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14 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

I fondly and horrifically recall the completely ineffective government safety protocols we were mandated through as a child.

 

"When the nuclear bombs go off assume a fetal position beneath your desk and don't look out the windows."

 

Man, that it surely going to help me survive a liquefying blast impact or the surface of the sun like temperatures.  Also, we were like 6-8 years old during this stupidity.

 

How to traumatize children - Make sure they know the Russians are going to nuke them into molten glass pits on the regular.

 

Here is the UK “Protect and Survive” infomercial from the 70s.

 

and here is the mocking song about it....

 

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On 8/5/2019 at 12:56 PM, ScottishFox said:

 

You can take yearly mass shooting deaths for the entire country and then compare them to handgun deaths in Chicago alone and Chicago will win every year - usually several times over.

 

The mass shootings are nightmares and I live in one of the states that just had one and we have relatives in the area. 

It is awful and I hope the perpetrators enjoy a lifetime of suffering in whichever state-run hell hole they end up in.

 

But, if human life is what we care about and not clicks and prime time views then they are almost statistically irrelevant.  We have much larger issues to tackle (organized crime, gangs, medical errors, obesity, cancer, etc.) that kill WAAAAAY more people than mass shootings.

 

Still, I've had the what-to-do talk with my child and it does not involve curling up under a desk and waiting for death per school instructions.

Statistics are not the only measure of relevance. After the end of Reconstruction, and especially after WWI, attacks on black communities represented a number of casualties that was also statistically small compared to other ways people could die, but effectively disenfranchised the black middle class and especially upper class throughout much of the South and into the midwest. In fact, had a huge influence on the course of our history until the early seventies, and in many ways, still today.

 

Those attacks were often prefaced by whistle dog politics from leaders backed by friendly press to those leaders selling the same fear, after which those leaders would take zero responsibility for the predictable results of their words. The key difference here is those leaders clearly planned for said violence to happen, the current one merely flails about.

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I've mentioned Pinker's book, Enlightenment Now, as well as Better Angels of our Nature, which specifically looks at the decline of war. Demonstrably, we know how to make the world materially better. These methods also incidentally reduce misogyny and bigotry of all kinds. It is unfortunate, however, that significant numbers of people have strong vested interests in bigotry and misogyny, and they aren't going down without a fight.

 

Dean Shomshak

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47 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

In my more optimistic moments, I like to consider whether the recent resurgence in bigotry, misogyny, tribalism in Western society isn't really the death throes of an old order that recognizes its time is done but just refuses to accept it.

 

I feel more that it's the death throes of the mainstream media as the world turns its eyes to the internet and long-form on-demand reporting instead of 2 minute yelling matches.

 

Media right and left has ratcheted up their rhetoric to apocalyptic levels.  Too many people are being caught up in the hysteria on both sides.

 

Just the news from the last couple nights - and I'm paraphrasing only slightly here:

1-  Fox - White supremacists aren't a real problem.  -  Actually, Tucker, they are.  They are a problem.

2-  MSNBC - Analyst uses numerology to deduce President Trumps secret white supremacist Nazi dog whistle subliminal orders.  -  Or, he could just be an obnoxious public speaker with bad manners.

 

Both sides are so divorced from reality that it's frightening. 

Hmm, probably more accurate to say they are presenting stories that are divorced from reality.  I think both sides know perfectly well they are saying the most insane sh*t ever in order to try to salvage declining viewership.

 

Based on Joe Rogan's podcast and youtube views I believe his audience far surpasses any remaining news channel.  Perhaps more than the top 3 combined.

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I think, in the United States, a group of people who have mostly been on the losing side in every battle of the culture wars of the past 50-60 years are digging their heels in, alarmed by the ongoing demographic changes in the nation, and prepping for something equivalent to a last stand.  

I generally agree that human existence is mostly improving, but I don't think we live in the best of all possible worlds by any stretch, and there are some huge challenges ahead of us(heading off a potential extinction level event/crisis wrt climate change, e.g.).  

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22 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

I think, in the United States, a group of people who have mostly been on the losing side in every battle of the culture wars of the past 50-60 years are digging their heels in, alarmed by the ongoing demographic changes in the nation, and prepping for something equivalent to a last stand.  

I generally agree that human existence is mostly improving, but I don't think we live in the best of all possible worlds by any stretch, and there are some huge challenges ahead of us(heading off a potential extinction level event/crisis wrt climate change, e.g.).  

You sound like Pinker himself, actually. He mentioned being called a Pangloss, and that real challenges remain to be dealt with (citing climate change).

