What happened to TWD?

[Jacks:Revenge]

This is just one reason having children is important unless you want to die alone and sooner than not due to family not being there to check on you, or help you with things that become difficult when you are old.

I think this is sentiment is a little out of touch.
no offense.

you don't automatically 'die alone' because you never had children.
people are not isolated islands.

my family and circle of friends are large, spread out, and continuously growing with or without my own personal offspring. unless I turn into a stark-raving-mad serial killer people will be around me until the end of my days. if I don't have my own kids my siblings will probably have some. and my cousins will have some. and I'll know them, and they'll know me, and (like we've been doing already) we'll hang out and grow up together like a big ole extended family that we are. we're there for each other when someone gets sick or passes away, we always get back together.

unless I physically push them away, my family closest acquaintances will be there when I need them.

The world is not that fucked up. There has always been fucked up shit. Now is the most peaceful time ever compared to the last 2000 years of history. The reason the world seems so crazy is because you get a news report on every little negative thing. Yes I know the environment is being fucked, but to throw the towel in on the human race because you say so is kind of dumb.

The world isn't going to shit. It's getting better.

yeah.... I know where you guys are coming from.
trust me, I used to be in your boots.

I used to be like "oh yeah, gays are getting married and we abolished slavery and we're not living under a Monarchy, oh things are definitely better" but you're lying to yourself in order to maintain the illusion of comfort and control. we're living an extremely unstable dichotomy right now in this existence. things might definitely seem better if you're a European person born in a European part of the world. but this is such an ignorant illusion you guys.

should I have to educate you on how this comfortable modern world is built?
we don't see oppression or slavery here. we don't kill gay people for being gay here. we allow women to vote here. everything is relatively dandy over HERE. but you or I, Al or Billy, anyone of us could have just as easily been born on the other side of the coin.

how do you think we afford our comfortable and liberal lifestyle here in the West?
it's because people who aren't born in the West provide it to us at the expense of their own comfort, liberty, and happiness. oppression is rampant. slavery is alive and well. gay people are routinely beheaded and thrown off of rooftops as per capital punishment. women have their clitoris cut off and are sold to old men as brides the moment they reach puberty.

it's 2015.

oh, but we don't "see" that.
oh, but there's "less" of it than there used to be.
oh, BUT NOTHING. it's 2015.

you wanna know why we can sit here and type away on our computers and arm-chair debate the ethics of our lives? because we're the lucky few. just dumb luck. somewhere else RIGHT NOW, some kid who wasn't born where you and I were born, is waking up for an 18hour workday of intense labor, little food, and little rest. this is their reality every waking moment. they have no prospects or future or hopes or dreams. they and their family members slave for our convenience until they drop dead and are pushed into the mass ditch.

click the spoiler if you need a reality check, aiight?

Spoiler

precious stones, metals

diamonds, silver, gold

minerals, electronics

textiles, cotton

infrastructure, building materials

infrastructure, factory construction

minerals, electronics

automotive industry outsourcing

commercial cocoa, chocolate

chemicals, fertilizer, cement

tobacco

steel industry outsourcing

where do you think your paper-thin-ultra-cheap laptops and cell phones came from?
the magical happiness factory?

we cleaned up our own backyard a little bit.
then we pat ourselves on the back and pretend that our work here is done.

what a bunch of horse shit.
we ask for fairness and equality. we demand it at home. we sweep it under the rug everywhere else. virtually everything we enjoy here in the West comes at the direct expense of human lives and immense suffering that happens elsewhere. this entire modern technological age is literally built upon the broken backs of the millions and millions and millions of humans who must sacrifice their existence for our reality. they slave away their own life to provide a lifestyle to a class of people that they will never even meet, let alone understand anything about.

you can ignore it. it's certainly easier to sleep that way.
but you can't deny it. this whole thing is a foundation of human suffering and oppression... mostly by children who aren't lucky enough to be 'white.'

sweet dreams.

