Signs of Societal collapse

[WarriorDiplomat]

These are some of the things that our wise forefathers studied and understood about societies.....that Democrats ignore......The ancient Greek philosopher Polybius (c.200 – c.118 BC) asserted that all nations follow a cycle of; democracy, oligarchy, dictatorship, tyranny and collapse.

According to psychologist Erich Fromm it is possible for an entire nation, if they all share the same vices and errors, to become insane—a "folie a millions". Inhuman treatment by the rulers inevitably leads to collapse;
Despots and ruling cliques can succeed in dominating and exploiting their fellow man DEMOCRATs? ... but their subjects react ... with apathy, impairment of intelligence, initiative and skills ... or they react by the accumulation of such hate and destructiveness as to bring about an end to themselves, their rulers and their system. ... if man lives under conditions contrary to his nature and to human growth and sanity, he cannot help reacting.

Common Changes occurring with collapse

Reversion/Simplification: A society's adaptive capacity may be reduced by either a rapid change in population or societal complexity, destabilizing its institutions and causing massive shifts in population and other social dynamics. In cases of collapse, civilizations tend to revert to less complex, less centralized socio-political forms using simpler technology. These are characteristics of a Dark Age. Examples of such societal collapse are: the Hittite Empire, the Mycenaean civilization, the Western Roman Empire, the Mauryan and Gupta Empires in India, the Mayas, the Angkor in Cambodia, the Han and Tang dynasties in China and the Mali Empire.

Incorporation/Absorption: Alternately, a society may be gradually incorporated into a more dynamic, more complex inter-regional social structure. This happened in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Levantine cultures, the Mughal and Delhi Sultanates in India, Song China, the Aztec culture in Mesoamerica, the Inca culture in South America, and the modern civilizations of China, Japan, and India, as well as many modern states in the Middle East and Africa.

Obliteration: Vast numbers of people in the society die, or the birth rate plunges to a level that causes a dramatic depopulation.
Other changes that may accompany a collapse:

Destratification: Complex societies stratified on the basis of class, gender, race or some other salient factor become much more homogeneous or horizontally structured. In many cases past social stratification slowly becomes irrelevant following collapse and societies become more egalitarian.
LGBTQ?
Despecialization: One of the most characteristic features of complex civilizations (and in many cases the yardstick to measure complexity) is a high level of job specialization. The most complex societies are characterized by artisans and tradespeople who specialize intensely in a given task. Indeed, the rulers of many past societies were hyper-specialized priests or priestesses who were completely supported by the work of the lower classes. During societal collapse, the social institutions supporting such specialization are removed and people tend to become more generalized in their work and daily habits. Look at our colleges today producing people with no useful skills

Decentralization: As power becomes decentralized, people tend to be more self-regimented and have many more personal freedoms. In many instances of collapse, there is a slackening of social rules and etiquette. Geographically speaking, communities become more parochial or isolated. For example, following the collapse of the Maya civilization, many Maya returned to their traditional hamlets, moving away from the large cities that had dominated the political landscape.

Destructuralization: Institutions, processes, and artifacts are all manifest in the archaeological record in abundance in large civilizations. After collapse, evidence of epiphenomena, institutions, and types of artifacts change dramatically as people are forced to adopt more self-sufficient lifestyles.

Depopulation: Societal collapse is almost always associated with a population decline. In extreme cases, the collapse in population is so severe that the society disappears entirely, such as happened with the Greenland Vikings, or a number of Polynesian islands. In less extreme cases, populations are reduced until a demographic balance is re-established between human societies and the depleted natural environment. A classic example is the city of Rome, which had a population of about 1.5 million at the peak of the Roman Empire during the reign of Trajan in the early 2nd century AD, but in the Early Middle Ages the population had declined to only around 15,000 inhabitants by the 9th century.

[TFA303]

Very interesting - what's the source for this analysis?

Here are some similar thoughts (https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/learning-from-the-spanish-civil-war)comparing our current situation to that of Spain before their Civil War.
By 1935, left-right opinion had become so polarized that there was practically no middle ground left. Both sides came to distrust democracy because it was the means by which their enemies might take power. And, as one Nationalist interviewed in the documentary puts it, people on the left and right just flat out hated each other. The whole country was a powder keg.

By the 1936 campaign, the centrist parties had practically disappeared. A leftist coalition won the vote, but deadly violence between left and right began ramping up. A far-right fascist militia, the Falange, formed. Mutual assassinations on both sides, and street fighting between Falangists and Republican forces, triggered a military coup against the government. The coup failed to overthrow the Republic, but it did divide the country, and spark a civil war between Nationalists and Republicans. Gen. Francisco Franco quickly emerged as the Nationalist leader.

Well worth your time to read.

[WarriorDiplomat]

Very interesting - what's the source for this analysis?

Here are some similar thoughts (https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/learning-from-the-spanish-civil-war)comparing our current situation to that of Spain before their Civil War.


Well worth your time to read.

I got the paste from Wikipedia....it matched the research I have done reading about civilizations and the conditions that were present towards the end.....I found the constant of society becoming homogenous and even reversal of dominant roles as the loudest indicator that is present today here....at least jumps out at me....societies do not seem to survive when the natural order is disturbed almost a hardwire primordial phenomenon.

Its interesting to note like any other natural occurrence that certain patterns have consistent presence as a "sign of the times" almost as if their is a critical mass in which something genetically happens to people under these conditions.....in a primitive example overpopulation leads to resource depletion followed by starvation and de-population....resource recovery...the cycle restarts

[7624U]

Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
Dwight D. Eisenhower.

IE Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Wikipedia.

[Old Dog New Trick]

What the universe will look like when Twitter and Facebook accounts meltdown next time Apple says we have a battery problem and your older model iPhone will need to be replaced because it’s the old battery technology that’s the problem. It’s the battery stupid! This will of course affect Samsung, LG and Motorola as the batteries are all secretly made by the North Koreans in the same Tajikistan factory using lithium mined in Afghanistan.


End of the world mayhem for sure!

[Trapper John]

I got the paste from Wikipedia....it matched the research I have done reading about civilizations and the conditions that were present towards the end.....I found the constant of society becoming homogenous and even reversal of dominant roles as the loudest indicator that is present today here....at least jumps out at me....societies do not seem to survive when the natural order is disturbed almost a hardwire primordial phenomenon.

Its interesting to note like any other natural occurrence that certain patterns have consistent presence as a "sign of the times" almost as if their is a critical mass in which something genetically happens to people under these conditions.....in a primitive example overpopulation leads to resource depletion followed by starvation and de-population....resource recovery...the cycle restarts

You are exactly correct and somewhere back in my education I recall a whole science on the subject. I think it was systems biology?? IIRC ;)

[tom kelly]

Will the old white men, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden etc. continue to lead the democrat party or will the old women prevail, Senator's Warren, K Harris, take the leadership of the party. I think the younger "more attractive" newcomers like AOC, Beto O Rourke will rise to the top of the democrat party. A new billboard in Times Square "Thanking" AOC, the barmaid congresswoman for killing the Amazon NYC Hqs. Socialism at it's best? NOT HELPING ANYONE.

