Abortion

[SuburbanFarmer]

non sequitor?

I was lazy didn't want to elaborate from my phone.

So you're saying that once the planet hits X population, abortion is a legitimate population control mechanism?

Guardian has ben spewing articles about how "Save the planet; don't have kids." Justifying abortion on the basis of "Planet's full" is notably worse, escalated version of that line of thinking.

You're aiming towards a dangerous precedent with that one.

I'm not encouraging anyone towards it, and I wouldn't like to see the government involved whatsoever. Just saying that allowing it to happen is not a bad thing for population control.
And, if there was An Event, people would value their fertility much more, as we did in the past. This is simply not something that needs to be controlled.

Didn't know about the Guardian stuff, but whatevs. People that build their families around public opinion or magazine articles probably shouldn't be breeding anyway.

[Kazmyr]

non sequitor?

I was lazy didn't want to elaborate from my phone.

So you're saying that once the planet hits X population, abortion is a legitimate population control mechanism?

Guardian has ben spewing articles about how "Save the planet; don't have kids." Justifying abortion on the basis of "Planet's full" is notably worse, escalated version of that line of thinking.

You're aiming towards a dangerous precedent with that one.

I'm not encouraging anyone towards it, and I wouldn't like to see the government involved whatsoever. Just saying that allowing it to happen is not a bad thing for population control.
And, if there was An Event, people would value their fertility much more, as we did in the past. This is simply not something that needs to be controlled.

Didn't know about the Guardian stuff, but whatevs. People that build their families around public opinion or magazine articles probably shouldn't be breeding anyway.

Allowing it for the express purpose of "population control," even if it is something that is supposed to be decided on an individual, voluntary basis, invites governmental intervention and involvement. Pointing out the way we increase the population as the problem that is begging for a solution just seems dangerous to me.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I was lazy didn't want to elaborate from my phone.

So you're saying that once the planet hits X population, abortion is a legitimate population control mechanism?

Guardian has ben spewing articles about how "Save the planet; don't have kids." Justifying abortion on the basis of "Planet's full" is notably worse, escalated version of that line of thinking.

You're aiming towards a dangerous precedent with that one.

I'm not encouraging anyone towards it, and I wouldn't like to see the government involved whatsoever. Just saying that allowing it to happen is not a bad thing for population control.
And, if there was An Event, people would value their fertility much more, as we did in the past. This is simply not something that needs to be controlled.

Didn't know about the Guardian stuff, but whatevs. People that build their families around public opinion or magazine articles probably shouldn't be breeding anyway.

Allowing it for the express purpose of "population control," even if it is something that is supposed to be decided on an individual, voluntary basis, invites governmental intervention and involvement. Pointing out the way we increase the population as the problem that is begging for a solution just seems dangerous to me.

Well, again, I'm not interested in using some form of abortion as a 'solution' to anything. I'm only interested in not restricting it, or mandating some sort of psychological torment on the woman that chooses it.

The only known, surefire means of population control (other than China's draconian methods), are to raise people out of poverty. Unfortunately, we seem hell-bent on doing the opposite.
More brown babies will be born, and fewer white ones. More trailer-parkers will spit out a littl'n than the rich/middles in surrounding neighborhoods. Culture will continue to dumb down, and.... Once again, Idiocracy is our future.

[heydaralon]

I'm not encouraging anyone towards it, and I wouldn't like to see the government involved whatsoever. Just saying that allowing it to happen is not a bad thing for population control.
And, if there was An Event, people would value their fertility much more, as we did in the past. This is simply not something that needs to be controlled.

Didn't know about the Guardian stuff, but whatevs. People that build their families around public opinion or magazine articles probably shouldn't be breeding anyway.

Allowing it for the express purpose of "population control," even if it is something that is supposed to be decided on an individual, voluntary basis, invites governmental intervention and involvement. Pointing out the way we increase the population as the problem that is begging for a solution just seems dangerous to me.

