense of everybody else</b>.<br /></i><br /><br />A few years back, I read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", and saw that as the Nazi army expanded its reach eastward, their directive was that all productive capacity of the land was to be used to support Germans back home. The people who happened to live in those places were to be essentially left to starve and freeze.<br /><br />While no one in American mainstream politics (not even Trump) currently advocates such a cruel strategy, it does seem to me that the difference between liberals and right-wingers is increasingly that one side wants a rising tide to lift all boats, and the other claims the tide as their private property and goes "How dare those boats rise on my tide?!!"LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46638312275365397102016-10-04T05:16:55.713-07:002016-10-04T05:16:55.713-07:00Well, Larry, the Devil is in the details, so as La...Well, Larry, the Devil is in the details, so as Laurent said, we soldier on.<br /><br />Donzelion,<br />I once took an Intro to Film & Video class, during which I talked about the possibility of making a film based on Thukydides,but that was early 90's, when such a thing might have been prescient instead of finger wagging. (Which makes me think of "Wag the Dog" and how it became a big part of the debate in the Kosovo war.) College was a very fertile time for the imagination! I wish I could go back...<br /><br />Plato vs. Aristotle is essentially inductive vs. deductive reasoning, both of which are necessary components of scientific reasoning, but don't expect to get grant money from illustrious sources like the NSF if you dare to say the word "inductive" in your proposal, a combination of naive scientism and physics envy.<br /><br />I'll say more about religion when I get home from work.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52896108853744626162016-10-04T02:30:53.577-07:002016-10-04T02:30:53.577-07:00Laurent Weppe:
Then again he [Louis XIV] was crow...Laurent Weppe:<br /><i><br />Then again he [Louis XIV] was crowned king at five.<br />...<br />Also, XIV would probably have lived longer had he had a less rich diet... or a doctor who knew how to extract insulin from pigs' pancreases.<br /></i><br /><br />Even more amazing!<br /><br /><i><br />"Politics is tedious" is a coded way to say things like "I don't like to argue about the tax code", "I don't want to pick a fight with bigoted bullies or arrogant posers who pretend to epitomize self-made-manliness despite everyone knowing they got their first job through their aunt's former high-school boyfriend", "I don't want to shout at the christmas dinner table all the disgust and contempt that my half-senile racist uncle inspire me", <br /></i><br /><br />Heh. Ok, granted that "our side does it too." When I hear the phrase "politics is tedious," or something to that effect, it's usually "Now that I've regaled you with <b>my</b> opinion, which is too self-evident to debate, I don't feel like discussing this any further."<br /><br /><i><br />"Imbecile insulting me for having opinions that diverge from their simplistic black & white worldviews makes me want to clobber their gonads with the chair-leg of truth until they crawl at my feet and beg for the leg's forgiveness".<br /></i><br /><br />:) See, now <b>that</b> doesn't sound tedious.<br /><br /><i><br />But the thing is... People who say that politics is tedious are right. Political arguments are tedious, if for no other reason that they get marred in bad faith more often than not, turning many if not most "debates" into contests of wit where at least one of the participant doesn't even believe his own speech yet goes on because he's pandering to an audience of voters he most probably despise deep down.<br /></i><br /><br />"Politics is tedious" to the same extent that "Working for a living is tedious." Millions of people indeed have jobs they trudge through each day just to earn a paycheck. The fact that that is the case does not negate that to some people, their jobs are engaging and interesting and even meaningful.<br /><br />I'm just saying the same is true for political discussions.<br /><br /><i><br />But the problem is the very real power that lies behind the tedious circus lies, meaning that ignoring it means becoming the prey, which forces us to soldier on.<br /></i><br /><br />Exactly. Political discussions are not about convincing your opponent. They're about convincing listeners that your argument makes more sense or is more plausible than your opponent's. And if you abstain from the fray, the impression is that he is so spot-on that you can't refute him.<br /><br />So as with Hamilton (again):<br /><i><br />Burr, I'd rather be divisive than indecisive.<br />Drop the niceties!<br /></i><br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-60051016145731860292016-10-04T01:56:27.477-07:002016-10-04T01:56:27.477-07:00Paul SB: "I read Herodotus when I was 12 and ...Paul SB: <i>"I read Herodotus when I was 12 and would have loved to see a good movie based on any of a number of good stories in there."</i> <br />Personally, I'd prefer to see a Thucydides-based film, esp. one that paralleled the 'logic' of the Iraq invasion before finishing off the main enemy in Afghanistan.