[WarriorDiplomat]

Will the old white men, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden etc. continue to lead the democrat party or will the old women prevail, Senator's Warren, K Harris, take the leadership of the party. I think the younger "more attractive" newcomers like AOC, Beto O Rourke will rise to the top of the democrat party. A new billboard in Times Square "Thanking" AOC, the barmaid congresswoman for killing the Amazon NYC Hqs. Socialism at it's best? NOT HELPING ANYONE.

I can't wait to see the backstabbing battle royale when they start debating each other....I have always said it the Democrats are a loose nit group of misfits who are constantly at each others throats and align themselves with whomever they can recruit into their tribe that can further their own agenda

[WarriorDiplomat]

You are exactly correct and somewhere back in my education I recall a whole science on the subject. I think it was systems biology?? IIRC ;)

It seems logical to me....their is next to nothing that nature does not eventually take over and correct...even when species go extinct the ecosystem adapts...Great Minds think alike brother

[Trapper John]

Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
Dwight D. Eisenhower.

IE Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Wikipedia.

IMHO, the larger threat is the misappropriation of scientific thought/evidence to support a specific policy agenda or social narrative, by the political elite. e.g. Margaret Sanger and eugenics. A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing! I can only imagine the nonsense AOC will come up with next purportedly supported by scientific evidence. :eek:

[Ret10Echo]

IMHO, the larger threat is the misappropriation of scientific thought/evidence to support a specific policy agenda or social narrative, by the political elite. e.g. Margaret Sanger and eugenics. A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing! I can only imagine the nonsense AOC will come up with next purportedly supported by scientific evidence. :eek:

Anybody tracking on the Sokal Hoax pulled off by Peter Boghossian ( and James Lindsay?


One paper about rape culture in dog parks (in which the writer claimed to have inspected the genitals of just under 10,000 dogs while asking their owners about their sexuality) was honoured for excellence as one of 12 exemplary pieces in feminist geography by highly ranked journal Gender, Place and Culture, which published the paper.

This was my personal favorite... and was SO close to getting published

a feminist rewriting of a partial chapter from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf – was enthusiastically accepted by feminist social work journal Affilia. The project came to a premature end when Twitter account, Real Peer Review – an account which focuses on exposing poor quality academic scholarship – drew attention to the “dog park” paper.

[Trapper John]

Anybody tracking on the Sokal Hoax pulled off by Peter Boghossian ( and James Lindsay?




This was my personal favorite... and was SO close to getting published

Wasn't aware of this. Am certainly following this now. Thanks for posting! Academia :mad:

[Peregrino]

Used to be a checklist called "Indications of an Incipient Insurgency". I think if someone were to start checking the boxes, most of them would be marked. Makes one wonder what the tipping point is.

[PSM]

Anybody tracking on the Sokal Hoax pulled off by Peter Boghossian ( and James Lindsay?




This was my personal favorite... and was SO close to getting published

And this more recently:

How three MIT students fooled the world of scientific journals
A decade later, CSAIL alumni reflect on their paper generator and reveal a new fake-conference project.

In recent years, the field of academic publishing has ballooned to an estimated 30,000 peer-reviewed journals churning out some 2 million articles per year. While this growth has led to more scientific scholarship, critics argue that it has also spurred increasing numbers of low-quality “predatory publishers” who spam researchers with weekly “calls for papers” and charge steep fees for articles that they often don’t even read before accepting.

Ten years ago, a few students at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) had noticed such unscrupulous practices, and set out to have some mischievous fun with it. Jeremy Stribling MS ’05 PhD ’09, Dan Aguayo ’01 MEng ’02 and Max Krohn PhD ’08 spent a week or two between class projects to develop “SCIgen,” a program that randomly generates nonsensical computer-science papers, complete with realistic-looking graphs, figures, and citations.

SCIgen emerged out of Krohn’s previous work as co-founder of the online study guide SparkNotes, which included a generator of high-school essays that was based on “context-free grammar.” SCIgen works like an academic “Mad Libs” of sorts, arbitrarily slotting in computer-science buzzwords like “distributed hash tables” and “Byzantine fault tolerance.”

The program was crude, but it did the trick: In April of 2005 the team’s submission, “Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy,” was accepted as a non-reviewed paper to the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), a conference that Krohn says is known for “being spammy and having loose standards.”

When the researchers revealed their hoax, calls started coming in from the likes of The Boston Globe, CNN, and the BBC. Stribling’s phone was ringing off the hook thanks to his name being listed first on the paper. (“Randomly listed first,” he adds proudly.)

In the wake of the international media attention, WMSCI withdrew the team’s invitation to attend. Not to be deterred, the students raised $2,500 to travel to Orlando, Florida, where they rented out a room inside the conference space to hold their own “session” of randomly-generated talks, outfitted with fake names, fake business cards, and fake moustaches.

At the time the stunt may have seemed like nothing more than a silly “gotcha” moment in the tradition of the “Sokal affair,” in which an NYU physicist wrote a nonsense paper that was accepted by a journal of postmodern cultural studies. But SCIgen has actually had a surprisingly substantial impact, with many researchers using it to expose conferences with low submission standards. The team’s antics spurred the the world’s largest organization of technical professionals, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), to pull its sponsorship of WMSCI; in 2013 IEEE and Springer Publishing removed more than 120 papers from their sites after a French researcher’s analysis determined that they were generated via SCIgen. (Just a few weeks ago Springer announced the release of “SciDetect,” an open-source tool that can automatically detect SCIgen papers.)

The trio of CSAIL alumni have since moved on to other things: Aguayo is a technical lead at Meraki; Krohn, who co-founded both SparkNotes and the dating site OKCupid, now runs Keybase, a startup aimed at making cryptography more accessible; and Stribling had stints at IBM, Google, and Nicira before joining Krohn’s team at Keybase this month.

But even a decade later, the team’s creation improbably lives on. Stribling says the generator still gets 600,000 annual pageviews that manage to crash their CSAIL research site every few months. The creators continue to get regular emails from computer science students proudly linking to papers they’ve snuck into conferences, as well as notes from researchers urging them to make versions for other disciplines.

“Our initial intention was simply to get back at these people who were spamming us and to maybe make people more cognizant of these practices,” says Stribling, before deadpanning: “We accomplished our goal way better than we expected to.”

SCIpher

For the 10-year anniversary, the team reconvened for a project that’s once again aimed at predatory publishers.

“SCIpher” lets you hide secret messages inside randomly-generated calls for papers (CFPs) that appear to be coming from (fictional) conferences with names like “the LYGNY Symposium on relational, software-defined technology.”
Entering a secret message into SCIpher create text for a ready-to-send CFP that the CFP’s recipient can throw back into the generator to recover the original message.

Stribling says he views SCIpher as a cheeky way to trade secrets — not to mention, to poke fun at conferences’ ridiculous, jargon-filled names.

“We combined almost-pronounceable acronyms with random buzzwords cribbed from the SCIgen grammar to evoke the kind of niche specialization that results from thousands of concurrent conferences clamoring for authors,” says Stribling. “Plus, while an encrypted email would be a big red flag for some investigators, in our experience when you send out a call for papers, it's very unlikely that anyone will read it.”