Well, again, I'm not interested in using some form of abortion as a 'solution' to anything. I'm only interested in not restricting it, or mandating some sort of psychological torment on the woman that chooses it.

The only known, surefire means of population control (other than China's draconian methods), are to raise people out of poverty. Unfortunately, we seem hell-bent on doing the opposite.
More brown babies will be born, and fewer white ones. More trailer-parkers will spit out a littl'n than the rich/middles in surrounding neighborhoods. Culture will continue to dumb down, and.... Once again, Idiocracy is our future.

Since the Trump presidency, it has become popular by liberal people to bring up Idiocracy as though it is a prescient warning about the future. I remember reading a book years ago called Amusing Ourselves to Death where the author warned that tv was dumbing us down and that people in the past used to read more, as though it was a golden age of reason or something. To me, these arguments seem silly. The nineteenth century was full of literacy (the author never notes this, but much of the shit being read was as stupid as reality tv shows today), but it had frenzied mass movements, protests and counterprotests, cults, hysteria etc.There are definitely vocal idiots on both sides at protests, but think about the silly shit going on in the sixties. Catface, how well would your beliefs jive with the average voter then? Do you really think they would agree with you on most things? What about the nineteenth century? Was the culture superior to now? When was this time where everyone was so informed and calm and didn't vote based on their emotions and because some lowest common denominator politician appealed to them in the dumbest possible way? Its sort of interesting because you are almost making a eugenics argument using economics as a metric for breeding. I'm not sure your wrong, but this is not really a discussion people want to have in America either lol.

The other point I'd like to submit is that a lot of what we would bother agree is sewer culture is not just coming from poor people. Think about this social justice shit or the nebulous fake news conspiracy channels on youtube from both left and right. A lot of those people are indeed certifiable retards, but they come from middle class homes and have college educations. They are just as capable of dragging the bar down as the bystanders in a world star hip hop video. If you think that, being raised by two college educated parents from a middle class home will stop the trisomy, you have not been paying attention.

I'm not arguing that all leaders or voters are equal, but the stupid and the smart have always been there. Politics is always an ugly stumbling process and so is culture, and just because the candidate you didn't like won or the bill you didn't like passed doesn't mean that everyone is a character in a Mike Judge movie. In four to eight years, there will be an equally unappealing person in office with different legislation, and the Idiocracy argument will be used by different people whose candidate lost. Idk just my 2 cents.

Then again, every time another superhero movie breaks box office records I start to see things your way and think you are on to something so who knows.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Looking st the current educational standards, and the base level of “discourse”, I’m inclined to disagree. Stupid has never been allowed to run so rampant through the halls of power.

And it’s not a matter of voting. It’s a matter of breeding and culture. For all of the hyperbolic racial masturbation on this board, the problems that they point out are real. And they are being created by poorly thought out, short sighted design. The root of which is (as always) rank corruption and human folly.

From the 24-hr news cycle, to social media, to mass distraction, to broken institutions, to the worship of greed, to cultures of poverty.... it’s amazing that the current system is even still standing.

This is why I prep - even if it’s barely enough to provide a chance. Because the world as we know it is ending. Not by the hand of some whimsical deity, but by our own stupidity. Endless layers of foolishness built upon faulty base and rotted timber.

It turns out that we haven’t escaped the cycle of history at all. We just gained the power to take down the rest of the world along with us. And it will be beautiful and terrible, all at once.

[heydaralon]

Looking st the current educational standards, and the base level of “discourse”, I’m inclined to disagree. Stupid has never been allowed to run so rampant through the halls of power.

And it’s not a matter of voting. It’s a matter of breeding and culture. For all of the hyperbolic racial masturbation on this board, the problems that they point out are real. And they are being created by poorly thought out, short sighted design. The root of which is (as always) rank corruption and human folly.

From the 24-hr news cycle, to social media, to mass distraction, to broken institutions, to the worship of greed, to cultures of poverty.... it’s amazing that the current system is even still standing.