<br /><br />One can condense Western reasoning as playing out the debate between Plato and Aristotle, both of whom offered strong arguments that merit respect. From Plato, the 'theoretical' approach is essential: geometry, logic, causality, temporality - the bases for mathematics. From Aristotle, the 'empirical' approach is essential: we must see evidence, and if it does not fit our theories, reject those theories. The 'scientific method' emerged as a ritualized approach that assumed both theory and observation are important steps in a broader process: both Platonic and Aristotlian approaches are important steps, but neither is a complete approach.<br /><br /><i>"This is one of the things I dislike about a majority of religious people...the fish people would much rather go on about Christ’s love while raining down hellfire and damnation on everyone around them."</i><br />Concur. There are many admirable and enduring ideas within 'Christianity' (and all monotheistic faiths), but few of those ideas seem to have penetrated into modern exponents of the faith.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12253278939269706312016-10-03T22:10:33.663-07:002016-10-03T22:10:33.663-07:00Laurent,
Usually you are a fun read, as was much ...Laurent,<br /><br />Usually you are a fun read, as was much of this latest, but I have to throw my hat in with Donzel in this case. People are people, and middle class people are neither more nor less likely to fall for the chicanery of BS masters than either of the other classes. If you want to do the most good for the greatest number of people, building a big middle class is the way to go. The alternative is either go back to the rigid hierarchy of aristocracy, which did the least good for the most people, or below ourselves back into the Stone Age, which some fools might idealize as the best of times, but actual hunter/gatherers will cheerfully point out that periodic starvation sucks. The trick is to immunize people - middle class or otherwise, against those BS artists with an education that emphasizes critical thinking instead of blind obedience. That might be a pipe dream, though, since powers of all sorts prefer blind obedience.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-62170292880743126972016-10-03T22:03:03.230-07:002016-10-03T22:03:03.230-07:00Donzelion,
Dr.Brin did a review of the first film...Donzelion,<br /><br />Dr.Brin did a review of the first film in the 300 series, and IIRC he did the second one as well, here. Needless to say, he roasted them to tiny cinders. I didn't bother to see either, but they sound like a real waste of time. Major disappointment! I read Herodotus when I was 12 and would have loved to see a good movie based on any of a number of good stories in there.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16705922705268682232016-10-03T21:54:55.338-07:002016-10-03T21:54:55.338-07:00Having ranted about this tendency to judge people ...Having ranted about this tendency to judge people against unattainable ideals, now in fairness I have to say that this sort of thinking is an unsurprising result of the architecture of our brains. We have this dual system with an inner brain that works like any other animal’s brain, on top of which grows our big cerebral cortex, which is made to learn by putting new information into categories. Some of our more despicable habits, like racism and sexism, are natural outgrowths of this kind of oversimplification. Once our minds have made a box, we tend to shove things in it based on the most superficial of similarities. This architecture has more implications than just prejudice. We do this to ourselves and our feelings as well.<br /><br />I once read an article by a transgender biologist named Joan Roughgarden, who commented that bisexual behavior is extremely common in the Animal Kingdom, but exclusively homosexual behavior is nowhere to be seen except I humans. Why would this be? Imagine a young boy who decides he likes dressing dolls, then as he ages finds himself fascinated by the world of fashion (no, this is not an autobiographical example). He might conclude that because fashion is a “girl thing” that he must really be a girl, just born in a boy’s body or some such silliness. So he decides he must be gay, because one trait seems feminine to him. Now both he and his culture have canalized his life in one direction that may not really suit him, or even lead him to a violent end. In reality we are all a mix of traits, very few of which are really exclusive to one sex or the other, but because we think in categories, and assume these categories are more real than the individual people we have shoved into them. What if you were an Italian who could not stand pasta, or a Latino who found soccer tedious? What do you call a Republican who is pro-choice or thinks that gay marriage is no one’s business but those getting married? Most Republicans call them RINOs – Republican In Name Only – even if every other idea they have is consistent with the Party platform. <br />Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-68225171815945885442016-10-03T21:54:23.948-07:002016-10-03T21:54:23.948-07:00 Donzelion,