 

[BillyBadAss]

I think this is sentiment is a little out of touch.
no offense.

you don't automatically 'die alone' because you never had children.
people are not isolated islands.

my family and circle of friends are large, spread out, and continuously growing with or without my own personal offspring. unless I turn into a stark-raving-mad serial killer people will be around me until the end of my days. if I don't have my own kids my siblings will probably have some. and my cousins will have some. and I'll know them, and they'll know me, and (like we've been doing already) we'll hang out and grow up together like a big ole extended family that we are. we're there for each other when someone gets sick or passes away, we always get back together.

unless I physically push them away, my family closest acquaintances will be there when I need them.




yeah.... I know where you guys are coming from.
trust me, I used to be in your boots.

I used to be like "oh yeah, gays are getting married and we abolished slavery and we're not living under a Monarchy, oh things are definitely better" but you're lying to yourself in order to maintain the illusion of comfort and control. we're living an extremely unstable dichotomy right now in this existence. things might definitely seem better if you're a European person born in a European part of the world. but this is such an ignorant illusion you guys.

should I have to educate you on how this comfortable modern world is built?
we don't see oppression or slavery here. we don't kill gay people for being gay here. we allow women to vote here. everything is relatively dandy over HERE. but you or I, Al or Billy, anyone of us could have just as easily been born on the other side of the coin.

how do you think we afford our comfortable and liberal lifestyle here in the West?
it's because people who aren't born in the West provide it to us at the expense of their own comfort, liberty, and happiness. oppression is rampant. slavery is alive and well. gay people are routinely beheaded and thrown off of rooftops as per capital punishment. women have their clitoris cut off and are sold to old men as brides the moment they reach puberty.

it's 2015.

oh, but we don't "see" that.
oh, but there's "less" of it than there used to be.
oh, BUT NOTHING. it's 2015.

you wanna know why we can sit here and type away on our computers and arm-chair debate the ethics of our lives? because we're the lucky few. just dumb luck. somewhere else RIGHT NOW, some kid who wasn't born where you and I were born, is waking up for an 18hour workday of intense labor, little food, and little rest. this is their reality every waking moment. they have no prospects or future or hopes or dreams. they and their family members slave for our convenience until they drop dead and are pushed into the mass ditch.

click the spoiler if you need a reality check, aiight?

Spoiler

precious stones, metals

diamonds, silver, gold

minerals, electronics

textiles, cotton

infrastructure, building materials

infrastructure, factory construction

minerals, electronics

automotive industry outsourcing

commercial cocoa, chocolate

chemicals, fertilizer, cement

tobacco

steel industry outsourcing

where do you think your paper-thin-ultra-cheap laptops and cell phones came from?
the magical happiness factory?

we cleaned up our own backyard a little bit.
then we pat ourselves on the back and pretend that our work here is done.

what a bunch of horse shit.
we ask for fairness and equality. we demand it at home. we sweep it under the rug everywhere else. virtually everything we enjoy here in the West comes at the direct expense of human lives and immense suffering that happens elsewhere. this entire modern technological age is literally built upon the broken backs of the millions and millions and millions of humans who must sacrifice their existence for our reality. they slave away their own life to provide a lifestyle to a class of people that they will never even meet, let alone understand anything about.

you can ignore it. it's certainly easier to sleep that way.
but you can't deny it. this whole thing is a foundation of human suffering and oppression... mostly by children who aren't lucky enough to be 'white.'

sweet dreams.

I really don't know where to begin with this rambling mess. This kind of thing use to be everywhere, but it has slowly gotten better. If you think it is getting worse you are wrong. Also, you are typing to me on a machine full of the very metals slaves mined so you could spill this misinformed rant. It's obvious you don't have much experience with world travel or getting out there. Your idea of how social circles work is wrong. People's careers and families will make most of your social circle of friends drift away. That's just life.

You could get out there and do something about it. Go to these countries via some organization and try to bring about change, but here you are smoking bowl after bowl bitching for others to do it and how the world is "more fucked up than it ever has been"(incorrect btw) and you don't do anything. There is literally all kinds of ways you could be out there doing hands on stuff to make change, but it's just not that important to you.

 

[cryptophreak]

If you think it is getting worse you are wrong

but here you are smoking bowl after bowl bitching for others to do it and how the world is "more fucked up than it ever has been"(incorrect btw)

Either my eyes are starting to go, or nobody said anything like this.