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I was going through my archives looking for some stuff and ran across this cache of quips and observations from my blogging in the 2016 campaign era. I thought some of you might find them amusing.

 

 

 

My own anti-Trump one-liners aka Confessions of a #NeverTrumpster

 

God got his kid killed and Trump hasn't.

I wonder which one Trump would think was a loser?

 

 

It is always amusing to me that Trump supporters can show up for an online poll but cannot show up anywhere for an in-person caucus.

 

I've been through the dawning of the age of Aquarius. The age of Aquarius was a friend of mine. Donald Trump is no age of Aquarius.

 

Trump couldn't have won the Democrat nomination because their superdelegate system keeps an outsider with dubious motives from hijacking their system.

 

By Trump's standards, if the military people at Pearl Harbor were great, wouldn't they have found a way to survive the attack?

 

They didn't even let me vote at all in Florida so I am also "disenfranchised by the rules".

 

They let Russian nationals vote on the Drudge Report poll but few Russian nationals fly over here for a primary and go to a polling place to ask for a ballot.

 

 

Trump's definition of conservatism is "wanting to conserve something" according to what he said in debates.

Hillary wants to conserve Obamacare which makes her a conservative according to Trump's standards.

Why should you have trouble with Trump supporters thinking Trump is conservative if they are using his definition?

 

 

About electioneering at a state party convention:

That's not a coup, that's what all the candidates are supposed to do.

Hasn't anyone ever attended a caucus or a local convention? You are supposed to have people from all the campaigns running around trying to convince you to vote for certain people and to not vote for other people.

I don't know whether it is more shocking that the Trump and Kasich campaigns cannot be bothered to participate in the process or if it is more shocking that media outlets are pretending that completely normal campaign processes which happen every election season somehow overnight became "underhanded".

 

 

On voting for Trump because of the possibility that he would die in office and promote a more acceptable person who had been the VP:

They said the same thing about Bob Dole.

There's just something about disgusting people which preserves them while the good die young.

 

 

I want to reform immigration. But my ideas of what might be good ideas on immigration reform likely wouldn't be exactly the same thing that anyone else would want.

Bernie wants tax reform and Cruz wants tax reform.

But that doesn't mean their stances are anything alike.

 

 

 

The white supremacists like their bathrooms segregated by both gender and color.

Trump might be seriously denting his core support group by taking the wrong side on this bathroom issue.

 

 

I laid it out for Trump supporters on Breitbart what Trump would have to do to pay off the debt in 10 years as he's promised to do:

He would have to completely zero out all federal spending for six years. Then I supplied the math on that from credible sources.

Strangely enough, the Trumpsters continued to argue with all the other people who were scoffing at Trump's claim but no one wanted to discuss the matter with me.

 

As we witness from Trump and his followers, there are many people in this country who cannot tell the difference between liberal and conservative so that they can self-identify correctly.

 

Most people don't know enough about what they believe to have a political ideology. They just have opinions which may or may not be backed by any information at all.

 

In April 2016, Morning Joe from MSNBC called Trump a "centerist Democrat". My response: I never thought of being anti-woman and pandering to the white supremacist crowd as being "centrist Democrat" but I bow to Morning Joe's superior knowledge of the Democrat Party.

 

 

On having a "convention of states" during a President Trump presidency in order to reign in Trump after he purges conservatives from the Republican party:

If we don't have a political party while fighting for a convention, there's no way we would be in control of the convention once it happened.

Whoever controls the political party or parties will control the convention.

 

 

On the claim by some people "that at least the Trump candidacy has brought attention to some issues which might otherwise have not gotten much coverage": That's like thanking the bubonic plague for wiping out half the population of Europe.

 

 

Maybe some people are not hardcore #NeverTrump.

But Cruz, who I strongly supported even before he announced, couldn't talk me into voting for Trump even if Cruz signed on as VP and assured me that Trump isn't crazy because his mother had him tested.

 

 

I've always been of the opinion that one side at least should be the good guys.

 

Have you ever met a group of people on the internet who DIDN'T think they were intellectually superior?

 

You realize that the Trump family have been Democrats for decades and weren't political junkies to know what has or hasn't been discussed among the Republican ranks.

Much like their Trumpster followers who think that the Donald was the first to talk about various things because they never paid any attention to what anyone said before the Donald started talking.

 

Sorry, it's not the end of the line for NeverTrump until Trump stops running for public office.