Oh, those scamps at MIT. :D

[Box]

There was a Masters Thesis from NPS that discussed an modern day insurgency in the USA.
https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/5739

...it could NEVER happen to us - we are too 'connected'


AmIrite?

[WarriorDiplomat]

There was a Masters Thesis from NPS that discussed an modern day insurgency in the USA.
https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/5739

...it could NEVER happen to us - we are too 'connected'


AmIrite?

Our 2 year election cycles does release pressure as insurgencies gain momentum....and we can peacefully take over.....but anyone that thinks we are immune are not paying attention....the long game has been going hundreds of years.....the real traction was gained during civil rights....and today the radical outcasts have seized our education systems and have nearly seized the government. This is counterinsurgency and this brings me back to Roger Stones deep state map and those who are seemingly unaware that their is a higher concentration of LGB...T? within the CIA/FBI ranks and the methods being used are as pointed out straight out doctrinal....no doubt their are influencers advising others on organizational power and messaging...smells of some Gene Sharp methodology

[Trapper John]

Our 2 year election cycles does release pressure as insurgencies gain momentum....and we can peacefully take over.....but anyone that thinks we are immune are not paying attention....the long game has been going hundreds of years.....the real traction was gained during civil rights....and today the radical outcasts have seized our education systems and have nearly seized the government. This is counterinsurgency and this brings me back to Roger Stones deep state map and those who are seemingly unaware that their is a higher concentration of LGB...T? within the CIA/FBI ranks and the methods being used are as pointed out straight out doctrinal....no doubt their are influencers advising others on organizational power and messaging...smells of some Gene Sharp methodology

Just skimmed Sauers Thesis. Looks like an interesting read and worthy of a deep dive. Insurgency has been operating for the last 25 years at least. Formulating thoughts on countermeasures that can be employed. Will post some thoughts after I digest this. Eager to read the thoughts of others in this thread. :lifter

[7624U]

Formulating thoughts on countermeasures that can be employed. Will post some thoughts after I digest this. Eager to read the thoughts of others in this thread. :lifter


Take a kid shooting or hunting..

encourage people to put down the phone and unplug from data saturation.
(think for them self's not what is trending)

for starters.

[Trapper John]

Take a kid shooting or hunting..

encourage people to put down the phone and unplug from data saturation.
(think for them self's not what is trending)

for starters.

Excellent point and something we all can and should do!:D

[Trapper John]

“IMAGINING THE IMPOSSIBLE: INSURGENCY IN THE U.S.A.” by Eric F. Sauer Major, United States Army is a very interesting read and I highly recommend doing so. In my opinion, if Major Sauer were to write this today, eight years later, the title would not include “imagining the impossible” and would be more of a discussion of the nature and critical factors that characterize the current insurrection.

The factors that existed at the time this was written [2011] were largely mitigated by the election of Donald Trump in 2016. With that thought in mind, Sauer’s thesis can be viewed as a treatise on the societal consequences of the 2016 election.

IMHO, we are engaged in a culture war/ideological war with the dominant modality being that as described and promoted by the likes of Gene Sharp. Unfortunately the insurgents have a 75 year head start on the rest of us and have already co-opted academia including primary secondary and higher educational institutions, not to mention the media, federal bureaucracy, and judiciary.

The election of Donald Trump has at least shaped the battlefield in a manner such that we can fight back.

So my question to all of you is what are the critical factors and critical points that we need to focus on in order to preserve our liberty?

[WarriorDiplomat]

“IMAGINING THE IMPOSSIBLE: INSURGENCY IN THE U.S.A.” by Eric F. Sauer Major, United States Army is a very interesting read and I highly recommend doing so. In my opinion, if Major Sauer were to write this today, eight years later, the title would not include “imagining the impossible” and would be more of a discussion of the nature and critical factors that characterize the current insurrection.

The factors that existed at the time this was written [2011] were largely mitigated by the election of Donald Trump in 2016. With that thought in mind, Sauer’s thesis can be viewed as a treatise on the societal consequences of the 2016 election.

IMHO, we are engaged in a culture war/ideological war with the dominant modality being that as described and promoted by the likes of Gene Sharp. Unfortunately the insurgents have a 75 year head start on the rest of us and have already co-opted academia including primary secondary and higher educational institutions, not to mention the media, federal bureaucracy, and judiciary.

The election of Donald Trump has at least shaped the battlefield in a manner such that we can fight back.

So my question to all of you is what are the critical factors and critical points that we need to focus on in order to preserve our liberty?

Reclaim the public education system from radicals and eliminate tenure and the teachers union...if we do not we are lost by the next generation whom will be the LEO's, military etc....I argue that information nd ideology has become the new education

Make law that governs news as news and partisan opinion networks must identify its agenda...no infringement on free speech...also legal recourse and punishment for a news network to publish partial truths out of context lying to the public masquerading as fact followed by partisan opinion should be punishable and considered a call to actio and not free speech

[Trapper John]

Reclaim the public education system from radicals and eliminate tenure and the teachers union...if we do not we are lost by the next generation whom will be the LEO's, military etc....I argue that information nd ideology has become the new education

Make law that governs news as news and partisan opinion networks must identify its agenda...no infringement on free speech...also legal recourse and punishment for a news network to publish partial truths out of context lying to the public masquerading as fact followed by partisan opinion should be punishable and considered a call to actio and not free speech

Well, I think you just handed ammunition to the insurgents.:eek:

As a rule of thumb, any action that requires construction of new law probably should be rethought especially if it limits the liberty of any group. Let's focus our efforts on dismantling the infrastructure that supports the insurgents. Congressional term limits and repeal of the 17th Amendment would be two actionable items toward that end IMO.

[mark46th]

The most important thing Trump has done is ensuring the Supreme Court has remained conservative. It is imperative that we vote Trump in as President again in 2020. He will be nominating at least one, maybe two more Supreme Court justices.

[Trapper John]

The most important action is the prosecution of senior DOJ/FBI officials for their abuse of power. Sending these people to jail for their criminal acts will send a very important message to the other insurgents. IMO their actions constitute the single greatest threat to our Republic since the Civil War!

[Old Dog New Trick]

The most important thing Trump has done is ensuring the Supreme Court has remained conservative. It is imperative that we vote Trump in as President again in 2020. He will be nominating at least one, maybe two more Supreme Court justices.

^^^this^^^as well as the lower federal courts and appeals courts. The balance of power in the courts shifted left far too much over the years. Also, the Ninth Circuit jurisdiction needs to be broken up and redefined or the creation of yet another Circuit Court of Appeals established to more align with the population. If the Supreme Court has to decide every small detail of our lives and involve itself in States matters as much as it has been lately then perhaps abolishing the lower courts altogether is a step forward.

It would also be good for the country to clean house and abolish unnecessary, duplicat, and unenforceable laws on the books and streamline the USC to bring it inline with not only the 21 century but to simplify its Constitutional bearing. There have become too many knee jerk restrictive laws decided by “opinion” and “feel good politics” and not “facts” that are unconstitutional on face value.