This is why I prep - even if it’s barely enough to provide a chance. Because the world as we know it is ending. Not by the hand of some whimsical deity, but by our own stupidity. Endless layers of foolishness built upon faulty base and rotted timber.

It turns out that we haven’t escaped the cycle of history at all. We just gained the power to take down the rest of the world along with us. And it will be beautiful and terrible, all at once.

I apologize dude, I accidentally deleted the middle paragraph of my screed so it was sort of an incomplete thought. Not that it was much of a thought anyway lol. I edited my post and put the complete one above yours. My bad.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I apologize dude, I accidentally deleted the middle paragraph of my screed so it was sort of an incomplete thought. Not that it was much of a thought anyway lol. I edited my post and put the complete one above yours. My bad.

It’s a good thought as well, but again, I have to disagree. How does a college-educated kid get to this point of blathering stupidity? What’s a college degree even worth anymore? Failed institution.

Growing up, I watched two very wealthy kids destroy themselves - one with drugs, the other with a shotgun. They couldn’t connect to anyone. They had no ambition or desire to do anything. And now they no longer have the opportunity.

It’s tempting to just write it off as “money is evil”, or “bad parents”, but neither is true. To my knowledge, the parents were fine, and the kids both worked with their dad at his business.

So what went wrong? It was two different problems. The younger got caught up in ‘gangster culture’ - maybe to feel like a badass, maybe because it felt Real to him. But he went too deep. The older went into isolation. He locked himself away with pot, ouija boards, and and video games. He eventually disappeared completely, and was found dead in his apartment. The last contact with him reported that he was rambling about casting spells, and contacting the dead.

Shit is broken, and has been for a long time now. We’ve paved it over with shampoo ads, and sanitized news bytes, but the rot is spreading into normie society now. The cracks are too big to hide. It’s all coming down, Bronze Age style, and it’s far too late to stop.

I envy your optimism, but it may hurt you in the end.

[heydaralon]

Looking st the current educational standards, and the base level of “discourse”, I’m inclined to disagree. Stupid has never been allowed to run so rampant through the halls of power.

And it’s not a matter of voting. It’s a matter of breeding and culture. For all of the hyperbolic racial masturbation on this board, the problems that they point out are real. And they are being created by poorly thought out, short sighted design. The root of which is (as always) rank corruption and human folly.

From the 24-hr news cycle, to social media, to mass distraction, to broken institutions, to the worship of greed, to cultures of poverty.... it’s amazing that the current system is even still standing.

This is why I prep - even if it’s barely enough to provide a chance. Because the world as we know it is ending. Not by the hand of some whimsical deity, but by our own stupidity. Endless layers of foolishness built upon faulty base and rotted timber.

It turns out that we haven’t escaped the cycle of history at all. We just gained the power to take down the rest of the world along with us. And it will be beautiful and terrible, all at once.

We always look at the Abraham Lincolns when making our comparisons. Based on your specific value system, how would you rate John C Calhoun, Warren Harding, James Buchanan, or Andrew Johnson against a Trump? American politics has produced many great leaders but it has produced many terrible ones as well. It has always been a hysterical absurd looking process. Alexis De Tocqueville noted this in 19th century. Look up the election of 1840 and "log cabin and apple cider" slogan. Stupid has always stood on stumps and run through the halls of power.

You talk about the 24 hour news cycle today. I agree with you that it is quite stupid and pandering, but again we should look at the past. Think about yellow journalism during the Spanish American war. Shit, I read a story that during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, the Philadelphia Inquirer found out about a massive bribery scheme involving congress. You know what the paper's bureau chief did? He blackmailed them into paying him off and did not release it to the public. Read about some of the shit Jack Anderson did. Contrary to the claims of sanctimonious journalists today, there has never been a time when papers behaved honorably. They often had gentleman's agreements with politicians to not discuss extramarital affairs etc. It feels as though the press is shittier today, but based on what I've read I think that its a knee jerk reaction on my part. Its always been bad.

