tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post3096573165356310576..comments2024-01-02T22:01:12.976+00:00Comments on Avedon's Sideshow: The roads must rollAvedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-40415360785088560942013-03-31T18:09:26.710+01:002013-03-31T18:09:26.710+01:00Physics is everything, Roger, everything is physic...Physics is everything, Roger, everything is physics. Wheels coming off imply momentum, momentum implies anticipation of where the wheels will go. As I alluded above, he penned a grim but accurate portrait of where we're going. The technology is not quite, though we are close to a Shipstone power source, but the whole christo-nazi insanity of If This Goes On or Revolt, the devolution of Friday's population grown too large, too diverse across an area to great for centralized management (and the attendent disdain we of Cascadia have for the rest of the "country"), and the "Cowboy" Randian philosophy expressed pretty much throughout.<br /><br />While Heinlein may prove accurate in the near term, when we look at the damage we are doing to this ball of mud Asimov may have the better handle on the long term. We will be fortunate were we to long for The Green Hills of Earth.<br /><br />And Roger, I first encountered Ms Carol lo these (seven, eight, wow nine!?) many years ago as a Science Fiction forum moderator. These... discussions are not new.<br /><br />No fear.Ten Bearshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06594307610015584119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-81480040872642840292013-03-31T13:54:07.762+01:002013-03-31T13:54:07.762+01:00I wonder if you're old enough to know that Hei...I wonder if you're old enough to know that Heinlein wrote "The Roads Must Roll" during the late years of the Depression, and that it is based on one of many political alternatives being kicked around at the time, including Communism, Trotskyism, several flavors of Socialism, and some really weird stuff from guys like Huey Long? The particular alternative TRMR was based on was Technocracy, the theory that the Depression was caused by technologically ignorant managers being in charge in industry and government, that the insight that things would be much better if the guys who really knew how to solve problems and make stuff were in charge -- The Engineers! Of course, as you mention, the idea was pretty anti-union, but so was a lot of other science fiction. I don't know why the genre attracted so many authoritarian types. Heinlein himself, in his later years, became very blatantly authoritarian, even fascistic. And some of his other early stories (the Future History Series) were based on other 1930s fads, like General Semantics (Coventry), a pseudo-scientific philosophy I was especially charmed by.Procopiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17554355440319405363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-83163955170068255142013-03-28T18:38:28.345+00:002013-03-28T18:38:28.345+00:00Should have said that the post encompassed more th...Should have said that the post encompassed more than this quote and is well worth <a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/free-trade-and-unrestricted-capital-flow-how-billionaires-get-rich-and-destroy-the-rest-of-us.html" rel="nofollow">reading</a>ksixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15406854618914127269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-45473116381069025632013-03-28T18:35:41.294+00:002013-03-28T18:35:41.294+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.ksixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15406854618914127269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-76852242664288890072013-03-28T17:52:55.232+00:002013-03-28T17:52:55.232+00:00Gaius Publius on the ideology or corruption questi...Gaius Publius on the ideology or corruption question (from Naked Capitalism):<br /><br /><i>One last point. Framing free trade as an ideology may be technically correct in a few cases — there are true believers in almost anything (I believe in kittehs) — but if “free trade” weren’t a money machine for the wealthy, you’d never hear of it. Crickets, as the kids say.<br /><br />Put simply, the reason you heard Barack Obama tout “strong free trade” with Robert Rubin in the room, is that bankers like Robert Rubin grow obscenely wealthy by financing billionaire store-owner Billy-Bob Walton’s slave factories in Asia.<br /><br />And non-millionaire Barack Obama wants millionaire Bill Clinton’s post-presidential money — $80 million and counting. (Click the link for a stunning connection between public policy — in this case, the repeal of Glass-Steagal — and a post-presidential payday.)<br /><br />Obama may not say he wants “Clinton money.” He might even know it, in that self-blind sense of “know.” But I’ve met lots of drunks who’ve explained themselves so long, they really do “know” they’re just “prone to be ill in the morning.” Right. Occam’s Switchblade, Upton Sinclair edition:<br /><br /> “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”<br /><br />“I’m doing it for the kids,” Obama edition.</i><br />ksixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15406854618914127269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-38515182311043426642013-03-25T15:53:45.366+00:002013-03-25T15:53:45.366+00:00RJ Eskow has an insightful essay at Our Future abo...RJ Eskow has an insightful <a href="http://blog.ourfuture.org/20130325/147-people" rel="nofollow">essay</a> at Our Future about the small social groups that inflict disastrous economic policies on the world.<br /><br />I also liked this from Margaret Kimberley at BAR:<br /><br />The nonsensical dance goes something like this. Racists attack Obama. Progressives defend Obama. Obama goes behind closed doors to do what progressives say they don’t want. Obama lies and claims he didn’t do what he in fact did. Progressives are happy. The world suffers anew.ksixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15406854618914127269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-33809757505150897162013-03-25T02:11:11.447+00:002013-03-25T02:11:11.447+00:00It was a fun read, though, particlarly in the seve...It was a fun read, though, particlarly in the seventies. The "sport" the kids had, jump to and fro roads rolling at varying speeds stands out.