We are either a Constitutional Republic or we are not. Popular opinion about the definition of “democracy” and democratic principles have nothing whatsoever to do with the Democratic or Republican parties and if your civics class failed to teach that then you shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

[WarriorDiplomat]

Well, I think you just handed ammunition to the insurgents.:eek:

As a rule of thumb, any action that requires construction of new law probably should be rethought especially if it limits the liberty of any group. Let's focus our efforts on dismantling the infrastructure that supports the insurgents. Congressional term limits and repeal of the 17th Amendment would be two actionable items toward that end IMO.

There are already laws in the books that do that libel, slander, calls to action and hate speech is non its way all from the insurgents

But since that has not worked then as someone else stated clean out the DOJ it should be punishable to operate under an ideology other than the law and promote partisanship

We cannot rule out the impact the PSYOP's misinformation and deception of the left is having

[TOMAHAWK9521]

Well, the commie sh*t bags are crawling out from under the rocks, throwing off the masks and telegraphing their agenda. I wonder if they can fathom the level trouble they're screaming for. Historically, teachers are usually the first casualties of whatever twisted branch of the socialist tree that falls on a country. I hate to say it but it could still happen but not for the reasons one might expect. The tree might find itself not only get hacked down to a stump, but the roots ripped up from the ground as well and the whole thing burned to ash.

The country would be better off, though.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/28/redfored-leader-in-marxist-magazine-teachers-must-embrace-community-organizing/

[7624U]

The tree might find itself not only get hacked down to a stump, but the roots ripped up from the ground as well and the whole thing burned to ash.


IMO the Socialist fruits have ripened and are bending the tree branches to the ground, The problem is here in America no one wants to pick and eat this fruit so they will fall on the ground and disappear as fertilizer just like the Tea Party did.

Congress could hack it down to the stump but they need the tree so they can sit in it or climb to the top to throw things at all of us. (picture ape at the zoo throwing crap at bystanders)

[Hand]

Make law that governs news as news and partisan opinion networks must identify its agenda...no infringement on free speech...also legal recourse and punishment for a news network to publish partial truths out of context lying to the public masquerading as fact followed by partisan opinion should be punishable and considered a call to actio and not free speech

Alternatively, we can teach our children that the only difference between a newspaper and a trashy tabloid is the target audience.

[WarriorDiplomat]

Alternatively, we can teach our children that the only difference between a newspaper and a trashy tabloid is the target audience.

I think most Patriots do that now....be your child's hero and someone to respect and they will follow your politics out of trust and eventually out of understanding

The issue with children these days is the influence of the education system and the manipulation of educators through means such as peer pressure, psychology and well crafted curriculum that is difficult to compete with....we can teach our children but it takes effort to show them through example what is right and wrong...the education system, Entertainment is slanted towards liberal left in every visual, subliminal, storyline way as possible. modern pop music is an onslaught on decent values....the crazy radical activist hippies of the 60's that were social misfits have gained control of nearly every facet of societies structure....the radicals are the major influencers of our children. They are crazy but they understand how to make it happen...they have targeted the youth and lobby for more and more legitimacy of a developing child's opinion....they also know the science behind brain development and when a young person generally gains full control of their executive function of the brain in their mid twenties when the impulsive over reactions start to fade and maturity sets in.....that precious time between 18-25 the age of irrationality is who they are co opting to get their message and agendas pushed through.....before they are wise enough to grasp the impact it will have on them

[Sohei]

The *world* gets to have more time with our kids than we - the parents - do. That's why parents' involvement in their children's lives is so important. We are their foundation and we have to make sure it's built strongly or the opposing forces will erode it. That's one of the reasons I spend as much time mentoring kids as I can. I take my fight against the *world's influence* in our kids lives seriously.

[cat in the hat]

"that precious time between 18-25 the age of irrationality is who they are co opting to get their message and agendas pushed through"

It is also the time when they are offered the world NOW with payments differed to another time. (Credit cards, college loans, adjustable rate mortgage,....insert other too good to true offer here)

When payment comes due, too many have learned (erroneously ) "it's not your fault, you were taken advantage of by the system"

[GratefulCitizen]

"that precious time between 18-25 the age of irrationality is who they are co opting to get their message and agendas pushed through"

It is also the time when they are offered the world NOW with payments differed to another time. (Credit cards, college loans, adjustable rate mortgage,....insert other too good to true offer here)

When payment comes due, too many have learned (erroneously ) "it's not your fault, you were taken advantage of by the system"

Student loan forgiveness is coming on a massive scale.
Due to this and other factors (like worthless majors with no return on investment) the higher education bubble will pop.

[WarriorDiplomat]

Student loan forgiveness is coming on a massive scale.
Due to this and other factors (like worthless majors with no return on investment) the higher education bubble will pop.

We do not need that many Philosophy and Social Science majors we need craftsman, Vocational technical training actual trade schools someone with an MBA, History degree etc....isn't bring anything to the table that experience does not teach....you can read basket weaving, philosophy etc...in your own time in the library useless degrees are exactly these they don't benefit society they don't build anything they do not understand the tangible world as most of us do like what survival and success looks like in real life the life we all experience.....god knows we don't need delusions of higher education we need producers, skilled workers etc....the machine needs replacement parts.....not shade tree quarterback kids and those who can't do that teach wrecking the success of entrepreneurship and hard work....there are very few jobs that actually require more than trade school training....How do we get people to quit praying to the higher education gods as being something they are not

[cbtengr]

I think this pretty much sums things up regarding the trades.

35640

[GratefulCitizen]

We do not need that many Philosophy and Social Science majors we need craftsman, Vocational technical training actual trade schools someone with an MBA, History degree etc....isn't bring anything to the table that experience does not teach....you can read basket weaving, philosophy etc...in your own time in the library useless degrees are exactly these they don't benefit society they don't build anything they do not understand the tangible world as most of us do like what survival and success looks like in real life the life we all experience.....god knows we don't need delusions of higher education we need producers, skilled workers etc....the machine needs replacement parts.....not shade tree quarterback kids and those who can't do that teach wrecking the success of entrepreneurship and hard work....there are very few jobs that actually require more than trade school training....How do we get people to quit praying to the higher education gods as being something they are not

IQ tests are illegal for civilian employers to use in the US.
For a time, a college degree was an effective proxy.

Admission standards have lowered, so this is no longer effective.
Now, employers tend only to value degrees for STEM majors, because those are the only ones left that are effective proxies for IQ tests.

Many didn't understand that a degree itself wasn't the golden ticket.
So, easy majors were an easy sale to the naive, and a bubble was created.

The combination of feminism and excessive student loans largely contributed to the inflation of this bubble.
Not politically correct to say it, but the majority of worthless degrees and student debt (especially relative to income) is held by women.

This gender disparity (the debt gap) will increase.
Eventually, a clever politician will push for student loan forgiveness to secure the women's vote.

The earners will be stuck with the bill.

[GratefulCitizen]

I think this pretty much sums things up regarding the trades.