Think about the gilded age or the roaring twenties. Wealth gaps were insane back then too and the relationship between money and power was even more transparent. The period of time after world war 2 that Bernie Sanders types talk about may have simply been a historical anomaly as the United States' competition internationally was all rubble.

I'm not disagreeing with you that the present is quite troubling, I'm just scratching my head to find a time when people weren't distracted by stupid shit. I can't think of one. Do you think the average American was reading James Joyce before twitter? I don't.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Looking st the current educational standards, and the base level of “discourse”, I’m inclined to disagree. Stupid has never been allowed to run so rampant through the halls of power.

And it’s not a matter of voting. It’s a matter of breeding and culture. For all of the hyperbolic racial masturbation on this board, the problems that they point out are real. And they are being created by poorly thought out, short sighted design. The root of which is (as always) rank corruption and human folly.

From the 24-hr news cycle, to social media, to mass distraction, to broken institutions, to the worship of greed, to cultures of poverty.... it’s amazing that the current system is even still standing.

This is why I prep - even if it’s barely enough to provide a chance. Because the world as we know it is ending. Not by the hand of some whimsical deity, but by our own stupidity. Endless layers of foolishness built upon faulty base and rotted timber.

It turns out that we haven’t escaped the cycle of history at all. We just gained the power to take down the rest of the world along with us. And it will be beautiful and terrible, all at once.

We always look at the Abraham Lincolns when making our comparisons. Based on your specific value system, how would you rate John C Calhoun, Warren Harding, James Buchanan, or Andrew Johnson against a Trump? American politics has produced many great leaders but it has produced many terrible ones as well. It has always been a hysterical absurd looking process. Alexis De Tocqueville noted this in 19th century. Look up the election of 1840 and "log cabin and apple cider" slogan. Stupid has always stood on stumps and run through the halls of power.

You talk about the 24 hour news cycle today. I agree with you that it is quite stupid and pandering, but again we should look at the past. Think about yellow journalism during the Spanish American war. Shit, I read a story that during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, the Philadelphia Inquirer found out about a massive bribery scheme involving congress. You know what the paper's bureau chief did? He blackmailed them into paying him off and did not release it to the public. Read about some of the shit Jack Anderson did. Contrary to the claims of sanctimonious journalists today, there has never been a time when papers behaved honorably. They often had gentleman's agreements with politicians to not discuss extramarital affairs etc. It feels as though the press is shittier today, but based on what I've read I think that its a knee jerk reaction on my part. Its always been bad.

Think about the gilded age or the roaring twenties. Wealth gaps were insane back then too and the relationship between money and power was even more transparent. The period of time after world war 2 that Bernie Sanders types talk about may have simply been a historical anomaly as the United States' competition internationally was all rubble.

I'm not disagreeing with you that the present is quite troubling, I'm just scratching my head to find a time when people weren't distracted by stupid shit. I can't think of one. Do you think the average American was reading James Joyce before twitter? I don't.

Solid points.

I’m not hung up on the politics so much as the culture. Lincoln was raised in a log cabin, but he could at least put out a highly intelligent speech, and avoid vomiting on the King of France. Read the Gettysburg Address, or the Emancipation Proclamation. Trump couldn’t even pronounce half of it, let alone comprehend the words.

That doesn’t mean that Lincoln was a genius. It means that we’ve always at least attempted to bring higher ideals and at least the image of careful thought into political discussion.

Listen to some clips of Edward R Murrow or Cronkite. Imagine our pitiful slobs today sitting through those speeches, and comprehending them. Try to picture them sussing out the meaning of the Declaration, or “I Have a Dream”, without a teacher spoon-feeding it to them.

Now picture Lincoln or MLK breaking off every few seconds to babble about how important they are, or “believe me”, like used car salesmen. The Union would have fallen.

[heydaralon]

I apologize dude, I accidentally deleted the middle paragraph of my screed so it was sort of an incomplete thought. Not that it was much of a thought anyway lol. I edited my post and put the complete one above yours. My bad.

