[Balls of Steel Forever]

Jimmy, on 21 November 2020 - 07:15 PM, said:

Fuck the people who orchestrated that, and Westerners who don't even care.

Complaining about it or stating that you are against it on the internet through a web forum or social media is effectively the same as not caring about it. You probably gain more from it in positive attention for your ego then the issue does in positive attention. Especially these days where even significant stories are just background noise because of the amount of info. lobbed at us daily.

That goes without saying that you could very well be doing something that provides legitimate help.

Just usually people that claim that they care about something don't actually care about it.

A good man who does nothing
A bad man who does nothing
Are effectively the same people

Saying x deserves punishment for x because of their opinion of x just dehumanizes the separate group and separates such further from such, which is the opposite of what we should do, know the enemy and know yourself, always. Pushing yourself away from learning more about those who think differently will be the downfall of humanity, and every day it seems like we are getting closer and closer to the point where one side just chooses to exit themselves out of conversation from the other. Either side, no matter what side, can learn from one another. Also saying europeans on the internet during the bush era is even minorly representative of all europeans is thinking way too small.

[Jimmy]

ITT: Balls of Steel Forever projecting again. Remember this post next time he goes on and on about Saudi Arabia.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

Jimmy, on 21 November 2020 - 09:13 PM, said:

ITT: Balls of Steel Forever projecting again. Remember this post next time he goes on and on about Saudi Arabia.

At least I'm actually doing a bit more than nothing lol.
Not much more, but something.

If everyone was doing the same thing I was doing in donating to the world food programme, yemen would probably be in a better spot.

If everyone just stated their opinion against saudi arabia on the internet it wouldn't affect too much of anything. Riots don't even do much of anything, because, again, the amount of media lobbed at us.

Saying that you care is just attention seeking behavior these days.
What matters is what you are doing about it and if it's more substantial then thoughts and prayers.

EDIT: Also I'm sure we have learned things from saudi arabia, as we even learned things from the Nazis with missiles, and aeronautics especially, and japan's unethical practices with bioweapons in WWII.it's very rare that a person or group of people is purely evil and we can't derive any learning from them. I want us to stop supporting saudi arabia, not ted cruz them.

[Jimmy]

Cope.

[High Treason]

I don't know anything about Yemen, but usually countries that 'need donations' to do basic things like eat are the last places you want to send money or resources. Quite often said countries are despotic shitholes run by dictators and the donated resources always find their way into the dictator's pockets.
A rather strange trend is how such countries never do seem to improve, but they do get worse. Any country that does manage to drag itself up always gets ignored or ends up in a war.

Makes no odds to me, my country has its own problems to worry about right now, unfortunately. We don't live in a perfect world.

[jkas789]

Quote

If everyone was doing the same thing I was doing in donating to the world food programme, yemen would probably be in a better spot.

Bold of you to assume that money actually pays for food that goes to Yemen. If they even buy food at that.

Quote

If everyone just stated their opinion against saudi arabia on the internet it wouldn't affect too much of anything.

I would argue that talking on the internet about anything is shouting into a vacuum, unless you are trying to cancel someone on twitter.

Quote

Saying that you care is just attention seeking behavior these days.
What matters is what you are doing about it and if it's more substantial then thoughts and prayers.

Cough cough conflicts in middle east cough cough, cough cough CHINA and all of its reported abuse against its own people/minorities cough cough UN's corruption that has been reported cough cough

Again, bold of you to assume that you are changing the world mate. You should embrace being another cog in the machine. Enjoy the utter madness and cold depravity that awaits us in the future. Seriously, drink a beer and laugh.

Quote

Also I'm sure we have learned things from saudi arabia, as we even learned things from the Nazis with missiles, and aeronautics especially, and japan's unethical practices with bioweapons in WWII.it's very rare that a person or group of people is purely evil and we can't derive any learning from them. I want us to stop supporting saudi arabia, not ted cruz them.

Sure I'm sure that there are no ethical concerns from learning the lessons that the japanese learned during the Rape of Nanking. You should totally not be concerned that the US protected unit 371. I'm sure they totally learned something that will benefit humanity in a positive way.

Sure.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

High Treason, on 21 November 2020 - 10:32 PM, said:

I don't know anything about Yemen, but usually countries that 'need donations' to do basic things like eat are the last places you want to send money or resources. Quite often said countries are despotic shitholes run by dictators and the donated resources always find their way into the dictator's pockets.
A rather strange trend is how such countries never do seem to improve, but they do get worse. Any country that does manage to drag itself up always gets ignored or ends up in a war.