35640

Oddly enough, philosophy majors tend to be quite intelligent.
Only about one-half of one percent of bachelor degrees awarded are majors in philosophy.

https://thetab.com/us/2017/04/10/which-major-has-highest-iq-64811

[Pericles]

Oddly enough, philosophy majors tend to be quite intelligent.
Only about one-half of one percent of bachelor degrees awarded are majors in philosophy.

https://thetab.com/us/2017/04/10/which-major-has-highest-iq-64811

In the old days (before 2000) a good Philosophy program turned out a disciplined thinker. I could go quite easily from symbolic logic (a Philosophy discipline) to FORTRAN programming and systems analysis. Today's product seems to have difficulty placing a thought in a sentence.

[SF_BHT]

Student loan forgiveness is coming on a massive scale.
Due to this and other factors (like worthless majors with no return on investment) the higher education bubble will pop.

Well if they do it we need to request Student Loan Reparations so we can recoup our money that we should not have had to spend. :eek:

[PSM]

Admission standards have lowered, so this is no longer effective.

My father-in-law and his sister endowed a scholarship at Redlands University, in CA, and I read one of the essays written by one of the female recipients. My 7th grade English teacher would have failed her. Even my FiL and his sister agreed that it was incomprehensible but did nothing to ensure that the money would be better spent in the future.

[TOMAHAWK9521]

We do not need that many Philosophy and Social Science majors we need craftsman, Vocational technical training actual trade schools someone with an MBA, History degree etc....isn't bring anything to the table that experience does not teach....you can read basket weaving, philosophy etc...in your own time in the library useless degrees are exactly these they don't benefit society they don't build anything they do not understand the tangible world as most of us do like what survival and success looks like in real life the life we all experience.....god knows we don't need delusions of higher education we need producers, skilled workers etc....the machine needs replacement parts.....not shade tree quarterback kids and those who can't do that teach wrecking the success of entrepreneurship and hard work....there are very few jobs that actually require more than trade school training....How do we get people to quit praying to the higher education gods as being something they are not

I recall about 6-7 years ago when the oil fields in the Dakotas were taking off and laid-off white-collar workers from very comfortable parts of the country were packing up everything and moving up to the badlands for manual labor jobs. The work wasn't pretty but the new workers were able to land very good paying jobs and be able to afford a home for their families. The funny part about all that was when the academia and political elite went apoplectic upon discovering many of those new oil company employees were high school graduates who went immediately into the workforce and were happy with their jobs because they were banking 6-figures, buying homes, leading productive lives, and not one bit of that time, money and energy was wasted on college. :D

I have one full BS degree in Outdoor Rec and Tourism from CSU. Having worked for a professional outfitter in the Colorado Rockies, I had planned on becoming a professional mountain guide and run my own operation. Unfortunately, by the time I realized the classwork proved to be more subjective BS than actual science, I was a starving college student and too far along to shift gears. I was also pretty much the anti-christ to most of my classmates and several of my professors. I got along better with the wildlife/fisheries and forestry students. Had I known ahead of time that wildlife and forestry degrees were more in line with my goal, I would opted for either one.

As for other higher learning, I have 3 out of 4 years in Industrial Design but knew I would never complete the program because I had no intention of being someone's intern bitch or working and designing stuff for someone else's benefit. Ironically, I opted to go back overseas and provide direct material support to ODAs via rapid fabrication, but everything we developed was immediately tagged as Lockheed's IP. As much as that annoyed me, it was still a fantastic job and it really helped me focus on how to start setting up my own operation.

I'd like to set up my own custom fab shop and eventually bring in other willing and able veterans who either need to learn a trade or craft or improve on the skills they already possess. It's ambitious, to say the least, but I believe there needs to be an alternative to college, especially for veterans. And any "lesbian philosophical basket weaving" or "Interpretive Harry Potter Studies" degree graduates can go play Hide-and-Go-F*ck-Yourself". I'm sure Starbucks or McDonalds could use the bodies.

[7624U]

Here is another sign. This emotional support shit on planes getting out of hand.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/family-files-lawsuit-emotional-support-020548123.html

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-ada-fake-service-animals-guide-dog-edit-jm-20150116-story.html

[Badger52]

I think this pretty much sums things up regarding the trades.

35640Made my day!
:cool:

[WarriorDiplomat]

As for other higher learning, I have 3 out of 4 years in Industrial Design but knew I would never complete the program because I had no intention of being someone's intern bitch or working and designing stuff for someone else's benefit. Ironically, I opted to go back overseas and provide direct material support to ODAs via rapid fabrication, but everything we developed was immediately tagged as Lockheed's IP. As much as that annoyed me, it was still a fantastic job and it really helped me focus on how to start setting up my own operation.

BINGO People lose sight of what many degrees are for...white collar vs blue collar essentially an MBA or any other degree is training to work for an entrepreneur with less chances of getting dirty and hopefully more pay...kind of like really expensive trade schools IMO

I'd like to set up my own custom fab shop and eventually bring in other willing and able veterans who either need to learn a trade or craft or improve on the skills they already possess. It's ambitious, to say the least, but I believe there needs to be an alternative to college, especially for veterans. I'm sure Starbucks or McDonalds could use the bodies And any "lesbian philosophical basket weaving" or "Interpretive Harry Potter Studies" degree graduates can go play Hide-and-Go-F*ck-Yourself"..

That is exactly the point about education these days....a Bachelors or a Masters should never replace the experience and knowledge of real life experience, natural intelligence and aptitude...it can't I have seen too many idiots with degrees whom perhaps are great in a school setting incapable in real life here in SF even we have them as well:confused: that are not even gifted enough intellectually to compete for the armorer gig....but as you know the Army has given up its thinking caps and they too place a premium on formal education instead of ability.

College at one time was for the intellectual elite the driven....today its for everyone so why are we not treading lighter on degree over ability? especially now that we see the products coming out of these institutions with little to no valuable skill, no enhanced intellect, no enlightenment on practical things that effect our lives? they have come out delusions of grandeur and a fanatical belief that we are all wrong and the radicals have it right

Obviously their are trades that require the highest level of education as science advances such as scientist, physicians, Lawyers, Engineers etc.....but most of these degrees seem to be just a way to get substandard minds into the higher institutions of indoctrination...to create soldiers for the radical agenda.

[Penn]

“what are the critical factors and critical points that we need to focus on in order to preserve our liberty?
They have already co-opted academia including primary secondary and higher educational institutions”.

But this is their achilles heal.

From the perspective of societal conformity, everything in the social construct on every level, is specified, regulated, has rules, structure, measurement, and standards. Everything except education. The argument of Candice Owens is expectation and delivery of promises, have never been met. What would radically impact the marginalization process that the PL employs to undermine this democracy, is directly confronting that salient point. (Standards)

Malcom X once rattled the black population by telling them they been “Hoodwinked”. Though he was referring to a specific event, there is little doubt, his awareness innately understood the greatest political lie, the care of all, from the control of a few. Many here have witnessed, while deployed, the very real denial of education and its sociocultural effects.

Denial = Control

Access to education has been a social policy concern since the early 1950’s and is the foundational argument of the civil rights movement, Plessey vs Ferguson, separate but equal, (1899) leading to, Brown vs the B. of Education, (1954).
But, that ongoing struggle for access is a straw argument.

Access to education is used by the radically progressive left as a recruiting tool to those few, who created, or capitalized on the limited resources to excel in that social educational system. Studies have Indicated contributing factors, such as a strong family and involvement, economic stability, Usually mentored, charter schools, over one that does not have standards and by all accounts, has failed.