While Plato has both good and bad sid... Donzelion,<br /><br />While Plato has both good and bad sides, there is one idea of his that in many ways retarded the progress of Western Civilization for more than a millennium. Plato’s “ideals” – his notion that somewhere up in the heavens there resides a “perfect” man, that all living men are but poor reflections of, and a “perfect” woman, a “perfect” frog, “perfect” day, “perfect” bowel movement – whatever. It was only with the growth and spread of statistics, Mendelian Genetics and Evolutionary Theory that we have been slowly creeping our way out of a pit of superstition and prejudice. The idea that the categories we create in our minds – mere abstractions – are more real than the actual individuals from which these categories are made is not only silly, it has done the gods only know how much harm to real people everywhere. These archetypes begin with the assumption that none of us are really good enough, which is already a foul beginning that saps compassion, understanding and forgiveness from people, because no real person can ever live up to unreal ideals. <br /><br />This is one of the things I dislike about a majority of religious people. I’ll use Christianity as an example, since it is by far the dominant faith community everywhere I have been for more than a couple months, but I see the same sort of thing in all religions. One of the things that really narks me off about Christians is how much time and energy they spend on praising the Lord and praising Jesus, and how very little time they devote to helping real, living people all around them. Jesus has been dead for 2000 years, and though for the most part he seems like he might have been a nice guy, he’s dead. We are surrounded by people (to say nothing of animals and plants) that desperately need our love and attention, be it a simple pat on the back, a meal, a companion or a job. But the fish people would much rather go on about Christ’s love while raining down hellfire and damnation on everyone around them. <br />Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41464651728377027162016-10-03T21:53:49.379-07:002016-10-03T21:53:49.379-07:00Hi Raito,
I know you were speaking to Treebeard a...Hi Raito,<br /><br />I know you were speaking to Treebeard at that time, so I should have realized you were essentially speaking in "his language." I suppose I'm just uptight enough about metaphorical language to have missed that. Most people don't even realize that things they hold as sacred truths are nothing more than analogies and metaphors. I'm still happy to muddle along with you and the others, but trying not to ASS U ME is a tall order. Assumptions happen automatically in our synapses. The best thing, I think, is to try not to get too attached to our assumptions. If someone calls us on it, accept that the assumption might have been wrong.<br /><br />Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40812971007630461642016-10-03T19:51:32.989-07:002016-10-03T19:51:32.989-07:00Reposting a political post that I recently put up ...Reposting a political post that I recently put up on Facebook - the third post in response to supporters of Hillary Clinton who are desperately trying to peel voters away from third parties. After lambasting them for scaremongering both Green Party and Libertarian voters, this was my response:<br /><br />---------<br /><br />There is still some debate over "encouraging third-party voters" to vote for Hillary compared to my suggestion of getting out the vote. So I'm going to move on to an economic perspective.<br /><br />When the economy started improving, companies started poaching each other's workers despite high unemployment. The general consensus was that it was better to steal someone else's worker than risk hiring someone who had been unemployed for a length of time.<br /><br />The longer you were unemployed, the more undesirable you were. Your job skills were considered atrophied (despite the fact even the best new employee poached from a top-notch company still needs training in that company's ways and methodologies). <br /><br />The end result was that there were job openings that were not being filled because companies did not want to take a chance with a voter - er, I mean potential employee who had not been working for a length of time.<br /><br />You had high unemployment... and high demand for employees. Select employees had their value increased as a result... but while companies spent more for those employees, there was no real improvement to the economy. Only once companies started hiring people who were unemployed for a period of time did the economy slowly start to recover.<br /><br />--------<br /><br />Democracy in the United States is suffering from a recession. It has been for decades now. The solution is not to poach voters from third parties. It is to get the people who don't vote or who have not voted before to actually vote for a change. If you get enough people to vote? Trump won't stand a chance. And Republican gerrymandering efforts will likewise fall apart because gerrymandering targets likely voters. Not potential ones. <br /><br />Stop trying to poach voters. You will not bring lasting change to the U.S. political system EVEN if you get Hillary Clinton elected. Get out the vote. Register new people. Help older people get to the ballots. Drive people to ballots. Carpool. Hire buses. Double-check that those people are SUPPOSED to vote in those districts - do the homework to ensure they aren't wasting their time!<br /><br />It is a lot of hard work and effort! But you will bring about an end of the political recession that has been inflicted on this nation for decades. And you will bring lasting change to this country.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-53821489176184261632016-10-03T18:34:31.748-07:002016-10-03T18:34:31.748-07:00Last missive to the sousveillance crowd: I'd m...Last missive to the sousveillance crowd: I'd missed the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/09/20/cops-accidentally-record-themselves-fabricating-charges-against-protester-lawsuit-says/?utm_term=.523e2e4863f2" rel="nofollow">Michael Picard story,</a> headlined as "Cops accidentally record themselves fabricating charges against protester, lawsuit says."