Makes no odds to me, my country has its own problems to worry about right now, unfortunately. We don't live in a perfect world.

Yemen is starving because of the blockade that saudi arabia and the u.s. is enforcing, they're relying almost solely on foreign government aid and non profits for basic shit, because most people can't afford basic shit due to the war and blockade.

jkas789, on 21 November 2020 - 10:34 PM, said:

Bold of you to assume that money actually pays for food that goes to Yemen. If they even buy food at that.

I would argue that talking on the internet about anything is shouting into a vacuum, unless you are trying to cancel someone on twitter.

Cough cough conflicts in middle east cough cough, cough cough CHINA and all of its reported abuse against its own people/minorities cough cough UN's corruption that has been reported cough cough

Again, bold of you to assume that you are changing the world mate. You should embrace being another cog in the machine. Enjoy the utter madness and cold depravity that awaits us in the future. Seriously, drink a beer and laugh.

I said I was doing not much more then nothing.
If everyone was doing not much more than nothing about such things, things may be slightly better, however, I know that such would be exploited if so, and never happen anyways.

There are many examples of a government changing for the better also. We can look at things like the magna carta for instance. Japan post wwii. Turkey post fall of the ottoman empire. Tito post monarchy (not much better) gorbachev post communism, south africa post apartheid, I'm sure there's other examples.

I rarely drink beer, but a screwdriver or some hard cider goes well with thinking about how insignificant we all are as individuals.

Quote

Sure I'm sure that there are no ethical concerns from learning the lessons that the japanese learned during the Rape of Nanking. You should totally not be concerned that the US protected unit 371. I'm sure they totally learned something that will benefit humanity in a positive way.

Sure.

There are multiple sources that said we did learn positive things, particularly with syphilis and frostbite. Am I saying that it was worth committing war crimes? Fuck no, Should we have granted them immunity for such evils? Fuck no, Did we probably learn horrible shit too? Yeah, but the u.s. does just as evil things as evidenced with the phoenix program. We did learn helpful things from it though.

[ck3D]

Jimmy, on 21 November 2020 - 03:22 PM, said:

I think the EU kind of mindfaked the average person. Some dummy could go to Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden and think they're some big time world traveler. That would be like me taking a cross country trip in the US. Worst part is this person has "traveled the world" and never seen real poverty.

As far I'm concerned, I've been blessed enough to experience 30+ countries over the past decade, most of them outside Europe and including some destinations I honestly couldn't see myself coming back from when I went, I've seen quite the amount of fucked up stuff but also of beautiful things (why only retain the bad?). But I do agree that it's possible (and I guess common) to visit X number of places and yet always remain nothing but a pure tourist, if one has zero actual interest in the why's of the world and approaches trips like episodic, passive holiday entertainment then they're indeed most likely never learning anything from them (which is crazy). I'm pretty strict on my definition of traveling vs. tourism. There are layers to that phenomenon too: you have the extreme cliché of people staying in countries with amazing cultures such as Mexico and Brazil for weeks only to never see anything of them but the same four square kilometers of the beach from the perspective of their little towel, but also places where getting to actually meet and have sincere interactions with the people is going to be made difficult because regardless of the quality of your effort and of your personal standards of living, the locals are the ones who, depending on the level of poverty, will always see you as the billionth rich foreigner (India in particular made me feel that, when the taxi you just let rip you off is making its third stop mid-route to invite you to 'visit his friend's government-approved shop' it's just impossible to explain how said friend is probably richer than you yourself are in your home country). I've shared this before, but one of my old crushes was from the Balkans and despite the region being relatively close both geographically and culturally (and so were our respective finances; I'm not rich) and our best attempts at a sincere relationship, it was always super hard for me to break away from the stereotype in her head that I represented some sort of phantasmal savior from a wealthier country (and of course the relationship fizzled out once I finally did).

What I really meant to say is we're all taught to think that our own country is 'better than most others' (whatever that means, and a definition I'm sure changes depending on who you ask) and in the larger picture that's what primarily incites us all to challenge those who beg to differ because they got a localized copy of the same guidebook; yet it's impossible to advance if everyone just sticks to reciting their own lessons, shouting the same (increasingly dated and tired) arguments in the wind over and over again. Standing for certain values and standing for a country can intertwine but really are two different things (this is a personal conviction I don't feel like debating over but you may disagree with, of course). In the end it's more divisive manipulation to make sure people really think in 'teams' (mainstream sports are a good representation of that), and the crabs keep busy fighting each other in the bucket while the water calmly boils instead of working together towards common survival. I'm sure there's still a lot of fucks in my country cherishing freedom just as much as the U.S. chants it thinking their homeland to this day still represents whatever value there was behind beheadings from the eighteenth century regardless of how all those new laws currently getting passed actually belong to dictatorships, and when those start talking you're really better off just tuning off (unless you want your energy to serve as sustenance for the ignorant masses).