Nobody said the world is worse. It’s the same continuing, regularly scheduled shittiness. We’ve just shifted it around a bit. We have more people on the planet, so there are now more people living in relative luxury, but there’s also a correspondingly larger group of people who are born to work, suffer, and die for our convenience. I’m typing this on a Retina MacBook Pro, made possible by the power of jumping off of roofs at Foxconn.

Whether Jacks is personally building a dirt hut in Malawi to soothe your conscience is irrelevant. That doesn’t scale. The basic problem is class. We have (1) a few people who do none of the work and reap unimaginable wealth for the trouble, (2) a bunch more who do some work (which doesn’t directly bring anyone food or shelter, like designing marketing materials or real estate) and get a bit of money for it, and finally (3) staggeringly numerous masses of people who do almost all of the work for almost none of the benefit.

You can straw-man Jacks to death if you like, but until there’s some kind of mass uprising or technological shift that fundamentally alters the relationship between people and resources, the majority of the people in the world will still be getting fucked over.

 

[BillyBadAss]

but you can't deny it. this whole thing is a foundation of human suffering and oppression... mostly by children who aren't lucky enough to be 'white.

LOL! It has nothing to do with being white and more of where you live. If you were born in Europe or The U.S., Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, many places in Latin America, you are living a pretty good life. You are failing at stating the obvious. This isn't a white thing. It's a where you are from thing. It's ignorant that you think this could be narrowed down to a racial thing.

I would like all this to stop too, but preaching to people not in positions to do anything about isn't going to make a difference. The especially won't take you serious when you are like this guy:

I’m typing this on a Retina MacBook Pro, made possible by the power of jumping off of roofs at Foxconn.

Why he didn't buy a computer that wasn't made at Foxconn? There are plenty of other places, but he chose that one because he wanted an Apple and that trumps the mental and physical health of somebody's life he doesn't know, so he said fuck them and bought it anyway. Both of you are sounding like idiots. Do something or STFU. Nothing is going to be done on these forums. Bitching about it on Reddit would make a much bigger for nothing effort than bitching about it here.

 

[cryptophreak]

Why he didn't buy a computer that wasn't made at Foxconn? There are plenty of other places, but he chose that one because he wanted an Apple and that trumps the mental and physical health of somebody's life he doesn't know, so he said fuck them and bought it anyway.

Are you honestly suggesting I should change the world by buying a different laptop?

Nothing is going to be done on these forums.

Of course not. I don’t imagine that a post on BuF is going to effect world peace, you loon. I’m not telling you to do anything, either. I’m just typing factual words on the Internet because it amuses me while I drink delicious draft beer from my new kegerator—which I’m sure exploits poor African children or some shit. Sure is tasty, though.

 

[The Dopefish]

I think it's short-sighted to stop at "Is the world getting better or worse?". Like others have said, it's getting better for some and worse for others, but then we're only talking about human society. Really, our environment is the one thing that matters most, it's the one thing paid the least attention to in relation to its importance, and it's the one thing that humanity is directly responsible for.

It takes a lot to convince individual people that their actions are part of the problem, though. Only when things happen on a large scale do people want to take action and fix it, but by then it may be too late.

 

[BillyBadAss]

I think it's short-sighted to stop at "Is the world getting better or worse?". Like others have said, it's getting better for some and worse for others, but then we're only talking about human society. Really, our environment is the one thing that matters most, it's the one thing paid the least attention to in relation to its importance, and it's the one thing that humanity is directly responsible for.

It takes a lot to convince individual people that their actions are part of the problem, though. Only when things happen on a large scale do people want to take action and fix it, but by then it may be too late.

Agreed!

Hey guy! Long time no see! How are you?

 

[The Dopefish]

Hey BBA! Like the man said, "Life's been good to me so far." How about yourself?

