Well .... personally I greatly enjoy the bile-heaves of the various swivel-eyed loons, mini-Mussolinis and Farago fan-goons. After all, they reveal the, er, "thinking" of the ilk ... or, rather, the peculiar emotional turmoils giving rise to their queer verbal ejections of toxic mental gas and red-hot pumice (a frothy stuff that quickly ossifies into various mis-shapen forms of intolerance, prejudice and bigotry).Sometimes one may tease and prick at them, to induce another heave of the sulphuric bilge water that's been swilling about their inner effluent tank since they saw the nasty thing in the woodshed that's deranged them. After all, such spewings may help them to regain some mental well-being - although many seem to be permanently afflicted with a stubborn case of mental gallstones. I can only suggest removal of the Daily Hate Mail, or similar bilebladder exciters, from their metaphysical diet.
Came for the bikes, stayed for the politics.
#brexthick
Quote from: StradageekClickbait trumps complexity every time with the majority of the public. I rarely trust a newspaper or TV news report without significant (non-internet) backup research..Very wise, although I would emphasise provenance rather than medium….
Clickbait trumps complexity every time with the majority of the public. I rarely trust a newspaper or TV news report without significant (non-internet) backup research..
Everyone hates rules, but lots of people have been asking for an indication of the forum "ethos". 1. Be excellent to each other.2. Party on, dudes.3. Before you post, think about the kind of forum you want.…5. Like Voltaire, we'll defend to the death your right to make your point.
The awkward thing about history is that you find that what people thought at the time isn’t what we think now, or what we wish they had thought then. The urge to anachronism, especially if you can feel superior in the process, is irresistible for some people. From the 1950s onwards there was a flood of studies, and later studies of studies, of the decision to use the atom bomb in 1945, and we know as much about it as any decision ever made, anywhere. The problem is that it wasn’t nearly as important a decision for those involved as we would like it to have been. At the time, and for perhaps a decade after until the development of the Hydrogen Bomb, atomic weapons were just big bombs: the effect of the Hiroshima bomb was roughly what would have been achieved by a typical incendiary raid, albeit with many more aircraft.Truman’s decision seems to pretty much have taken itself: there was a war on, here was a weapon that had been developed for use against Germany, but not ready in time, there was an enemy, let’s use the weapon. The US attitude to peace feelers from Japan was much like the Russian attitude to peace feelers from Ukraine today, and for much the same reasons. There’s no indication that anybody thought much about Russia in this context, though the hysterical anti-communism of the early 1950s may have persuaded some people to retrospectively “remember” that perhaps it had, even if there’s no evidence to support the idea.
The point Ian is making is simple. If you make people’s lives horrible, then they will support a horrible person if that makes their lives less horrible. They will even support someone who recognizes their lives have been made horrible and promises to make their lives less horrible, even it is just a scam. But if it turns out not to be a scam, even if just for the short term, then they will support almost anything that person proposes, no matter how horrible. You can fall to the fainting couch like Ron, but it won’t change human nature.Where I differ slightly, Ian, is that you clearly believe that the making lives horrible part is down to deliberate decision making from the neo-lib/con set and that if they can be overcome, we can return to shared prosperity. Part of me thinks this is true (clearly it is true to at least some extent), but part of me wonders if we are just seeing an inevitable process of social/economic/ecological decline that can’t be stopped by any group, policy or movement.Likely, the former view is more conducive to the sort of action that might lead to better outcomes, regardless of the truth of the situation, but I can’t help trying to understand what the underlying reality actually is.
Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
Mike: Nice day for graduation!Zonker: I'll say!Zonker: Had I known, I would have graduated!Commencement speaker (President King?): Platitudes… pontifications… a rehash of what I've said every year...A few epigrams… an inside reference… a wry joke…But with a thoughtful moral!... (Pause)… Two sweeping statements!... A modifier… Three consecutive observations!Dramatic pause… Eye contact!A call for action! A challenge for our times! Electrifying exhortation!Tired… Seriously tired… A need for many martinis...