Only saying it might benefit you (and help you save your precious energy as well as preserve your sanity, really) in your future interactions with people from different countries to keep that consideration in mind; most of them couldn't even have anything against the reality of the U.S. if they tried as they really know nothing of it but prejudices and representations they've been force fed just as much as everyone on Earth has been; on the other hand, a lot of them will be brainwashed parrots being stupid online because now, well, everyone on Earth with Internet access can do that too. In such situations I think one just has to be the best man in the conversation (and know when to stop trying), otherwise they'll just be part of the problem too and keep feeding the general ignorance.

Cross-country trip across the U.S. is one mighty fine experience, gotta start somewhere and see more little by little. Because it's easily accessible to you doesn't mean I would undermine the idea personally (I also started traveling with local destinations inside the country as soon as I was 16), endless possibilities of things to do and see and people to meet. Personally I'm not a big fan of the general idea of comparing United States vs. blocks of European countries because the scale of the cultural differences from one to the next I find to be too different (there obviously are significant ones in the U.S. but for instance one doesn't have to learn a brand new unique language with every State line they cross), although I see what you mean. I can tell you however that even here, someone who would consider themselves 'well-traveled' when they've only seen 5 of their neighboring countries would be considered a fucking bellend (except by people who have never traveled anywhere at all and mythify the idea). Anyway the world is bound to be a sad sight if you only sum it up to its imbeciles; whether or not you do is really up to you, though, which I think is healthy to keep in mind.

[Danukem]

ck3D, on 22 November 2020 - 01:35 AM, said:

What I really meant to say is we're all taught to think that our own country is 'better than most others' (whatever that means, and a definition I'm sure changes depending on who you ask) and in the larger picture that's what primarily incites us to challenge those who beg to differ because they got a localized copy of the same guidebook. In the end it's more divisive manipulation to make sure people really think in 'teams' (mainstream sports are a good representation of that), and the crabs keep busy fighting each other in the bucket while the water calmly boils instead of working together towards common survival.

People naturally form and support teams on their own. A team/tribe is stronger than an individual, and a team competes with other teams or individuals for resources and land. If your team wins, you win and you are more likely to spread your genes. If you don't support your team, your team is more likely to lose, and therefore you will lose (and this being the case, you will be ostricized before it is allowed to get to that point). Nature has favored those who helped ensure the survival of their own families and the society that their family is part of.

That's not to say that divisive manipulation doesn't happen -- but it works because it is tapping into a natural tendency. I would argue that it takes more convincing (more "manipulation" if you will) to get people behind "common survival". You have to get them to think of all humans as being on the same team, which isn't their natural tendency. And honestly, I don't know if it's even true in any useful sense. Maybe it would be true in contexts of the human race facing existential threats. But even then, most of the time the "threats" are being exaggerated or misrepresented for political purposes.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Dan, what you pointed out is I think the real reason behind the switch in Marxism from pushing class consciousness (rich vs poor) to pushing identity politics (white CIS males vs everyone else). When the poor consistently vote for right wing parties, it's that team mentality in action. The poorer and more uneducated you are, the more likely you will be to think purely on racial and/or religious grounds (which are highly intertwined anyway). Well, Marx thought Germany would become the first communist country. Instead, the Nazis won by public support and Hitler particularly reamed the communists and banned their party. Commies never got over it, whether they remember it or not.

I'm a kind of old-school Marxist that still believes it's basically the super rich vs everyone else (don't know enough about AOC, but I liked her definition), but I also think we need to understand human nature. Learning about evolutionary psychology in my teens helped me massively. I think enough of us can overcome these biological tendencies once we are made aware of them.

Jimmy, on 21 November 2020 - 03:22 PM, said:

I think the EU kind of mindfaked the average person. Some dummy could go to Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden and think they're some big time world traveler. That would be like me taking a cross country trip in the US. Worst part is this person has "traveled the world" and never seen real poverty.

I notice it's a tendency of people from those countries to assume that everyone they meet has had a similar upbringing as them. People with mainstream liberal attitudes (which they always have) don't actually believe that anyone can escape poverty, so they are so shocked that I came from some hell hole and I am not starving in the streets right now. They're those types that would go to India to get a "wake up call" and learn to appreciate what they have, but deep down they need there to be winners and losers, otherwise life loses meaning for them. They seem deeply offended by actual success. The poor are used for an endorphin boost of some kind, to learn about your own relative comfort, and to virtue signal.