Work-wise, I had been working for CVS as a pharmacy technician for eight years, but eventually came to realize that the promise of stagnant wages (a promise reinforced by our ineffectual government) meant I had to get the fuck out of there. Since May I've been a sales associate for a laser distribution company, though still pretty early in the game with little laser knowledge, so I'm also currently working on an Associate's degree in the field. On the home front, my wife and I are happily sharing our little eighth-of-an-acre with five cats, five chickens, and a never-big-enough vegetable garden. We're just trying to do our part to stay out of trouble! (LOL my smiley is still around)

Too bad about TWD if what I'm reading is true; I'm sure no one goes into a marriage thinking that it could be short-lived, but I have a feeling people of our/my generation are wary of divorce and not knowing their partner well enough before making such a commitment. Not knowing his exact circumstances, I have only to believe that perhaps not knowing his partner well enough (or vice versa) may have complicated things. Such is the challenge of life and love!

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Are you honestly suggesting I should change the world by buying a different laptop?

I'm pretty sure he was saying that if you feel like the world is getting worse why are you directly contributing to things that help keep it that way?

In reality, people only care about the state of the world when it affects them directly. Your life, as bad as it may be, is definitely better as a consequence of many different factors in the world than someone who lived 100 years ago. Even if you can't afford healthcare, your life is slightly better due to the fact that greater access to healthcare is available to other people and thus sickness spreads less. In general, things are a lot better than they have ever been.

Sure there are aspects of life and the world that are not great for many people and there is still a lot of poverty around the world. But that doesn't mean that things are generally messed up.

 

[Jacks:Revenge]

I agree that things are better for most people.
I wouldn't argue against that.

the crux of my argument is that - because things are so much better for most people - the people who are left have it worse than ever before. at least back in the day when they were serfs being oppressed by a monarchy they literally had no choice. today we totally have a choice but we simply allow this oppression to continue because of inescapable greed. we love big PROFITS and CHEAP shit. it's unsustainable. the people who are left behind are suffering in forgotten silence. we've moved on to pet projects like homophobia and sexism. we feel like we've abolished slavery and ended subjugation...

we haven't.
at all.

it's rampant in places that we simply cannot see.
it's killing the environment (as Dopefish mentioned) given mass deforestation projects in South America and Africa extracting oils and lubricants which fuel our modern society here in the West. so we've got this oppressive and polluted cesspit in one part of the world that gives rise to these lofty capitalistic dreams in another part of the world. BUT IT'S THE SAME WORLD. it's unsustainble.

it's very simple.
if this trajectory isn't changed sooner than later, our children's children will be dealing with a horrific hellscape that doesn't resemble the Earth we're leaving behind today. we all pretend to care about family but we're just sacrificing their future, as well. everything seems fine until you realize that we're rapidly approaching resource wars for clean water and food. it won't likely happen in our lifetime but that's the great fallacy of human civilization.

just keep kicking that can down the road.

 

[gopostal]

I'm with Jacks on this, I see what he means. It's all about inertia. Sure you can pick this or that and demonstrate any point of view but if you step back and try to look in total...yeah, it's pretty grim. I think he's also right that societal issues are about to take a big back seat to environmental ones. We've spent the last 50 years really fucking up Mother Nature. Fish stocks are collapsing, water is becoming a serious problem, global warming is accelerating. There are pockets of progress and places where things really are improving but the earth overall is going downhill and that inertial acceleration is speeding up when it ought to be slowing down.

I had a talk with a fellow mailman the other day along these lines. He said something that I've been thinking about a lot. He asked me if I'd ever considered that this could be the start of 'The Great Filter' that answers Fermi's Paradox. Have we grown sufficiently that we are now destroying ourselves before we can get off this planet? I don't know but my gut tells me the answers to this thread go far beyond buying sustainable products.

Human beings are like locusts. We consume everything without reflection to consequence. Bad things are bound to happen. http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Progress-Ronald-Wright/dp/0786715472 It's just now we are advanced enough that the stakes are global.

 

[The Dopefish]

Even if you can't afford healthcare, your life is slightly better due to the fact that greater access to healthcare is available to other people and thus sickness spreads less. In general, things are a lot better than they have ever been.

Affordable health care is another problem; it may be more widely available, but the price of health care is still exorbitant and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a section of the population averse to even basic, preventative care out of fear that they might still ring up onerous bills.

The growing disparity between the haves and have-nots is creating a situation ripe for catastrophic reversal, but the question is: will the disadvantaged and underprivileged get off their asses and do something about it?