“Sociocultural conditions include the dominant views of what and how teachers should teach in a given school setting. These views are informed by ideologies, values, and orientations held by leaders and administration. Also includes beliefs about knowledge and culture, particularly prior knowledge and cultural practices of historically marginalized groups. These conditions also include Basil Bernstein’s theory of classification and framing, the former of which involves practices of boundary maintenance between official and non-dominant knowledge, and the latter involves control of how knowledge is presented and shared (i.e., pacing, sequence, selection of content).” 2018

Understanding “of how knowledge is presented and shared (i.e., pacing, sequence, selection of content)” is control. 2018 E.g., Tailban, enforces with extreme violence, the educational control of women. Their greatest threat, questionable at best? To not do so, the fabric of the sociocultural structure of their society, unravels.

In the same sense, the sociocultural educational structure of our society, employs the same “control of how knowledge is presented and shared (i.e., pacing, sequence, selection of content).” 2018

This is mission one (1) for the socialist democratic agenda. Content distribution.

Candice Owens in all her interviews, which I’ve listen to, talk of leaving the plantation, but they, and no one, addresses the process that perpetuates this failed system, or, what methods are employed to maintain the false argument of oppression by others, while intergroup domination controls content and distribution.

Standards in education create an equal opportunity for success, dependent, of course, upon DNA and ecological conditions. The Achilles Heel for the Social Progressive is exposing that, the correlation: the Taliban is no different than the social control of education by the Democrats, the control of information, enslaves. that is the conversation. Attacking the paradox of words, money, and reform to a system that is designed to educated/present enough reason to conform, but not enough to reason.

The argument presented by the left, breaks in the simplistic terms of race.

Standards are racist, therefore, likeness equals understanding and support. We are against racism. The standards that are asked to be met are not part and parcel, to this/our sociocultural experience is the reply, the action is Identity Politics. Hence, they are racist by design. That’s the progressive’s public foundational argument. When in fact, Race is a social construct, not a biological imperative. (2005)
The political conversation is always about a failed system, money, and promises. and, if the education system where to meet educational standards, it would lift the vail of ignorance undermine the control over it.


That argument fails. Its rooted in response to the charge of racism. This neutralizing the corrective action and marginalizing the parties. Attacking the results of decades of institutional control, through policy change, is a non starter. The progressive left controls all the graduate social policy schools leading to Ph.d,.

The conflict today originates from the writings of John Rawls, whose concept of distributive justice, or original position, posit that what was best for the least member of society would be the measure what was good for all, which lead to his social justice theory.

https://homepage.univie.ac.at/herbert.preiss/files/Habermas_Remarks_on_John_Rawls.pdf

http://tupc.pbworks.com/f/Rawls_Lectures_Introduction.pdf

https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/ylr111&div=20&id=&page=

Rawls moral philosophy employs deontological ethics. deontology (from Greek δέον, deon, "obligation, duty") is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather is based on the consequences of the action. (wiki)

Process is justified by outcome, not moral consideration, but moral to end state.

They need not regard matters from the moral point of view which would require them to take account of what is in the equal interest of all, for this impartiality is exacted by a situation that throws a veil of ignorance over the mutually disinterested, though free and equal parties. Because the latter do not know which positions, they will occupy in the society that it is their task to order, they find themselves constrained already by their self-interest to reflect on what is equally good for all. This construction of an original position that flames the freedom of choice of rational actors in a reasonable fashion is explained by Rawls's initial intention of representing the theory of justice as part of the general theory of choice.

“reversal of dominant roles as the loudest indicator that is present today here....at least jumps out at me....societies do not seem to survive when the natural order is disturbed almost a hardwire primordial phenomenon”.
AOC & Co, replaces the democratic leadership and its their, the new democratic socialist duty, deontologically, to do so, method and consequences be dammed.

Claiming no expertise in COIN, one position that is worthy of consideration is the distribution of Rawls theory as a tool of enslavement by the progressive left, rather than one rooted in egalitarianism, that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities. (2002) Which we all agree is utopian and desirable, however unrealistic as we are, by nature, selfish primates.

The socialist progressive left use of “veil of ignorance over the mutually disinterested, who are educated just enough to mimic understanding and “though free and equal parties” Vote, Because the latter do not know which positions,(uncertainty) they will occupy in the society that it is their task to order, they find themselves constrained already by their self-interest to reflect on what is equally good for all.”

Exposing the manipulation of a failed educational system to promote generation after generation of uninformed, mutually supportive, programed drones, that have been hoodwinked, lifts the vail of ignorance, and forces the argument to the table, needs to be presented not from a political party perspective but through a Tom Paine(ish) community activist level. A ground truth level.



their is a critical mass in which something genetically happens to people under these conditions.....in a primitive example overpopulation leads to resource depletion followed by starvation and de-population....resource recovery...the cycle restarts

1. Journal of Transformative Leadership and Policy Studies - Vol. 7 No. 1, May 2018 Teachers of Color and Urban Charter Schools: Race, School Culture, and Teacher Turnover in the Charter Sector Terrenda White, PhD
2. Race as Biology Is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem Is Real Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction of Race Audrey Smedley Virginia Commonwealth University
Brian D. Smedley Institute of Medicine 2005
3. Egalitarianism against the Veil of Ignorance John E. Roemer The Journal of Philosophy Vol. 99, No. 4 (Apr., 2002), pp. 167-184

[cat in the hat]

The idea of student loan repayment is as annoying to me as any other "reparations".
Something that would potentially fix the issue for future students is to allow bankruptcy to cancel student loans (NOT RETROACTIVE). Banks would quit granting loans to people with majors in soft studies meaning a low probability of repayment.
Once the pool of candidates dries up most of those silly departments fade away. (Lgbt/Women's studies, basket weaving etc...)
I will say that Logic and Critical thinking (philosophy dept) was a great class and useful knowledge when applied, eg.. determine the validity of an argument, avoiding fallacies while arguing etc...

[Trapper John]

But this is their achilles heal. ......... entire post]






:lifter Thank you

Finest kind post. ;)

[Penn]

Source JSTOR

Veil Of Ignorance
The "veil of ignorance", along with the original position, is a method of determining the morality of a certain issue (e.g., slavery) based upon the following thought experiment: parties to the original position know nothing about the particular abilities, tastes, and positions individuals will have within a social order. When such parties are selecting the principles for distribution of rights, positions, and resources in the society in which they will live, the veil of ignorance prevents them from knowing who will receive a given distribution of rights, positions, and resources in that society. For example, for a proposed society in which 50% of the population is kept in slavery, it follows that on entering the new society there is a 50% likelihood that the participant would be a slave. The idea is that parties subject to the veil of ignorance will make choices based upon moral considerations, since they will not be able to make choices based on self- or class-interest. As John Rawls put it, "no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like." The idea of the thought experiment is to render obsolete those personal considerations that are morally irrelevant to the justice or injustice of principles meant to allocate the benefits of social cooperation. The veil of ignorance is part of a long tradition of thinking in terms of a social contract. The writings of Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson offer examples of this tradition

Distributive Justice
Distributive justice concerns the nature of a socially just allocation of goods in a society. A society in which incidental inequalities in outcome do not arise would be considered a society guided by the principles of distributive justice. The concept includes the available quantities of goods, the process by which goods are to be distributed, and the resulting allocation of the goods to the members of the society. Often contrasted with just process, which is concerned with the administration of law, distributive justice concentrates on outcomes. This subject has been given considerable attention in philosophy and the social sciences. In social psychology, distributive justice is defined as perceived fairness of how rewards and costs are shared by (distributed across) group members. For example, when workers of the same job are paid different salaries, group members may feel that distributive justice has not occurred. To determine whether distributive justice has taken place, individuals often turn to the distributive norms of their group. A norm is the standard of behaviour that is required, desired, or designated as normal within a particular group. If rewards and costs are allocated according to the designated distributive norms of the group, distributive justice has occurred.