 

On some people comparing Trump to Benedict Arnold: Not a valid comparison because Benedict Arnold was a war hero on our side at one time.

 

 

I still ache over what kind of wonderful world we would be in today if Reagan had the judgement to not have Bush Sr as his VP and obstructionist Bush cronies in most of the power positions in the Reagan administration

It gives the whole Reagan years the taste of ash in my mouth.

 
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On 8/9/2019 at 3:02 AM, Lord Liaden said:

In my more optimistic moments, I like to consider whether the recent resurgence in bigotry, misogyny, tribalism in Western society isn't really the death throes of an old order that recognizes its time is done but just refuses to accept it.

 

I think there is a lot of truth in this. However, old orders have shown themselves to be both resilient and utterly unscrupulous in such crises.

 

There is always Antonio Gramsci's quote from the Prison Notebooks. Its specific context was Italian fascism:
"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."

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Trump once again trotted out the claim that violent video games contribute to RL violence. The expert interviewed by All Things Considered said this hasw been studied for decades and the studies agree: There is no effect.

 

OTOH this article appeared in my newspaper yesterday:

Experts think Trump's rhetoric linked to rise in hate crimes

www.heraldandnews.com/news/nation_world/experts-think-trump-s-rhetoric-linked...

Experts think Trump's rhetoric linked to rise in hate crimes By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and ASTRID GALVAN Associated Press 19 hrs ago ... data suggests a link between heated rhetoric from top political ...

 

Dean Shomshak

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1 hour ago, DShomshak said:

Trump once again trotted out the claim that violent video games contribute to RL violence. The expert interviewed by All Things Considered said this hasw been studied for decades and the studies agree: There is no effect.

 

OTOH this article appeared in my newspaper yesterday:

Experts think Trump's rhetoric linked to rise in hate crimes

www.heraldandnews.com/news/nation_world/experts-think-trump-s-rhetoric-linked...

Experts think Trump's rhetoric linked to rise in hate crimes By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and ASTRID GALVAN Associated Press 19 hrs ago ... data suggests a link between heated rhetoric from top political ...

 

Dean Shomshak

 

It is one of the dumbest opinions that has arisen on the political scene and persisted for a damnably long time.

 

I put it in my 80s memory bag right next to, "You can't play D&D - it's from the devil!"

 

Hopefully one of his handlers will get him sorted on this nonsense.

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34 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

It is one of the dumbest opinions that has arisen on the political scene and persisted for a damnably long time.

 

I put it in my 80s memory bag right next to, "You can't play D&D - it's from the devil!"

 

Hopefully one of his handlers will get him sorted on this nonsense.

Always makes me think of this... 

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Two things I hate hearing as excuses for all these shootings is 'mental illness' or 'video games'.

Other countries have mental illness.  They don't have shootings like this.

Other countries have video games.  They don't have shootings like this.

Other countries have sane gun control laws.  They don't have shootings like this.

 

I keep hearing things like "This won't stop them from getting guns", or "people will still be violent" and I'm like, whatever.  Just because we can't stop all of them doesn't mean we shouldn't stop some of them, and even if all we do is make it harder for them, at least that slows them down, and that extra time might let them re-think what they're about to do.  Let them try to kill twenty school kids with a knife or rocks or a stick or whatever.  I'm sick and tired of it being easy for them.

 

Or hell, as we should do with so many things, we need to emulate Sweden.  About 1/2 of all adults in Sweden own guns ... none of them own ammunition.  Hey, 2nd Amendment just says 'bear arms', doesn't say crap-all about the bullets.

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I think you're confusing correlation and causation there. The video from Beau that was posted above lists the four common factors of mass shooters. If you want to deal with the problem via legislation, then those four things should be the first to be addressed, IMO. It makes more sense from a strictly logical standpoint, and is also more economically efficient than spending millions on getting through some half measure that only infringes on the rights of law-abiding citizens.

 

EDIT: Here are the points from the video:

 

The Violence Project (NIJ) studied every mass shooter from 1966, found the following points in common:

  1. Early childhood trauma - bullying, suicide of parent, abuse, early exposure to violence
  2. Identifiable crisis point - the crisis point, inciting event; time to intervene between event and shooting, probably due to lack of coping skills, as the events themselves are usually relatively minor
  3. All of them studied other shooters - it's a social disease
  4. Means - They all had weapons.
    1. School shooters: 80% stole weapons from family
    2. Workplace shooters: Most  used legally owned handguns
    3. Public space shooters: Most used illegally purchased weapons

The above all per Beau's video, hopefully accurately represented.

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