<br /><br />Intriguing stuff for discussion. I have my qualms about Picard's conduct, but the police must be properly controlled. Were they really 'fabricating' charges (in the sense of making them up out of nowhere - a fraud), or were they just doing 'police work' (which includes trying to decide whether to charge someone with a crime or misdemeanor - 'fabricating' in the sense of making something out of something else).donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31411228115933454072016-10-03T18:33:36.597-07:002016-10-03T18:33:36.597-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4438424912849392962016-10-03T18:07:31.178-07:002016-10-03T18:07:31.178-07:00Laurent: Ah, so rare that I find myself disagreein...Laurent: Ah, so rare that I find myself disagreeing with you!<br /><br /><i>"large swathes of the oh-so-awesome middle-class willingly support authoritarian bullies who peddled the notion that their middle-class voters could be guaranteed warmth, food and hope at the expense of everybody else."</i><br /><br />The better observation is that HUMANITY often 'supports' authoritarian bullies - they are fascinating and distinctive! But while the petite bourgeoisie attenuates that support by having to get up the next day and earn its keep, the oligarchs and the poor subside on the support of others: the simple need to get back to work may not apply to them. Absent that need, bullies offer these two groups enticing 'solutions' to their problems or opportunities; to the middle class, they offer 'entertainment.' Unfortunately, some of the more entertaining performers on the one stage are the worst leaders in another.donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-69397209886826006302016-10-03T17:46:42.671-07:002016-10-03T17:46:42.671-07:00Dr. Brin: "I don’t disdain all the Greeks. Pr...Dr. Brin: <i>"I don’t disdain all the Greeks. Primarily the Spartan-slavemaster section"</i><br />Pity how Zack Snyder's blood splatter ballet converted them into heroes...<br /><br /><i>"and the smarmy-elitist Platonist section."</i><br />Many have abused a caricature of Plato (Socrates), just as many abused a parody of Adam Smith. But there's a lot of good stuff there...but you did paint him as the villain of Western civilization once, and that's unfortunate. <br /><br /><i>"WE the consumers vote with our viewing habits what memes to reinforce."</i><br />But we vote for options produced by corporations (except for subscriber-supported media). Plato offered a fair number of powerful arguments as to why "popularity is not the same as truth."<br /><br /><i>"the memes that get rewarded are liberal ones - suspicion of authority, tolerance, diversity, eccentricity."</i><br />Media plays it both ways: rewarding 'suspicion of authority' (by producing new authority to challenge preexisting authority), rewarding 'tolerance' (so long as it fits with sufficiently popular standards), 'diversity' (so long as it is a white male lead rescuing those non-whites), 'eccentricity' (so long as it's within bounds). In that, they reflect the internal contradictions of language and society itself: the memes that get rewarded are both liberal AND illiberal, and ultimately favor 'change' (in any one of a number of directions) simply because 'change' is 'interesting.'donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-84642450916158513632016-10-03T17:41:30.378-07:002016-10-03T17:41:30.378-07:00My state legislated universal election audits, cho...My state legislated universal election audits, choosing a random number in each district to hand-count. Great, I said at the time. My problem is I can't get anyone in government to explain the random number generation, nor whether it's going to be transparent, witnessed publicly.<br />This is tedious. I pick a single issue, yet get nowhere.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67394407326539450962016-10-03T17:18:16.043-07:002016-10-03T17:18:16.043-07:00* "I would also expect most 'super-powers...<b>*</b> "<i>I would also expect most 'super-powers' will carry the same ambivalence as cosmetic enhancement does today...</i>"<br /><br />I would expect most non-purely-cosmetic artificially produced 'super-powers' will carry the same stigma as doping does today: "<i>you cheated, you deserve none of the accolades, prizes and degrees granted to you</i>"<br /><br />***<br /><br /><b>*</b> "<i>In the dispute between whether man is basically good or basically evil, I find that the better angels of our nature are more ascendant in people who are not hungry, cold, or desperate.</i>"<br /><br />That's a beginning but you forgot another thing: <i>fear</i>. fear of becoming hungry, cold, or desperate in the foreseeable future, and fear of ending on the receiving end of the revanchist fury of those who already are hungry, cold, or desperate.<br /><br />Our host and many commenters often praise the middle class as the <i>Best Thing Ever</i> to happen to civilization, but this rather rosy view of the <i>petite bourgeoisie</i> forgets that the Hitler, Le Pen, Trump, or Victor Orban rose to fame and in some cases to power because large swath of the <i>oh-so-awesome</i> middle-class willingly supporter authoritarian bullies who peddled the notion that their middle-class voters could be guarantee warmth, food and hope <b>at the expense of everybody else</b>.Laurent Weppenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-17577645620656213502016-10-03T17:17:21.553-07:002016-10-03T17:17:21.553-07:00* "While researching something else, I was ut...