Utilitarianism
(This article discusses utilitarian ethical theory. For a discussion of John Stuart Mill's book Utilitarianism, see Utilitarianism (book). For the architectural theory, see Utilitarianism (architecture)) Utilitarianism is a theory about what we ought to do. It states that the best action is the one that maximizes utility. "Utility" is defined in various ways, usually in terms of the well-being of sentient entities, such as human beings and other animals. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, gave this definition of "utility": it is the sum of all pleasure that results from an action, minus the suffering of anyone involved in the action. The philosopher John Stuart Mill developed this concept further. He included not only the quantity of the pleasure, but also the quality of pleasure. He focused on rules, instead of individual actions. Others have proposed a theory called "negative utilitarianism." They define utility only in terms of suffering. Utilitarianism is a version of what Elizabeth Anscombe called "consequentialism". Consequentialism states that the consequences of any action are the only standard of right and wrong. Contrast this view with virtue ethics, which enshrines virtue as a moral good. Some believe that one's intentions are also ethically important. Unlike other forms of consequentialism, such as egoism, utilitarianism considers all interests equally. Proponents of utilitarianism have disagreed on a number of points. Should individual acts should conform to utility (act utilitarianism)? Or, should agents conform to ethical rules (rule utilitarianism)? Should utility should be calculated as an aggregate (total utilitarianism) or as an average (average utilitarianism)? Though the seeds of the theory can be found in the hedonists Aristippus and Epicurus, who viewed happiness as the only good, the tradition of utilitarianism properly begins with Bentham, and has included John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, R. M. Hare and Peter Singer. It has been applied the suffering of non-human animals, and the ethics of raising animals for food. Opponents of utilitarianism have raised a number of objections. Some say that utilitarianism ignores justice. Others call it impractical. Specific criticisms have included the mere addition paradox and the utility monster.

[Badger52]

I will say that Logic and Critical thinking (philosophy dept) was a great class and useful knowledge when applied, eg.. determine the validity of an argument, avoiding fallacies while arguing etc...Curious; how recent is your exposure to that approach? Freshmen grand-daughter & I were discussing something in Aristotle's Rhetoric, and it comes merely 2 paragraphs in...

The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case.He clearly recognized this as an approach/tactic, when facts are inconvenient, more than a few days ago. This certainly seems to me an approach that much of political debate now embraces, but it seems (to the advantage of the presenter, usually the leftist) that many (on the right) have lost the discernment, or will, to insist on fact to back up the emotion-based argument.

It's like the 2nd side of that coin isn't getting emphasized unless one is as sharp as my grand-daughter already. Arguments are nowadays couched in "what are you going to believe, the facts, or my over-the-top emotional sincerity?" Then, too, especially for young people, there is the challenge in a huge university system to veer toward emotion-based group-think, going along to get along. All that does is fertilize eggs to continue growing the problem.

[cat in the hat]

The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case.

I see this violated many time every day even on this site.

For instance, I do not beleive that having served in the military automatically makes someones opinion on anything other than military matters more or less valid. ie. Expertise in one field does not necessarily transfer to another.

There are many other logical fallacies that people slip in to their arguments especially when they are speaking to people who already agree with them. Once emotions get stirred up, reason loses out to fear or pride.

Of course name calling can be effective. Get someone upset and they will not think as clearly and sometime violence IS the answer. But once an opponent throws out the red herring, straw man, appeal to emotion, argument ad hominem or begging the question, I usually lose interest in their arguments.

[Penn]

Of course name calling can be effective. Get someone upset and they will not think as clearly and sometime violence IS the answer. But once an opponent throws out the red herring, straw man, appeal to emotion, argument ad hominem or begging the question, I usually lose interest in their arguments.

Nice passive aggressive position, so what calls you to action Mr. cool Breeze?

[Flagg]

The idea of student loan repayment is as annoying to me as any other "reparations".
Something that would potentially fix the issue for future students is to allow bankruptcy to cancel student loans (NOT RETROACTIVE). Banks would quit granting loans to people with majors in soft studies meaning a low probability of repayment.
Once the pool of candidates dries up most of those silly departments fade away. (Lgbt/Women's studies, basket weaving etc...)
I will say that Logic and Critical thinking (philosophy dept) was a great class and useful knowledge when applied, eg.. determine the validity of an argument, avoiding fallacies while arguing etc...

I agree 100% and have been advocating to young people to avoid excess student debt and focus on high ROI degree programs.

Unfortunately, there are far too many high paying fake white collar jobs that will be destroyed in doing so.

My guess is that the online education platforms will begin to eliminate the poor, then mediocre, then “good” colleges and universities from the bottom up pedigree wise.

Only the mega brand name schools are assured of survival in some shape or form, but even they have to adapt or die.

[cat in the hat]

Nice passive aggressive position, so what calls you to action Mr. cool Breeze?

Certainly not anyone who leads off with a red herring, straw man and an ad hominem attack.

[Penn]

Certainly not anyone who leads off with a red herring, straw man and an ad hominem attack.

Touche", Sir.

[Badger52]

The idea of student loan repayment is as annoying to me as any other "reparations".
Something that would potentially fix the issue for future students is to allow bankruptcy to cancel student loans (NOT RETROACTIVE). Banks would quit granting loans to people with majors in soft studies meaning a low probability of repayment.
Once the pool of candidates dries up most of those silly departments fade away. (Lgbt/Women's studies, basket weaving etc...)Couple quick questions, as I'm not grasping something here:

1. 1st sentence: Annoying in what way? There should be repayment, or the notion of repayment is distasteful?

2. In the bankruptcy consideration, how does bankruptcy work now? (Truly don't know, never done it, never carried student-loan debt.)
Do you think the financial community has the stones to say "you're majoring in Trans-National Gender Studies? Poor risk-Disapproved" vs. "you're majoring in Industrial Engineering? Good risk-Approved" ?
(As an aside, we already know that financial institutions are allowed to favor/hate groups & views that align with the CEO's wishes. That's how the lenders, payment processing firms and Visa & Mastercard are allowed to wreak their hate on firearms-related businesses, especially small individually-owned ones.)

[Old Dog New Trick]

What is old is now new again! (flashback)

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's s time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

(Buffalo Springfield/Stephen Stills - December 5, 1966)

[cat in the hat]

Couple quick questions, as I'm not grasping something here:

1. 1st sentence: Annoying in what way? There should be repayment, or the notion of repayment is distasteful?

