Obamavision

[DeeZire]

Typical left wing liberal hatred of American values and lifestyle, nuttin new there, honey.

Is 'left wing liberal hatred of American values' the new buzzword coming out of the right wing propaganda mill? Does the right wing have nothing better to do than engage in divisive rhetoric based on talking points drummed up in conservative think tanks? Are we on a playground, taunting each other with immature name-calling, when we could be searching for common ground? Is this thread a waste of time?

The answers are painfully obvious.. and sad.

 

[amicus]

No, Deezire, not at all.

For a generation and more the left wing Henny Penny's have been screaming that the sky is falling! The rhetoric is the terrible excesses of the free world, using up resources, polluting the earth and Oh, my God, causing Global Warming, of all things!

None of it is true. Not a single bit of it. I have been telling you so for five years on this forum and finally a few are beginning to understand the true motivations of the left and they don't like it any better than I do.

Everyone on this forum realizes the policy of the left has created the energy crisis and is totally responsible for high prices of gasoline and energy in general. They also realize the silly assed ethanol craze has raised the price of food products as grains go to fuel and not food.

The end is truly near for the reign of the liberal left and boy am I happy!

The Emperor is truly naked and he has a really tiny peepee.

ahem...

amicus...

 

[Weird Harold]

WH, not sure what world you live in, most of the people I have met, here and abroad are kind, generous and helpful and do not live off the product of others.

I llive in the REAL world, Ami. You, know, the one where the stock market collapsed in 1929 and triggered a world-wide depression because greedy people speculated too wildly and unscrupulous traders manupulated the stock market to maximize their profit without regard to the effect on the nation or world's economies.

I am surprised you use the old canard, 'capitalist robber barons', a day or so of research would show you that supposed era never existed save in the mind of yellow journalism.

The causes of the Stock Market crash of 1929 weren't cited or driven by yellow journalism, nor were the monopolistic price fixing practices of Standard Oil -- or any other of the so-called robber barons -- they're verifiable historical facts in sources other than newspapers. Some of the "base canards" (as you would characterize them) come from the personal papers and authorized biographies of some of the most notorious robber barons.

"The Victor Writes the History" and yet the historical record shows time and again that the "victor" either writes history to discredit himself, allows disidents to write their own version, or simply sees the philosophy of "Might Makes Right" or "Who Has The Gold Makes The Rules" as simply the way the world works.

Time and again, throughout history, the historians have glorified the Alexanders and Caesars of the world because they spread civilization at the point of a sword. But if you look at the facts, Alexander, Caeser and all of the other "Greats of history, they're simply more successful Robber Barons with better biographers than the American Capitalist variety.

 

[Guest]

Ami, tsk tsk tsk.

Liberals fuck. And they can enjoy it. They can experiment, use toys, have multiple partners, and even orgasm.

Conservatives have to pretend that they don't fuck. And then when they get caught cheating or molesting or whatever it's a scandal.

Therefore, it would seem that liberals are the ones swinging the big wood.

 

[Weird Harold]

You're right, but I beat you to the answer.

Yeah, but I actually had to do the arithmetic on a calculator because my arithmetic sucks -- and count on my fingers to make sure I had the right number of zeros.

PS: For those who have trouble visualizing numbers, 2,966 meters squared is roughly two thirds of an american footbal field.

 

[amicus]

Believe all that crap if you wish WH, and continue to be the sour puss that you claim to be.

There are always cruds like the Obama's and Clinton's and Kennedy's who want to build an empire on the backs of others and that is true all through history, like the weather, we can complain about it, but....

I prefer to see the history of the world as a gentle incline with hills and valleys marking the way from the dark past to the brilliant future. I see the progress in medicine and science and the increasing population of healthy humans as indicative of a broad and general improvement in mans humanity toward men.

I can carry you parasites on my back and never miss a step, but when you start blowing in my ear, ahm....

ami

 

[amicus]

