Is it me or is the general public becoming dumber and more divided?

Western political leaders and liberal apologists refuse to admit that violent religious fundamentalists attacking innocent populations with weapons and ideological propaganda purchased with their own currency given to incompetent third world autocrats in exchange for resources is cyclicall. More logical and typical hominid behavior would be to use superior the superior organization, numbers, and technology they possess to kill and depower the violent religious fundamentalists and control those resources.

Western liberal apologists also get mad when the few relatively secular leaders of said countries use the mostly Malthusian, medieval strategies (siege and chevauchée) they can with their less organized militaries to subdue hostile, fundamentalist populations whiling throwing more fits when they use effective anti-insurgency tactics in captured territory (remove the population that supports or is preyed upon by the enemy, force the enemy to fight you, kill him) in more stark terms than say British did in Malaysia. "Flee or be shot! If you come back, we'll shoot you!" versus "We are relocating you to villages we constructed (concentration camps) for your own safety (from us). If you don't comply, we will sadly be forced to shoot you."

 

I don't want to be an @hole... but ok. Sometimes I'm an @hole. Can't help it...

See point 5: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/must-read-seven-simple-guidelines.3/

Sorry

 

Holy crap. I look back in an hour or two, and this thread is full steam ahead. Rule 5 went out of the window pretty much at the beginning.

I'm obviously not well versed enough to go into as much depth about the stuff that is talked about now, but it seems to me that the people and government up top pretty much fits the definition of an oligarchy.

I may be Captain Obvious but to me, the trickle-down effect is pretty much BS, and more and more of the wealth and power is becoming concentrated in that 0.1%.

I'm glad I'm learning a lot as a 21 year old now to help me make decisions in the future.
I really don't know what else to say so...

 

Term limits and a free press are the most effective checks on unwanted oligarchy. Campaign spending limits should be in there too, but you can't have it all.* To be clear, oligarchy / aristocracy can be highly effective, but for it to work the 'crats and 'archs can't complain if they are murdered instead of voted out of office or shamed by scandal.

Amen to cycles, and amen to "don't f'ing go to law school". The reality is the market corrects most things for the better, but doesn't move all that fast, and sometimes the market lets things get reallllllllly shitty first.

*edit: from a government nerd perspective, the Donald's rise to prominence with next to no campaign organization, infrastructure, or excessive spending has been amazing! He may or may not be morally repugnant, but he has neutered the playbook! and the really interesting thing is that all the bags of money who see political donation as an investment in favorable policies are going to think twice about funneling money to a candidate in the future, because for many donors this year it has been a supremely shitty investment!

 

Yea my parents lived through a hell of a lot of it. They tell me stories and stuff like that all the time of China since they were born in the 50s.

Edit: American population
My question is although it seems like a portion of the population is getting more educated, doesn't it seem like the majority is getting dumbed down even further? Or are the standards just different now? Nowadays, the undergraduate college degree is supposed to be the equivalent of a high school degree right? It makes sense since I know quite a few dumbasses in the past four years that have somehow graduated.

 

To begin with, China is so f'ing huge both geographically and demographically, overgeneralization is inevitable. There is a huge discontent population and privately almost all individuals I know hold some degree of dissident. Granted there are uber dumbass who still lives a Pavel Korchagin. But In my generation - the so-called post-90s - the major form of degeneracy is not such ideological devotion, rather selfishness and a lack of public domain.

If you want, we can PM or use whatever communication method you prefer.

 

I'm all for benevolent dictators, although I'm not sure who actually coined the term. The only problem I personally have with enlightend benevolent dictators (philosopher kings) is that they tend to get superseeded by less enlightened, less benevolent individuals. And then you have tyranny instead of utopia. So... the best form of government would be an immortal enlightend benevolent dictator... easy... we'll just get skynet to rule the word, but make him nicer. What could go wrong. And since we're on the subject of AI.... allow me to expand you minds. Slightly off topic (was there a topic?) but what the heck.


Unrealistic? Maybe... on the other hand.... 150 years ago there were no phones, no computers, no internet, no planes, no cars, no nuclear reactors, no VR, no credit cards.... think about that.... kind of scary.

 

Sorry I typed everything together which made it seem like I was talking about the Chinese population now when I was talking about the American population and only referencing what my parents know and thought when they were growing up.

My father is an international relations professor and travels back and forth almost twice a year, and he told me even when I was in high school that there was no way China was going to be able to keep up what they are doing without some collapse. With that many people that are getting more and more educated, there is no way for their current government to continually sustain what they are doing.

It's funny because my father told me that when he moved over here, he expected to get away from all the corruption in China, but he realized that it just manifests itself in different forms.

 

Just thought of another random but funny dumbass moment that people somehow got suckered into.



The fact that people actually fall for stuff like this is what makes me question the overall intelligence of society sometimes.

 

people always seemed retarded to me even as a kid...but, what, you expect i always liked asking questions, self-observing,learning everything while being open-minded bout it and keeping to myself too.

there is nothing you can do really. we haven't evolved from our simple monkey brains and will always use our monkey brains...bitches and hoes, and dat dollar dollar bill ya! trust me. it's very simple to understand and figure out society very quickly and easily. it will always be there no matter what. can keep dreaming one day we realize that we never needed money or anything that was man made to begin with but, never gonna happen. there will always be division,control and manipulation. very simple tactics. have to live and deal with it. that's why never cared for politics,tv,radio, or much any form of media really. music and cats is all i'm bout. skeet skeet ninja.

 

I think that even Mad Cow Thatcher (the evil old bitch) admitted that trickle-down didn't.

 

Do not believe the media. It could all be worse...

 

The US government was set up as a landowning oligarchy in imitation of the Roman republic with property requirements for enfranchisement, appointed Senators, and a powerful, term-limited executive. They left out the sacrosanct tribunes allowed to cane or ax anyone who accosts them. Imagine the outcry over police brutality if the police carried and used fasces against the unruly!