[RD] Identifying Problems in the United States

There are basically three things that characterise a free society: individual liberty, diversity or tolerance of differences, and social cohesion (manifesting most clearly in a strong welfare state).
Interesting opinion.
 
I liked it. It reminds me of "you can get this done quickly, cheaply, and thoroughly ... pick two"
 
I liked it. It reminds me of "you can get this done quickly, cheaply, and thoroughly ... pick two"
Your pick two model is a fun one, but it is the three options I question.
  • Undefined individual liberty
  • Diversity
  • Strong welfare state
 
A thread on problems there is probably a good place to quote this:

But the psychological principles work in exactly the same way: it’s much easier and far more energy efficient to give people the illusion of freedom than to tell them they are locked up against their will. If you let the people know you stand in opposition to their will, they’re going to try to fight you, so it’s best to pretend you’re on their side and willing to give them everything they want.

That’s all electoral politics is. That’s all the Democratic Party is. That’s all we were seeing when Americans shook the earth with Black Lives Matter protests last year while the entire establishment told them “I hear you, I agree with you” without ever actually making any changes. It’s a locked facility we are forbidden from leaving with a bunch of staff members pretending to want what we want.

But the fact that the managers of empire go to such lengths to avoid a direct confrontation with us means that they desperately want to avoid that confrontation. We are not an elderly dementia patient, we are the many. They are the few. If we can ever collectively stop falling for the redirections to the circular pathways and stand and face our oppressors, they do not stand a chance. And they know it.

They cannot arrest us all. They cannot kill us all. All they can do is keep us confused and distracted, and hope we don’t remember our true power. That’s all this is.

But then there's the would-be media stasi that is being confrontational and actually telling people "you can't do that!"

The same stunted mentality just resulted in the destruction of the career and reputation of Lorenz’s far more accomplished colleague, science reporter Donald McNeil. On a 2019 field trip for rich high school kids to Peru, he used the “n-word” after a student asked him whether he thought it was fair that one of her classmates was punished for having used it in a video. McNeil used it not with malice or as a racist insult but to inquire about the facts of the video so he could answer the student’s question.
After New York Times senior editors — including African-American editor-in-chief Dean Baquet — investigated and concluded that “only” a reprimand was appropriate — “it did not appear to me that his intentions were hateful or malicious,” said Baquet — dozens of McNeil’s colleagues wrote a furious letter demanding far more severe punishment. “Our community is outraged and in pain,” said the 150 Times employee-signatories, adding: “intent is irrelevant.” Intent is irrelevant when judging how harshly to punish this storied journalist for uttering this word.
They got what they wanted. McNeil wrote a grovelling, abject apology, and then the Times announced he was gone from his job after forty-five years with the paper, including for COVID reporting over the last year that the paper had submitted for a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Just think about that: New York Times employees, who are unionized, demanded that management punish a fellow union member more harshly than management wanted to. In 2002, McNeil won the 1st place prize from the National Association of Black Journalists for excellence in his reporting on how the AIDS crisis was affecting Africa. Now his forty-five-year career and reputation are destroyed — at the hands of his own colleagues — because “intent is irrelevant” when using off-limit words.

They actually risk giving the game away... so let them do censorship laws and cry conspiracy theory" left and right? Perhaps the media must finish destroying itself before changes can happen there.
 
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:lol: You're quoting Caitlin Johnstone as if she is something more than a conspiracy nutcase loved by RT. She is just getting her 15 minutes of fame pretending to be smart and insightful. She is just loving all the attention.
 
Is Trump going to start his own party? :)
(which will also require a tv station - maybe lead by Lou Dobbs)
I think this is what the republicans are most worried about. If Trump is not completely stupid he will say nothing about it until after the impeachment conviction, but I am not certain he is not.
 
:lol: You're quoting Caitlin Johnstone as if she is something more than a conspiracy nutcase loved by RT. She is just getting her 15 minutes of fame pretending to be smart and insightful. She is just loving all the attention.

No concern about the events as described? I have some concerns.
 
Your conclusion is right, but I am not sure about your working. A watt is a measure of power, so is a point measure. So 400 watts for an hour is 400 watt hours. The world uses 140,000 terawatt hours, or 1.4 * 10^17. This is 3.5 * 10^14 hours cycling, or 40 billion of your cyclists going 24 hours a day.
I'd just like to point out that this method of powering society (ie everyone riding bikes all day to generate energy), is exactly the premise of the Black Mirror Episode, "15 Million Merits"
 
I'd just like to point out that this method of powering society (ie everyone riding bikes all day to generate energy), is exactly the premise of the Black Mirror Episode, "15 Million Merits"

It's also kinda a plot point in that one Rick & Morty episode with the mini-universe
 
Biggest problem in the United States today is the Republican Party.
For me it's the unholy Trinity: The Republican Party, political Manichaeism, and Rupert Murdoch.
 
For me it's the unholy Trinity: The Republican Party, political Manichaeism, and Rupert Murdoch.

ha I didnt even catch that I was beaten to the punch, thats what I get for breezing over content
 
It's also kinda a plot point in that one Rick & Morty episode with the mini-universe
I missed that one. Although I do watch Doc Rick & Marty Morty sometimes with my kids... usually when I'm on vacation. The last one I saw was Mad Max themed.
 
I missed that one. Although I do watch Doc Rick & Marty Morty sometimes with my kids... usually when I'm on vacation. The last one I saw was Mad Max themed.

tl;dr Rick's car battery is a universe-in-a-box where all the people ride treadmill-like things to supply power for the battery. Problems arise when a scientist in the boxed universe has the same idea to provide power for his universe, and then a scientist in *that* universe has the same idea...
 
tl;dr Rick's car battery is a universe-in-a-box where all the people ride treadmill-like things to supply power for the battery. Problems arise when a scientist in the boxed universe has the same idea to provide power for his universe, and then a scientist in *that* universe has the same idea...
Reminds me of the Love, Death and Robots Episode "Ice Age" where a couple finds a rapidly developing universe in their freezer.
 
I think this is what the republicans are most worried about.
If that happens, then the 2024 elections is going to be like the 1912 elections. Only Trump ain’t no Teddy Roosevelt.
 
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