Ami, tsk tsk tsk.

~~~


Tsk yourself SSS, Liberals don't have babies and thus are a dying species and the little brown and yellow kids they adopt grow up to be good Capitalists, must be sour grapes, eh?

ahem...

 

[SweetPrettyAss]

Yeah, but I actually had to do the arithmetic on a calculator because my arithmetic sucks -- and count on my fingers to make sure I had the right number of zeros.

PS: For those who have trouble visualizing numbers, 2,966 meters squared is roughly two thirds of an american footbal field.

Wouldn't it have been easier to use your computer?

 

[Weird Harold]

Wouldn't it have been easier to use your computer?

Nope, I'd have to figure out how to ask Excel or some other program for an answer I already know how to get from a good calculator.

 

[S-Des]

Curse my sleeping in math class.

Nonetheless, the planet cannot support that many people under any realistic circumstances.

That's why I didn't try to figure it out off the cuff (not without coffee at least ). I disagree about the planet sustaining people, though. We couldn't do it today obviously, but since it would take hundreds (maybe thousands) of years to get there, I think it's safe to assume science would find ways to accommodate the population. You also have to figure in nature running it's course (as in China and Myanmar in the last month). The more of us there are, the more who will be affected (that's the nicest way I could think of to say it) by disease, natural disasters, etc...(and lets not forget wars and other man made atrocities).

The trouble with looking too far down the road is that you are assuming a certain set of facts will not change, but none of us know that for sure (or even a little bit IMHO). One of GW's big proponents has come out with a statement that we'll be facing a decade of unexpected cooling (but don't worry, it'll heat right back up again after that ). The painful truth is that we just aren't smart enough yet to understand all this stuff (no matter how self-congratulatory some people are about their intellect).

 

[Pure]

well, fractal seems to have been way off.

but i don't think one should start with the total land space of the earth. one has to substract off areas for crops and uninhabitable areas like Mt Everest.

once you have that figure, which surely cannot be more than a quarter of the total landspace, you have to look a dense ways of living. take for example, HongKong, and put THAT density--6400 people per square kilometer-- everywhere.

there is of course the slight problem of where they all park their cars, and what exactly powers their fridges and lights. one might think 'solar energy.' then one would have to calculate what amount of the earth's area can be covered in solar panels; how much of the roofs and sides of the super apt buildings can have solar panels. it's fairly obvious however, taking the oversimplified case of a hemispherical building [dome], that the surface area increases with the square of the radius, whereas the volume [where the people live] increases with the CUBE of the radius. IOW the area of the outside of a building cannot keep pace with its ability to contain more people by making it more voluminous.

realistic calculations are possible. amicus' line 'there's an infinite supply of everything, or an alternative,' is hardly plausible.

amicus basic problem is with the concept of exponential growth; no living species, in a given habitat can evade the problem. amicus failed to mention that "nature" always solves this 'numbers' problem in exactly the way Malthus stated: war, famine, and disease (and predation). using figures from
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm

one sees that from 1800 till now, the increase has been about a factor of 6, from 1 billion to 6 billion. {for the previous 200 years, the increase factor is about 5.} IF that continued for 200 more years, youre at 30 billion, and then another 200, at 180 billion. that puts us only at 2400 CE, and surely humans might like to live here 10,000 years past 1800. IOW for the whole period of 10,000, since 1800, youd be at 6**50 billion. or 8 * 10**38, or 8 billion, billion, billion, billion.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

AMICUS

Good point! Cavemen didnt run out of rocks. There was no horse shortage in Detroit.

Youre also correct that Earth can support many more people than it does.

I was an architect in my youth, and did the math. The present population of Bingville, my town, is about 4 million people. I estimate its possible for 4 million people to inhabit a small fraction of the land area they presently live on, and be a lot more comfortable and convenienced than they are.

But I'm pessimistic and cynical that Americans will make progress until there is a full-blown crisis, like a lighning strike in the middle of the herd, and Americans stampede out of control. Change is possible then but not while the pols give everyone a grope and a promise.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Tsk yourself SSS, Liberals don't have babies and thus are a dying species and the little brown and yellow kids they adopt grow up to be good Capitalists, must be sour grapes, eh?

ahem...

My my, I see things haven't changed much. Amicus is still making wild generalizations and trying to pass them off as common knowledge. Liberals don't have children? What exactly have you been smoking?

 

[Carnevil9]

The problem with the liberal utopia of everyone being "equal" is that the motivation to excel is removed.

Work hard and succeed? You get to enjoy a pleasant lifestyle. Be a slug and do nothing? You still get to enjoy a pleasant lifestyle. Human nature being what it is, few will choose to work hard, invent new products and processes, and raise the standard of living for everyone. Instead, all will avail themselves of the public teat, which will eventually run dry.

This is why communist societies always fail. But it sounds good on paper, especially to people in the lower half of the spectrum.

As humans, we need incentives. Both the allure of being rich, and the fear of being poor, provide those incentives. That is why societies like America (at least until the Obamists dismantle it) work so well.

And on a related note: simple math errors like the one exhibited in this thread are typical of the "logic" that many liberal socialists philosophies are based upon. And when the flaw is pointed out, a simple shrug is all that the pinheads require to move along, maintaining their misbegotten belief system against all reason. God help us all!

 

[Liar]

Your assumption is without merit. I once lived in a suite of rooms on the 14th floor of a condo in Waikiki.

I rather enjoyed it..

And at the same time you sneer at "comfy little concrete flats" in Europe.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Ami,
Remember when there was the big bitch coming from the east coast about "parity" in the cost of energy back in the early '80's? We were led to believe that the east coast's bills would go down, but instead they simply raised our rates to match theirs. Remember that?

I see Obama saying here we will have our standards LOWERED to match the rest of the world so they can have parity.

Don't blame that idiot on me. I voted for Hillary.

 

[Weird Harold]

well, fractal seems to have been way off.

but i don't think one should start with the total land space of the earth. one has to substract off areas for crops and uninhabitable areas like Mt Everest.

Who says Mt Everest (or any of the Himalayas) is uninhabitable? It's just begging to be hollowed out for a theme park with a giant roller coaster and luxury hotels with on-site accomodations for employees.

Who wouldn't be willing to pay top dollar/Yen/Euro for the penthouse view (to rent for the day or to buy) from the top of the mountain if they could take an inside elevator to get there and the penthouse was pressurized to a breathable level.

There's also the predictions of undersea communities and floating cities that have been around since H.G. invented science fiction to consider. Why limit the livable space on earth to just dry land when we have the technology right now to build underwater or tunnel into mountains to provide all of the living space we could ever need without giving up one more tree or wheat field.

The problem isn't housing, or even feeding massive numbers of people, it's avoiding a hive mentality while also avoiding a revolt against the Elite's conspicious consuption and surviving the nihilist "corridor gangs" trying to destroy whatever they can simply because they can.

The one thing that scinece and technology can't do -- or at least I don't want to be around to see it do -- is control human nature so that "elightened self-interest" really does cause all of humanity to "overflow with the milk of human kindness" and altruistically provide for everyone rather than "charge that all the market will bear plus ten percent." (I think that's a Rockefeller quote, but It could have been one of the earlier railroad "robber barons.")

 

[amicus]

And at the same time you sneer at "comfy little concrete flats" in Europe.