It’s a good thought as well, but again, I have to disagree. How does a college-educated kid get to this point of blathering stupidity? What’s a college degree even worth anymore? Failed institution.

Growing up, I watched two very wealthy kids destroy themselves - one with drugs, the other with a shotgun. They couldn’t connect to anyone. They had no ambition or desire to do anything. And now they no longer have the opportunity.

It’s tempting to just write it off as “money is evil”, or “bad parents”, but neither is true. To my knowledge, the parents were fine, and the kids both worked with their dad at his business.

So what went wrong? It was two different problems. The younger got caught up in ‘gangster culture’ - maybe to feel like a badass, maybe because it felt Real to him. But he went too deep. The older went into isolation. He locked himself away with pot, ouija boards, and and video games. He eventually disappeared completely, and was found dead in his apartment. The last contact with him reported that he was rambling about casting spells, and contacting the dead.

Shit is broken, and has been for a long time now. We’ve paved it over with shampoo ads, and sanitized news bytes, but the rot is spreading into normie society now. The cracks are too big to hide. It’s all coming down, Bronze Age style, and it’s far too late to stop.

I envy your optimism, but it may hurt you in the end.

I apologize dude, I accidentally deleted the middle paragraph of my screed so it was sort of an incomplete thought. Not that it was much of a thought anyway lol. I edited my post and put the complete one above yours. My bad.

It’s a good thought as well, but again, I have to disagree. How does a college-educated kid get to this point of blathering stupidity? What’s a college degree even worth anymore? Failed institution.

Growing up, I watched two very wealthy kids destroy themselves - one with drugs, the other with a shotgun. They couldn’t connect to anyone. They had no ambition or desire to do anything. And now they no longer have the opportunity.

It’s tempting to just write it off as “money is evil”, or “bad parents”, but neither is true. To my knowledge, the parents were fine, and the kids both worked with their dad at his business.

So what went wrong? It was two different problems. The younger got caught up in ‘gangster culture’ - maybe to feel like a badass, maybe because it felt Real to him. But he went too deep. The older went into isolation. He locked himself away with pot, ouija boards, and and video games. He eventually disappeared completely, and was found dead in his apartment. The last contact with him reported that he was rambling about casting spells, and contacting the dead.

Shit is broken, and has been for a long time now. We’ve paved it over with shampoo ads, and sanitized news bytes, but the rot is spreading into normie society now. The cracks are too big to hide. It’s all coming down, Bronze Age style, and it’s far too late to stop.

I envy your optimism, but it may hurt you in the end.

I'm not optimistic at all. I have a very low opinion of all the institutions you mentioned, and I think the future will suck far worse than the present. But we had a civil war, 2 world wars, numerous panics and crashes, and the Great Depression. I didn't live through any of those, and I'm not sure the future will suck any worse than any of those events, though it may tie with them. My only point is that many people who are critical of institutions today seem to point to a mythical past that never existed. I have a feeling deep down that although some periods of time are better and worse than others, it has always sucked for most people. And I'm just talking about America lol. I can't even begin to imagine how bad it sucks in the rest of the non western world!
I'm sorry about your friends. As to your point about the drugs, we also act as though this is a new force in American life. Up until a few decades ago, it was quite normal for entire towns to basically run through the motions of life shitfaced. In the nineteenth century the average American consumed gallons of liquor per year. Think about the impact that had on families and communities. I'm sure spousal abuse was just banal. Many times businesses in entire towns would be closed on mondays because all the staff would be hung over. As much as I hate the temperance movement and its ilk today, they were absolutely correct in pointing out the toll alcohol takes on society. The "bad" drugs that we see today were around too. Rich men used to go to Chinatown to smoke opium. Cocaine and heroin were also around and widely used. To me, it appears these social ills have always been with us. Maybe the drug problem is worse now, but being functionally drunk 24/7 is no longer acceptable so its just replacing one drug for another really.

Here's a question for you: If you feel as if the present is hopelessly bad, when in your mind was the turning point for Americans? Around what year did things start getting worse?