My wife and I watched Cowspiracy on Netflix last night, speaking of sustainability, and while it spins its wheels A LOT (yes, we get it, environmentalists give zero fucks about animal agriculture), along with Food Inc. and Forks Over Knives it really makes a push to encourage us to, well, be vegan, as it is largely the only way our entire planet's population will be able to survive while helping to keep the environment in a manageable state.

 

[cryptophreak]

Nobody said the world is worse.

if you feel like the world is getting worse

Reading is harder than I thought.

why are you directly contributing to things that help keep it that way?

What would you like me to do, exactly? Shall I save the world with a ThinkPad? Perhaps I’ll skip out on computers altogether and humanity will be redeemed? My point is that there is no plausible plan in existence for improving the general well-being of Earth-dwellers, and this will continue to be the case until we’ve solved the problem of class. Or, if you prefer the same idea in different words:

Whether Jacks is personally building a dirt hut in Malawi to soothe your conscience is irrelevant. That doesn’t scale. The basic problem is class. We have (1) a few people who do none of the work and reap unimaginable wealth for the trouble, (2) a bunch more who do some work (which doesn’t directly bring anyone food or shelter, like designing marketing materials or real estate) and get a bit of money for it, and finally (3) staggeringly numerous masses of people who do almost all of the work for almost none of the benefit.

You can straw-man Jacks to death if you like, but until there’s some kind of mass uprising or technological shift that fundamentally alters the relationship between people and resources, the majority of the people in the world will still be getting fucked over.

 

[The Dopefish]

My point is that there is no plausible plan in existence for improving the general well-being of Earth-dwellers, and this will continue to be the case until we’ve solved the problem of class.

On the contrary, there are plenty of plausible plans to improve the well-being of Earth-dwellers, certainly some that have more merit than others, as long as your definition of plausible allows for the possibility that, yes, that could work. Redistribution of wealth, eliminating financial institutions and returning to a barter system (smaller communities largely relying on their own output), deglobalization, COMPLETE globalization (a lá Star Trek), going to a complete global vegan diet, etc. All of these plans could have success, and there are certainly others that may as well. It is impossible to conclude that none of them could work when we've seen no evidence to prove that they couldn't.

Class, in the common context, implies that there will always exist a divide between haves and have-nots, and this sort of Communist utopia is unlikely to exist in a society that largely eschews altruism and responsibility in favor of self-indulgence and gross individualism. Unfortunately the trend in our global society is the growing expanse on a variety of issues, and unless an honest, concerted effort is made to balance these extremes...

The scary part is we're all complicit if we fail to act, and playing the cynical, defeated, it's-too-big-to-solve-so-let's-enjoy-it-while-it-lasts selfish attitude is obviously not going to make things better.

 

[cryptophreak]

Redistribution of wealth, eliminating financial institutions and returning to a barter system (smaller communities largely relying on their own output), deglobalization, COMPLETE globalization (a lá Star Trek), going to a complete global vegan diet, etc. All of these plans could have success, and there are certainly others that may as well. It is impossible to conclude that none of them could work when we've seen no evidence to prove that they couldn't.

Except that these aren’t plans, they’re goals. “Hey guys, let’s redistribute wealth and eliminate financial institutions” doesn’t outline a path between where we are and where we’d like to be. I’d back virtually any plausible plan that aimed toward those goals, whether it was violent or peaceful or somewhere in-between, but I’ve yet to hear of one.

Capitalism is working out much better for me than for the average person, but if right now you told me “Do X and within ten years we’ll convert over to a system in which the rich and poor are equals”, and X sounded like it could reasonably be expected to have a chance at succeeding, I’d quit my job tomorrow and join the fight with all the strength I have. But I don’t know what X is, you probably don’t know what X is, and there’s nobody I know of who has even an inkling of how to solve for X.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Affordable health care is another problem; it may be more widely available, but the price of health care is still exorbitant and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a section of the population averse to even basic, preventative care out of fear that they might still ring up onerous bills.

I agree and am still working my way out of a medical bill quagmire from 8-10 years ago. However, nobody seems very interested in actually solving this problem.

The growing disparity between the haves and have-nots is creating a situation ripe for catastrophic reversal, but the question is: will the disadvantaged and underprivileged get off their asses and do something about it?