<br /><br />Gotta admit, he painted a pretty accurate picture where we're at today.<br /><br />No fear...Ten Bearshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06594307610015584119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-34637415422355609052013-03-25T02:04:34.799+00:002013-03-25T02:04:34.799+00:00I just want the fuckers to jump.I just want the fuckers to jump.Ten Bearshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06594307610015584119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-9851540200916783022013-03-24T20:14:22.904+00:002013-03-24T20:14:22.904+00:00It's through seeing porn, over the years. Even...It's through seeing porn, over the years. Even in the days when net-porn was almost all sets of photographs, as soon as you got a man and a woman actually doing stuff, the captions often added a misogynistic context. And I used to see plenty of video, once I got broadband, that was explicit, even fetishistic, without being a blatant power game.<br /><br />It's not so easy to find the fun videos now.<br /><br />I don't know, maybe I just have a different standard. Maybe I have become more sensitive.<br /><br />Oddly, I think some of that fun video of the past may be rather short on plot.<br /><br /> zhochakahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06653786360841345602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-33090514661380359382013-03-24T15:36:47.163+00:002013-03-24T15:36:47.163+00:00I'm not going to disagree with you about the g...I'm not going to disagree with you about the government being run by sociopaths and psychopaths.<br /><br />BUT:<br /><br />I'm afraid I can't let those remarks about porn pass without asking what you're talking about. There's a new spate of porn movies that are abusive? Are you saying this from your expierience as a long-time porn-watcher (the credible option), or because you read it somewhere? Because I'm not hearing this from porn aficionados I know.Avedonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-20093946560427756512013-03-24T11:25:28.735+00:002013-03-24T11:25:28.735+00:00It's long been said that capitalism and the as...It's long been said that capitalism and the associated management structures select for sociopathy (which is, in the extreme form, psychopathy). It's all about treating other people as things. That need not be dreadfully bad, if the things are regarded as valued assets which should be invested in, but that no longer happens.<br /><br />I am now inclined to go one step further. The policies we see now can only be not-called sadistic on a technicality. The government of the greedy may not be getting sexual pleasure from the policies they impose. But, when you look at so much that they do, sexual pleasure as a motive is hard to deny. Look at the trophy wives, and the harassment of women, and the various sexual peccadilloes that they are caught indulging in. We can only speculate about their motives, but the things they do can certainly provoke sexual envy, which is suggestive.<br /><br />And the way that power can be seen as leading to sexual success can fuel some pretty ugly thinking. If you're treated like shit at your workplace, or regarded as defective because there is no work so that you cannot find employment, is there any place you can get a feeling of power? And is the way that porn movies have turned ugly and abusive entangled with this. Cause or symptom, the context of the acts depicted has worsened. ((And that's not the same thing as how the performers are treated: we are seeing something that comes out of whatever story the production team is choosing to tell, and the story could be told in far less explicit ways.))<br /><br />Now, I'll admit, my feelings about this government by the criminally insane are chiefly provoked by the British experience: we have our own set of incompetent slimeball sadists in control, drawn from a fairly tightly-knit pool of candidates who went through the same university courses and reveled in membership of the same clubs, and, if they have any intellect worthy of mention, have never done very much with it outside politics.<br /><br />It is much the same pattern as in the USA. What;s that exclusive, rather thuggish, fraternity you have? Bones? We have the Bullingdon Club. I've walked down the Oxford High Street late on a Friday night and I sometimes wonder if I missed the chance to thump David Cameron. I've never been one to start fights, but friends have told me I looked intimidating in those days.<br /><br />The odd thing is I was maybe more scared than they were.<br /><br />Maybe the good guys are the ones who can still be scared, and walk down those mean streets anyway. It is a sane thing to be scared.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />zhochakahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06653786360841345602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-89671626742562450482013-03-24T03:00:02.621+00:002013-03-24T03:00:02.621+00:00But, you know, Al Gore is fat.
At last, someone w...<i>But, you know, Al Gore is fat.</i><br /><br />At last, someone who dares to tell the Truth! To power! ;)Duncan Mitchelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14404037779521807223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-32959357696241131082013-03-23T17:42:36.447+00:002013-03-23T17:42:36.447+00:001. I disagree with Charles Pierce: I want mea cu...1. I disagree with Charles Pierce: I want <i>mea culpas,</i> sackcloth, ashes, and groveling. I want <i>all</i> of them to say, and to put in writing, that "We were wrong, and we will <i>never</i> pontificate in public about anything <i>ever again</i> because we are morally unfit." And then I want them to have to sing, on <i>American Idol</i>, "Wheels in the Sky." In the <i>original</i> key.<br /><br />2. The "One of Pelosi's finest moments" para appears twice.D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01347115855111060618noreply@blogger.com