[ck3D]

Danukem, on 22 November 2020 - 02:51 AM, said:

People naturally form and support teams on their own. A team/tribe is stronger than an individual, and a team competes with other teams or individuals for resources and land. If your team wins, you win and you are more likely to spread your genes. If you don't support your team, your team is more likely to lose, and therefore you will lose (and this being the case, you will be ostricized before it is allowed to get to that point). Nature has favored those who helped ensure the survival of their own families and the society that their family is part of.

That's not to say that divisive manipulation doesn't happen -- but it works because it is tapping into a natural tendency. I would argue that it takes more convincing (more "manipulation" if you will) to get people behind "common survival". You have to get them to think of all humans as being on the same team, which isn't their natural tendency. And honestly, I don't know if it's even true in any useful sense. Maybe it would be true in contexts of the human race facing existential threats. But even then, most of the time the "threats" are being exaggerated or misrepresented for political purposes.

I'm totally with you with groups and tribes being a natural formation, and what's interesting about the world of today is that it seems to be trying to negate this nature as though people now believed they had the means to grow past it, because they have this or that fancy technology (means of transportation and communication) that they think allow them to expand in new ways. In a way, competition for land has been dematerialized and 'sophisticated' into economic transactions, every country works either with or against the next and conquers via investments from within, it's war in a less visible manner than the classic format which allows it to go on non-stop when the people are being kept busy fighting each other over abstractions.

It's not as much that I don't believe in competition per se as it is that I think we as people from the world should regularly make sure that it's really our ground that we're so set on standing, not someone else's, and also to remember that even though borders do organize us, everyone really is your average human being with nothing but their own clues they've been given, have found themselves, and have yet to pick up; which should be common sense but sometimes, somehow, doesn't appear to be.

Tapping into natural tendencies is exactly how you manipulate people, indeed. Actually, when you strip all the modern anxiety people commonly report feeling (for a seemingly endless amount of complex and specific reasons) down to its fundamental origin, the real trigger is generally located around their survival instinct, hence all the scary keywords in the political cloud talking emotions into the people via shock-treatment induced morse code. Threats pertaining to freedom, peace, acceptance and sustenance in particular freak people out for a reason, and are always presented in ways that punches their guts, to prevent them from communicating with one another in meaningful ways. The current president in my country is actually quite good at this, playing with the masses like a kid with a caged insect and I fucking hate it.

Embittered Phallus, on 22 November 2020 - 03:32 AM, said:

I notice it's a tendency of people from those countries to assume that everyone they meet has had a similar upbringing as them.

Like I was saying earlier, I think literally everyone naturally does that and it's the reason behind most even superficial culture clashes - you can't really know there's more to the world than the egg you were conceived in until you've hatched and left it, so until then an individual will think what they know is the norm and standard, and then the logical pattern sometimes survives even past that point too (especially if they're always intellectually comforted in it). In a way it literally takes everyone a lifetime to really depart from their point of origin (as much as they try, if ever). It's interesting that you're especially pinpointing the idea of Europeans not believing in success, though - honestly it's my first time hearing something like this, but I could see it.

[Aristotle Gumball]

High Treason, on 21 November 2020 - 10:32 PM, said:

I don't know anything about Yemen, but usually countries that 'need donations' to do basic things like eat are the last places you want to send money or resources. Quite often said countries are despotic shitholes run by dictators and the donated resources always find their way into the dictator's pockets.
A rather strange trend is how such countries never do seem to improve, but they do get worse. Any country that does manage to drag itself up always gets ignored or ends up in a war.

Makes no odds to me, my country has its own problems to worry about right now, unfortunately. We don't live in a perfect world.

Pretty much what I think should happen is, we stop exploitation (where it exists) of third world nations and just completely leave them to their own devices. Because to fix anything, you'd probably have to have outsiders run things for a long period, which is unacceptable to most, and I don't think we have anyone enlightened enough to want to do it for the good of the people. Then again, capitalism ensures the weak will always get exploited. And by capitalism I mean essentially competition for resources. If we're smarter, have more experience, and possess no moral qualms over taking what we want, we win.

It's connected to my point about how rich Westerners need there to be winners and losers, even if they consciously don't admit it. It's pure cognitive dissonance, but our species is great at maintaining delusions. If we were to ever comprehend how unfair life really is, and how badly we are fucking some people, we wouldn't be able to take it. The only ones who are able to, are psychopathic, and they run our governments (probably not everywhere, but hell, you'd be surprised).