~~~


"Sneer?" Ah, I wouldn't say quite that, when I visited London, a sweet lil limey gal provided bed and breakfast and had her little flat decorated quite nicely.


t he formerly amorous amicus...

 

[Weird Harold]

The problem with the liberal utopia of everyone being "equal" is that the motivation to excel is removed.

While the problem with the Libertarian/Free Market utopia is that the Ability to excel is (mostly) stifled by those who have already excelled, so the class distinctions are wider and more resented by the underclasses.

The ideal is somewhere between the two extremes where neither the "conspicuous consumers" at the top nor the "welfare leaches" at the bottom control the government purse strings.

 

[Carnevil9]

While the problem with the Libertarian/Free Market utopia is that the Ability to excel is (mostly) stifled by those who have already excelled, so the class distinctions are wider and more resented by the underclasses.......

I must respectfully disagree. In a true "free market" there are no barriers to entry, so that the opportunity to excel exists for all who will apply themselves. Only in bastardized government-managed capitalism do these artificial barriers exist.

 

[Liar]

The problem isn't housing, or even feeding massive numbers of people, it's avoiding a hive mentality while also avoiding a revolt against the Elite's conspicious consuption and surviving the nihilist "corridor gangs" trying to destroy whatever they can simply because they can.

Sounds like your average college.

 

[Liar]

I must respectfully disagree. In a true "free market" there are no barriers to entry, so that the opportunity to excel exists for all who will apply themselves. Only in bastardized government-managed capitalism do these artificial barriers exist.

How would this work regarding the base cost for applying oneself? Becoming competent enough and staying healthy enough to apply oneself isn't cheap. So those with initial resources have a clear advantage.

Political regulations to free participation on a market is only one of many barriers. And often not nearly the most relevant. How do you suggest one would overcome economic power and cultural power disadvantages on your "free market"? If one can't, I'd say it's still not all that free.

 

[Weird Harold]

I must respectfully disagree. In a true "free market" there are no barriers to entry, so that the opportunity to excel exists for all who will apply themselves. Only in bastardized government-managed capitalism do these artificial barriers exist.

In a "True Free market" -- one with NO government regulation or interference -- there are no barriers to monopolies undercutting any attempt at fresh competition. No barriers to company towns and child labor. There are no incentive to spend extra on employee safety or provide safe working environemnt with reasonable work hours.

Every society that has tried anything close to a "true free market" has found it necessary to put limits on the "Golden Rule" -- usually after the 'Golden Rule' has corrupted the government to the point of promoting a "peasant revolt."

Utopias don't work -- not yours, not mine, not Karl Marx's or Chairman Mao's or Thomas Jefferson's. (although Chairman Mao and Thomas Jefferson have come closest to working "Utopias" thier ideals have required some compromise with their ideological opposites to be as functional as they are.) "Utopia" presumes that human nature can be stifled or modified "for the good of all" and that just isn't going to happen without goevernment mind control rays.

 

[Weird Harold]

Sounds like your average college.

Or any grouping of human beings larger than an extended family or small commune. Even those relatively small grouping have problems with "outcasts" that requires someplace to cast the misfits out to.

 

[Liar]

and that just isn't going to happen without goevernment mind control rays.

And I ain't giving mine to any government.