It seems pretty obvious that the answer to that question is and always will be "no". There are plenty of "haves" that are trying to solve it for them, but you can't make people stop living in a situation that they are comfortable with just because you don't want them to. On a more micro scale, you can look at how native american reservations have been working out for the last 50 years and realize that same attitude towards life is only spreading like an infection through civilized society.

So, while I do think that things are generally getting better, I do also think we are on a pretty crap trajectory for future generations.

 

[The Dopefish]

It seems pretty obvious that the answer to that question is and always will be "no". There are plenty of "haves" that are trying to solve it for them, but you can't make people stop living in a situation that they are comfortable with just because you don't want them to. On a more micro scale, you can look at how native american reservations have been working out for the last 50 years and realize that same attitude towards life is only spreading like an infection through civilized society.

You'll have to elaborate because I doubt the Native Americans are "comfortable" being penned in to relatively small spaces while drinking and drugging away their lives. It is true that they can do a lot with a little, and that is historically their way of life, but they have very little of their old traditions left to work with largely because modernity has crept in and the isolated nature of their society and circumstances is deleterious to their future.

Capitalism is working out much better for me than for the average person, but if right now you told me “Do X and within ten years we’ll convert over to a system in which the rich and poor are equals”, and X sounded like it could reasonably be expected to have a chance at succeeding, I’d quit my job tomorrow and join the fight with all the strength I have. But I don’t know what X is, you probably don’t know what X is, and there’s nobody I know of who has even an inkling of how to solve for X.

It stands to reason that if you have to say, "Capitalism is working out much better for me than for the average person," you'd be naturally disinclined to see a economic situation where your income is taxed and/or capped, so you'll have to excuse me for being skeptical when you say you would throw your full weight into an effort to balance the economy in a serious way. The nature of any person in a position such as yours is to prevent losses, even if those losses could do better things for the greater good/society in general.

There's a tendency among the rich to believe that being rich is important but it is the philanthropists who are remembered and loved through the passage of time.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

You'll have to elaborate because I doubt the Native Americans are "comfortable" being penned in to relatively small spaces while drinking and drugging away their lives. It is true that they can do a lot with a little, and that is historically their way of life, but they have very little of their old traditions left to work with largely because modernity has crept in and the isolated nature of their society and circumstances is deleterious to their future.

Loss of comfort usually leads people to try to change things. Most people on the reservations I've been to in the midwest are not uncomfortable. They don't have great lives, are often alcoholic/addicted to drugs, but they have nice enough houses that they get to live in for free, a bunch of money to buy recreational products like vehicles and TVs, and the example they set for their children is that they don't need to do anything better because they will be taken care of. It is rare to see people break out of that system largely because they don't need to or have to.

The same general attitude is spreading to the rest of society. It's not that it didn't exist there already or that the native americans had anything to do with it. The cause is the same, though... the government (or your parents or whoever) starts providing everything you need and thus you don't have to do anything to live a marginally comfortable life. Who wouldn't pick living in a livable place, having a nice TV and a few gaming consoles, and having enough to eat and play video games 24/7 (if that's what you like)?

 

[Jacks:Revenge]

but the question is: will the disadvantaged and underprivileged get off their asses and do something about it?

It seems pretty obvious that the answer to that question is and always will be "no". There are plenty of "haves" that are trying to solve it for them, but you can't make people stop living in a situation that they are comfortable with just because you don't want them to.

Brizz your reply doesn't make any sense.
bringing up the Native American situation in the US is also a non-sequitur.

how is the "obvious" answer "no??"
if that were true, we would still be living under serfdom and indebted to a divine monarch. we would never have made it to the point of democracy (let alone capitalism) if people never got off of their asses to do something about it. but people get off their asses all the time. it might not always happen as swiftly as it should or with the best organization, but it always happens after a certain tipping point.

there's a reason why we've come as far as we have.
I think you're totally off base to assume that no more revolutions are coming down the pipeline...

 

[gopostal]

I think you're totally off base to assume that no more revolutions are coming down the pipeline...

My dad called it the 'cold and hungry rule'. You can get away with a lot of stuff with people but if you let them cold or hungry all bets are off and anything can happen.