"A pathocracy may emerge when a society is insufficiently guarded against the typical and inevitable minority of such abnormal pathology, which Łobaczewski asserts is caused by biology or genetics. He argues that in such cases these individuals infiltrate an institution or state, prevailing moral values are perverted into their opposite, and a coded language like Orwell's doublethink circulates into the mainstream, using paralogic and paramoralism in place of genuine logic and morality." (sound reminiscent of the modern day?)

Where I disagree is in the assertion that psychopaths are necessarily "evil". They are just less tribal. Most people think they hate being lied to, but they can't really accept the truth either, because it would destabilize their lives, which rely on exploitation. Leaders and followers both enable each other.

[Danukem]

Marx is also the father of the idea that human nature is a social construct and hence maleable. I think it's fair to say that the failure of Marxism -- both old school and new school -- to accept the difficult-to-change biological tendencies of human beings is one of the main reasons it keeps failing when put into practice.

As far as the rich versus everyone else -- to bring it back on thread topic it's infuriating to see how the conflict is currently playing out with respect to COVID. The upper middle class and above don't have to get their hands dirty and go out and work, they can sit on their money or if they have to work go to virtual meetings and such. People whose jobs depend on interacting directly with other human beings are having their lives destroyed and the people making policy do not give a fuck and don't see what the fuss is about. They just think we are idiots who want to run around with masks off giving each other COVID. I honestly want to smash their arrogant faces in when I hear them talk. It's the modern of equivalent of "let them eat cake". They will give lip service to more "stimulus checks" but there isn't enough money in the world to sustain that, and all we are asking for is the right to live our own lives. As I said above, if the decision-makers were actually serious about protecting vulnerable people as they claim, if that were really their motivation, there are ways to do it without wrecking the lives of everyone who isn't rich.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Danukem, on 22 November 2020 - 04:08 AM, said:

Marx is also the father of the idea that human nature is a social construct and hence maleable.

Sadly, The Origin of the Species was published 10 years after The Communist Manifesto.

I also don't think he was the father of that idea, him and Engels were Lamarckists and it was a common belief at the time.

[Aristotle Gumball]

ck3D, on 22 November 2020 - 03:59 AM, said:

Like I was saying earlier, I think literally everyone naturally does that and it's the reason behind most even superficial culture clashes - you can't really know there's more to the world than the egg you were conceived in until you've hatched and left it, so until then an individual will think what they know is the norm and standard, and then the logical pattern sometimes survives even past that point too (especially if they're always intellectually comforted in it). In a way it literally takes everyone a lifetime to really depart from their point of origin (as much as they try, if ever). It's interesting that you're especially pinpointing the idea of Europeans not believing in success, though - honestly it's my first time hearing something like this, but I could see it.

You're talking about middle class/upper middle class life, dude. This isn't my reality or any of my friends, and I specifically said people from the countries Jimmy mentioned. Mainstream liberals are the typical people you encounter from those places here (and TBH all over the internet) and of course they were brought up in money, because that level of delusion only exists with shelters built of cash. They don't believe in hard-earned success, the pull yourself up by your bootstraps-kind (and hey, I am not advocating that here, just saying it does happen), because they've been brainwashed since birth that there are only victims of the evil imperialists/capitalists. I have faced SO MANY of them in my life that it's honestly sickening. They always try to diminish my background or what I've done, saying it must not have been so bad, etc, and all that after detailing things like child rape, poverty (intermittent loss of electricity, no hot water, no bathing facilities, starvation), school bullying, mental illness, the list goes on.

It's like you ignored all contextual words to describe what I was talking about.

The most painful part of it is, I truly believe I did have gifts, like an above average IQ and personality factors that helped me, but that is not even considered in these talks because obviously IQ is Nazi science. So it's like saying I did have it hard, while also admitting I had "help", but not in the way they think.

The worst is hearing, "well, at least you aren't black". Does being Jewish count while also looking half-Asian? I never heard the end of it.

The thing is, it was always those better off than me that treated me like shit, never people on the same level or lower, and they never exhibited any assumptions, so I disagree that "everyone does that". It's 100% based on socioeconomic status. The poor don't think everyone is poor, lol.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

Evil exists in all forms, in all classes, in all races, and it comes in all kinds.

Saying one group of people is outright 100% purebred evil is just mongering hatred and dehumanizing the other group which is not something we should do.

This idea that poor people don't treat other poor people like shit is fucking hilarious.