2. In the bankruptcy consideration, how does bankruptcy work now? (Truly don't know, never done it, never carried student-loan debt.)
Do you think the financial community has the stones to say "you're majoring in Trans-National Gender Studies? Poor risk-Disapproved" vs. "you're majoring in Industrial Engineering? Good risk-Approved" ?
(As an aside, we already know that financial institutions are allowed to favor/hate groups & views that align with the CEO's wishes. That's how the lenders, payment processing firms and Visa & Mastercard are allowed to wreak their hate on firearms-related businesses, especially small individually-owned ones.)

I meant that I can see SJW's attempting to tie the idea of student loan repayment to "reparations" to other groups, primarily anyone desended from former slaves. People under massive student loan are trying to portray themselves as "victims of a banking system that our government has allowed to take advantage of them"


I find the whole idea of our government giving away money for real or imagined injustices to be wrong on any level. SJW types (and those who rely upon their support) generally use emotional based arguments (guilt, fear, fairness) to argue for reperations/repayment.

Currently, when a person declares bankruptcy to get out from under debt, student loans are not forgiven. Hard for a bank to repossess what someone has learned even if they never use the knowledge.
So if the rules are changed, why would a bank loan a 20 year old $80k when that person is pursuing a degree in a profession that pays very little? Or to a pre med student with a 2.0 GPA for that matter.
I would not change the rules retroactively to benefit people who made poor decisions in the past.

Penn,
Thank you. I assumed your well crafted comment was designed to help make a point.

[Badger52]

I meant...
Rog, thanks.

[Trapper John]

What is old is now new again! (flashback)

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's s time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

(Buffalo Springfield/Stephen Stills - December 5, 1966)

BINGO! :lifter

[GratefulCitizen]

The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case.

I see this violated many time every day even on this site.

For instance, I do not beleive that having served in the military automatically makes someones opinion on anything other than military matters more or less valid. ie. Expertise in one field does not necessarily transfer to another.

There are many other logical fallacies that people slip in to their arguments especially when they are speaking to people who already agree with them. Once emotions get stirred up, reason loses out to fear or pride.

Of course name calling can be effective. Get someone upset and they will not think as clearly and sometime violence IS the answer. But once an opponent throws out the red herring, straw man, appeal to emotion, argument ad hominem or begging the question, I usually lose interest in their arguments.

Persuasion (especially persuasion on a large scale) and debate are not the same thing.
Scott Adams has been addressing this for a few years.

One of the problems people run into with debate is the lack of specifically defined assumptions.
Often, parties who can't agree on "facts and logic" are both reasonably logical, given their own mutually-exclusive set of unstated assumptions.

For instance, SJWs assume that: (1) all hierarchies are arbitrary, purely based on power, and (2) no merit is involved.
Many of their arguments and prescriptions for remedy are quite logical, given the original axioms.

The problem is that if you directly attack either of their assumptions, they immediately go to the logical fallacy of false dichotomy.
They re-cast your position as (1) hierarchies involve no arbitrary power and (2) hierarchies are purely based on merit.

Both of those positions are demonstrably false and SJWs conclude they have proven their assumptions.
They will be resistant to any attempts at nuance and attempts to debate or influence them by directly attacking their assumptions will prove fruitless.

Instead, you must grant them their assumptions, then build logical connections to conclusions which can be shown to be true or false in reality.
When conclusions logically connected to their assumptions are shown to be false in reality, you just sit back and let them chew on it, without doing an end-zone dance.

From a persuasion perspective, many will listen because you've reached "emotional congruence" by granting their assumptions, and they are also allowed the ability to retreat with dignity when shown error.
Logically speaking, this is proof by contradiction (or, in this case, disproof by contradiction) using contraposition.

This addresses both the persuasion and debate angles.
It doesn't work on all, but it will reach some.

[EricV]

Praise be to Nero’s Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
Everybody’s shouting
“Which side are you on?”
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain’s tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Bob Dylan

[Penn]

Well Eric, as a 60's baby consider this:

Times are different,
people are strange,
I used to care,
but things have changed.

Same dude.

[tom kelly]

These three subjects will determine everything that will matter. 1. Genomic Architecture. 2. Nano Technology. 3. Artificial Intelligence. When they are combined to form the algorithm of singularity to solve the problem to solve the problem for superhuman level machine intelligence. Meta-Cognition.

[Penn]

metacognition Has also been a subject investigation in the social sciences, not just AI. That said, AI will bring with it development moral and ethical issues, which may or may not alter all known social structures to date.

https://lincs.ed.gov/state-resources/federal-initiatives/teal/guide/metacognitive

[WarriorDiplomat]

Someone asked the question on another forum I frequent concerning the millennials being the worst generation yet this is my response when someone stated the baby boomers were the worst....

Every generation is the product of previous generations decay compounded there are signs of societal collapse every generation some subtle clues some more pronounced

Every generation since we came here from England has been tasked with building a nation this nation and worked hard to build it with the pinnacle being placing a man on the moon in under 200yrs of existence with slide rules, long math and basic computers.....every generation at some point found less and less was required to build and started to enjoy the fruits of its labor more and more....America has been exceptional compared to other nations in social matters in science in production etc.....and in human advancement as a whole....what do we do now? all the great achievements have been accomplished as far as man can conceive? there is science that shows the deterioration of mans biology when his purpose is not so clear anymore....we have the primal need to evolve but what does mankind do now?....(rhetorical)

The millennials are the latest greatest product from a nation of excess and privilege on the decline.....from producers to consumers....they are the recipient today of our education system here in the U.S. of the radical anti's baby boomers ideology whom have seized our education systems.....only students of history and self aware are the exceptions who seek to continue to build while standing on the shoulders of the exceptional minds of history who advanced mankind......self awareness involving history and current social engineering...recognition and desire to advance something logically.

We have become so passive the warrior gene(argumentatively the psychopathic part), the primal man the hunter, the one who instinctively takes what he and his family needs is fading....it stands out more and more in contrast to civilized modern society and era of lesser testosterone driven she-men who are more comfortable calling themselves feminist. This society today has evolved from Primal man with a club dragging his woman back to the cave by her hair to a society women have begun to commandeer....ironically this would never happen in any other phase of man-kinds existence....are mens genes evolving to fit into the more feminine society??

What does man in his primal needs have to accomplish today? hunt? not unless he chooses...build, explore, fight for territory? most of these needs have been taken care of by societies evolution! man is reduced to sustaining society.....the primal instincts are becoming dulled....not even continuation of ones bloodline (pro-creation) is of importance anymore....many women have suppressed the need to reproduce and society has reduced the need for mans primal instincts as a means of survival.....

How does this generation contribute when everything that makes a man needed is reduced to a females ability and men are not able to find their natural place?....is this what happens as societies decline? does man reach his pinnacle and then go into a figurative biological hibernation? Is this why man cannot ascend any higher except for at a snails pace? is this what happens to great civilizations?

[WarriorDiplomat]

https://youtu.be/DRi6LNmNkVU

Death of a Nation compares Democrat methods and plans to Nazi's