<b>*</b> "<i>While researching something else, I was utterly amazed to find out that Louis XIV reigned for something like 75 years. Not just lived to 75, but was king for that long. And I believe the next king, Louis XV was not his son, but his grandson, or maybe even great-grandson.</i>"<br /><br />Then again he was crowned king at five.<br />Same thing with number XV.<br />Louis XVI was actually the first king of France to have been crowned an adult since Henry the fourth, nearly two centuries prior in 1589 (XVI was crowned king at age 20 in 1774).<br />Think about it: between Henry IV's assassination in 1610 and Louis XVI's coronation in 1774, France had a total of <b>three</b> heads of state over a period of 164 years. (and one of them was a megalomaniacal control-freak who centralized power so much that he unwittingly sowed the collapse of his dynasty)<br /><br />Also, XIV would probably have lived longer had he had a less rich diet... or a doctor who knew how to extract insulin from pigs' pancreases.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><b>*</b> "<i>"Politics is tedious" seems to be one of those memes that is accepted by everyone as being self-evident,</i>"<br /><br />"<i>Politics is tedious</i>" is a coded way to say things like "<i>I don't like to argue about the tax code</i>", "<i>I don't want to pick a fight with bigoted bullies or arrogant posers who pretend to epitomize self-made-manliness despite everyone knowing they got their first job through their aunt's former high-school boyfriend</i>", "<i>I don't want to shout at the christmas dinner table all the disgust and contempt that my half-senile racist uncle inspire me</i>", "<i>Imbecile insulting me for having opinions that diverge from their simplistic black & white worldviews makes me want to clobber their gonads with the chair-leg of truth until they crawl at my feet and beg for the leg's forgiveness</i>".<br /><br />But the thing is... People who say that politics is tedious are right. Political arguments are tedious, if for no other reason that they get marred in bad faith more often than not, turning many if not most "debates" into contests of wit where at least one of the participant doesn't even believe his own speech yet goes on because he's pandering to an audience of voters he most probably despise deep down.<br /><br />That's neither fun nor inspiring nor even simply interesting. It's hard to remain involved when you know that tomorrow will bring another drone from the Whitey-McDouche family spewing demonstrably false bullshit for the cause of preserving the hegemony and unearned materials comforts of the WMDs.<br /><br />But the problem is the very real <b>power</b> that lies behind the tedious circus lies, meaning that ignoring it means becoming the prey, which forces us to soldier on.Laurent Weppenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36244393591233885182016-10-03T12:39:19.582-07:002016-10-03T12:39:19.582-07:00Jumper:
the media won't point out the fine po...Jumper:<br /><i><br />the media won't point out the fine points of how a monopoly's shareholders are granted guaranteed profits and the ratepayers have to fund the cleanups of the ash spills.<br /></i><br /><br />It makes a certain amount of sense for a regulated monopoly to be guaranteed a level of profit. But it's a bit absurd for it to be structured such that tort liability doesn't come <b>out of</b> that profit. The incentive structure is all wrong.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80157000155508985262016-10-03T10:07:11.956-07:002016-10-03T10:07:11.956-07:00On "corporatist media" I think the main ...On "corporatist media" I think the main thing is reluctance to name names, question the big businesses, and that goes double for local issues and local businesses' treatment by local media. For example around here Duke Power took a lot of heat from the media over a coal ash spill into the river, but the media won't point out the fine points of how a monopoly's shareholders are granted guaranteed profits and the ratepayers have to fund the cleanups of the ash spills.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91484177473983231172016-10-03T09:22:53.583-07:002016-10-03T09:22:53.583-07:00donzel I don’t disdain all the Greeks. Primarily ...donzel I don’t disdain all the Greeks. Primarily the Spartan-slavemaster section and the smarmy-elisitst Platonist section. And even there I don’t mind Aristotle too much. Pericles I admire hugely and so long as he lived, the Athenians managed a temperate and reasonable democracy. Then things went outta hand. But they were still leagues ahead.<br /><br />WE the consumers vote with our viewing habits what memes to reinforce. Putting aside the Fox poison spews that cater to hate memes, the memes that get rewarded are liberal ones - suspicion of authority, tolerance, diversity, eccentricity.<br /><br />Oy, this latest anon is worse than an ent. Puh-lease. There are plenty of places you can go with a few dollars and live like a feudal lord or caveman or whatever you dream-of. You’ll be cheating of course, by bringing your dollars that you draw off THIS civilization that has pampered you. But cheating aside, go. To where there are no freeways and leaf blowers. Just go!<br /><br />--<br />I'm off to where citizens stopped the holnists, David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.com