I know for a fact poor people kill poor people, poor people rape poor people, poor people jump poor people, poor people bully other poor people. Moreso than rich people doing such

Does it make me hate poor people? No.
And saying I can't hate myself, why, god damn you haven't read 99.9% of my posts.

Also I can guarantee all of that, intermittent electricity, murders for no reason, no running water, child rape, starvation happens in those countries, it even happens in the u.s. I know for sure.

Who the fuck cares about the way you were brought up?
Who the fuck cares about you being gifted?
Saying I think I was born special

No one is fucking special

Your bad life doesn't abscond you from being treated like shit because of how you present yourself.

So why talk about it?

You want special treatment?

Maybe, just maybe, they challenge it because they think you want special attention.

And judging from your online persona,
You're a whiny rude asswipe who thinks they're more intelligent then anyone else,
Sr. No one is ever going to change my mind on anything.

I know people who came from a horrible background and would treat you like shit because of how you talk to other people, and how you seem like a whiny 4 year old who just discovered the dictionary.

Also it's tendency of bootstrapping commies like yourself to absolutely hate these people, instead of working with them to make the world a better place. Not all superrich are evil masterminds willing to subjugate the proletariat at their whim. It's not star wars.
If you actually talked to these people you would discover they are just as human as you are.

You probably got turned on when you read about Nicholases family getting murdered with pitchforks

[Aristotle Gumball]

Balls - I am sorry for any emotional harm that I may have inflicted upon you with my words. It is evidently clear that in fact your mental illness does affect even your ability to read and comprehend, and it was irresponsible of me to suggest otherwise, thereby giving you false hope.

Your posts always show up by the way, but I have to click to view.

Good luck in life; you definitely need it.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

Embittered Phallus, on 22 November 2020 - 07:35 AM, said:

Balls - I am sorry for any emotional harm that I may have inflicted upon you with my words. It is evidently clear that in fact your mental illness does affect even your ability to read and comprehend, and it was irresponsible of me to suggest otherwise, thereby giving you false hope.

Your posts always show up by the way, but I have to click to view.

Good luck in life; you definitely need it.

The problem with thinking it's the superrich vs everyone

And not humanity vs it's own evil

Is mongering hatred at the wrong targets.

The superrich aren't to blame for alot of our issues, we are.

And disacknowledging that hurts our willingness to self regulate.

And also I am capable of understanding, you are just very poor at conveying what you are trying to say with words.

Therefore I will always draw the worst possible interpretation of what you say at all times.

If you haven't noticed yet I do this with mostly everyone.

Writing is an art form, mi amigo.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Stop straw manning my arguments. I never said poor people don't act shitty. I said they aren't under the mistaken impression that everyone they meet has the same background as them/shares sociocultural understandings. Why the fuck would they? They know there are people richer/different than them, it's the number one concern they have in life.

People at the bottom and at the very top are very similar. It's the ones in the middle who don't see anything, and they don't want to see anything. It's too painful for them. The rich understand, but don't care.

Dude, you ruin every thread you come into when people have to stop talking just to explain things to you, and threads get derailed. No one's mongering. God, even your English is fucking terrible. You use the word "such" all the time in the weirdest way that makes no sense.

It's not cringe, it's just irritating and I wish you felt a modicum of shame so you'd try to rectify things, but I know you never will. So back to ignoring I go.

You literally think like an idiot by the way. I've said here in other places that the blame isn't solely on the rich, hell even in this thread I wrote that leaders and followers both enable each other, but you want attention because of your weird degenerated personality, so you'll destroy all nuance and context in order to straw man people who aren't willing to accept you for everything you are. Insane cunt.

PS. Me talking about my life had a purpose within the argument I was making and it stuck to the topic at hand. I didn't just throw it out there for no reason like you do.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

Embittered Phallus, on 22 November 2020 - 07:58 AM, said:

Stop straw manning my arguments. I never said poor people don't act shitty. I said they aren't under the mistaken impression that everyone they meet has the same background as them/shares sociocultural understandings. Why the fuck would they? They know there are people richer/different than them, it's the number one concern they have in life.

People at the bottom and at the very top are very similar. It's the ones in the middle who don't see anything, and they don't want to see anything. It's too painful for them. The rich understand, but don't care.

Dude, you ruin every thread you come into when people have to stop talking just to explain things to you, and threads get derailed. No one's mongering. God, even your English is fucking terrible. You use the word "such" all the time in the weirdest way that makes no sense.

It's not cringe, it's just irritating and I wish you felt a modicum of shame so you'd try to rectify things, but I know you never will. So back to ignoring I go.

You literally think like an idiot by the way. I've said here in other places that the blame isn't solely on the rich, hell even in this thread I wrote that leaders and followers both enable each other, but you want attention because of your weird degenerated personality, so you'll destroy all nuance and context in order to straw man people who aren't willing to accept you for everything you are. Insane cunt.

If it wasn't for me here there'd be alot of talking amongst yourselves and jacking each other off. Saying that you aren't derailing the covid thread yourself is idk, just incredibly false.

I'm not the one who said it was the rich vs us, lol.

The rich have probably funded the most money for the covid vaccine. What have you done? Complain about wearing a mask.

[Aristotle Gumball]

It's an acceptable derail if more than two people are involved and interested in what is being discussed, like me, Dan, Jimmy and ck3D. No one gives a shit about your weird personal grievance with me. Write it in your diary and then shove it up your ass.

[ck3D]

Embittered Phallus, on 22 November 2020 - 05:43 AM, said:

It's like you ignored all contextual words to describe what I was talking about.

Ah, I didn't ignore them on purpose but your second post clarified what you meant a bit better to me, I still disagree on nation-wide generalizations as different classes exist in every country including the ones you guys were mentioning but now if you're talking specific classes of population regardless of origin, then you make sense to me, for sure, the projections will definitely be different there. In several 'developing' countries and amongst the less wealthy and educated (that's two different clauses), there's one funny paradox I've observed where in addition to blaming their own lack of ambition and energy on the 'evil capitalists', a big part of the hatred is fueled by their frustration of being excluded from that world. I can think of plenty of people from all over (my own country included) that I know who act rebellious right now as they lack resources, yet it's painfully obvious that they would completely turn their vest around for the smallest promise from the corporate world. But in a sense that's also a sign of ignorance from being secluded, just intellectually here, those people have yet to experience the limits of the system they're looking up to for now and they can only first get in its reach by accepting to change their reality (and the work that comes with that), like you sound like you did.

There is also this thing I've observed where in places with very few cultural stimuli and limited education, people tend to mythify the idea of success (as the keys to it seem all the more out of reach) to the point where they wouldn't even recognize it if it happened to their closest ones (unless said success consists in appearing on TV or going viral). I've also made quite the amount of sacrifices for my career to get to the exact point I always wanted to get, yet my parents look at me like I'm a bum unless it's time to 'borrow' my clothes for my younger brothers; it's as though my life would only really exist if I started working a factory job again because in a way that's the only language they speak.

[High Treason]

There's a line somewhere between derailment and progression of a discussion. Discussions rarely end where they started, otherwise they aren't discussions.

In regards to what you said about leaders and people being tribal and such, I came to a conclusion years ago. This conclusion was that whilst people are inherently tribal, tribes always have some form of leader. Most people want to be led and prefer not to question the leader too much, even if they know the leader is wrong. My proof of this is purely that leaders exist, there are always more followers than leaders and, surely, if people didn't want to be led, there would be no leaders, they'd have thrown stones at the first guy's head, all those years ago, when he stood up on a rock and declared himself king. I don't know why, entirely, maybe diminished sense of responsibility? Perhaps there are many factors and it isn't so simple.
- Note: I am 100% certain that I am not the first person to reach such a conclusion. Countless people surely got there long before me and probably had a better explanation of it.


To that end, I find it interesting how - at least in the West - leaders got worse as religion started to fade. Maybe the leaders didn't consider themselves accountable to God any longer, where in the past they might have had at least a little fear of hell fire.

[Aristotle Gumball]

ck3D, on 22 November 2020 - 08:12 AM, said:

I still disagree on nation-wide generalizations as different classes exist in every country.

It's about percentages. How many poor, middle class, rich there are and how many (and which classes) are left and right leaning. Those differ by country.

You can totally generalize if you have the facts. I was just talking about personal experience, though.

Poorer areas in Europe lean more conservative, richer areas lean more liberal. You tend to encounter certain types from certain places. It's simple. No one is saying that everyone from Sweden is some cucked libtard.

Success to me is just being able to live how you want. I hate being around people and like being left alone + psychometric testing revealed an aptitude for logic = I'm a programmer.

BTW, passion is fucking overrated. That Steve Jobs speech to Harvard graduates? Find your passion? Steve Jobs wasn't passionate about computers until it started making him rich. I hated learning how to code at first, but once I saw what it could do for my life, I developed an interest. Now I am using it to make video games (trying at least, lol).

[Balls of Steel Forever]

High Treason, on 22 November 2020 - 08:17 AM, said:

There's a line somewhere between derailment and progression of a discussion. Discussions rarely end where they started, otherwise they aren't discussions.

That's true, there is a line, but this thread has already been derailed and has developed into something more suitable for other threads. Something that has already been talked about in other threads.

A derail being acceptable because the majority finds it acceptable, turns it into something jimmy always uses as a defense when arguing with me about politics.

Plus I think phallus is pretty cute when he's annoyed.

I love pulling his leg, and he just lets me, because I know he loves it too.

I also know that there is no point in trying to change his mind on things or arguing with him because he said he will never, so discussion with such is fruitless anyways.

Also your point about tribal leadership was expanded upon heavily in hobbes's leviathan.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Balls of Steel Forever, on 22 November 2020 - 08:39 AM, said:

Plus I think phallus is pretty cute when he's annoyed.

I love pulling his leg, and he just lets me, because I know he loves it too.

"Tee hee I'm wrong about everything so I'm gonna pretend it was all a troll"

[ck3D]

High Treason, on 22 November 2020 - 08:17 AM, said:

To that end, I find it interesting how - at least in the West - leaders got worse as religion started to fade. Maybe the leaders didn't consider themselves accountable to God any longer, where in the past they might have had at least a little fear of hell fire.

I think the new religion in the West is and has been numbers for quite a bit. It doesn't matter of what, money, views, sales, social media likes, as long as it goes up, and it also doesn't seem to matter the actual human substance those numbers represent. How many people will read your book and what they will learn from it no longer matters as much as how many copies of the book are going to sell. Entertainment is also being developed to discourage meaningful, real-life interactions and communication between individuals to maximize mindless consumption and silence attempts at criticism, insulating them into the comfort of a personal safe zone no one else should be allowed to touch, and simplifying their means of interaction to maximize division (average social media use). While the people are spending their energy either in Wonderland or fighting illusory windmills, they won't be asking too many questions about the quality of your product, which you can downgrade with every update as long as the update looks fresh. Quality of everything takes a hit and so do resources, slightly reminding us that greed to such an extent might not be reasonable and assuming eternal supply might be short-term thinking after all.

Embittered Phallus, on 22 November 2020 - 08:28 AM, said:

BTW, passion is fucking overrated.

I don't know about that, passion isn't everything for sure (one could sit there being passionate about something all decade long and just die of starvation on the spot) but it definitely adds to the quality of one's work. I'm imagining Duke 3D without passion from the devs would have been a Doom clone with slightly updated tech, if you think that game is worthier than just that definition it probably has to do with the human feelings that went into its craft.

And regarding percentages, they don't suffice to change the reality of the existence in the lower classes in all the countries you mentioned regardless of how visible they're made and that you also have people there living in indecent conditions comparable to the ones of a third world country, like everywhere in the world. I'm well aware I might sound pedantic, but now am I nitpicking? Depends whether or not one thinks considering the lower class regardless of its origin is nitpicking.

[Aristotle Gumball]

ck3D, on 22 November 2020 - 08:53 AM, said:

I don't know, passion isn't everything for sure (one could sit there being passionate about something all decade long and just die of starvation on the spot) but it definitely adds to the quality of one's work. I'm imagining Duke 3D without passion from the devs would have been a Doom clone with slightly updated tech, if you think that game is worthier than just that definition it probably has to do with the human feelings that went into its craft.

I meant that the idea of "finding one's passion" is overrated and the wrong approach for most. You develop a passion once you become good at something and see the potential of your work has in terms of money and providing utility for people. So many get stuck at the point of not knowing what to do, and they see this message "find your passion", but what if you have nothing, or it's not enough?

I think everyone would be better off if they were more pragmatic. Look at where your natural aptitudes lie and pick something that exploits the aptitude. You will see avenues open up that you couldn't conceive of when you started.

[High Treason]

Depends on your situation really, you can't just pick something, get good at it and make a career of it if there's no demand for it where you are. If you live in a 'post-industrial' residential area, you'd better be pretty passionate about McDonalds or shopping carts.

[ck3D]

High Treason, on 22 November 2020 - 09:10 AM, said:

Depends on your situation really, you can't just pick something, get good at it and make a career of it if there's no demand for it where you are. If you live in a 'post-industrial' residential area, you'd better be pretty passionate about McDonalds or shopping carts.

Or you could consider the whole enterprise a long-term project and invest towards getting out of said post-industrial residential area, to then both get a more global grasp of the reality of the market you're trying to tackle and make a career happen. In reality, one really needs more self-confidence and balls to commit to such a project than they need a base amount of money. They just need to actually want to do it and start somewhere, and not just sit there all day thinking about possibilities that won't just materialize by themselves.