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Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 10:09 am
by GORDON
Troy wrote:This isn't my favorite privelage. My favorite is
Thin Privelage.
Holy crap. Is the entire generation of 18-25 year old people going insane, or what?
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 10:26 am
by Malcolm
GORDON wrote:Troy wrote:This isn't my favorite privelage. My favorite is
Thin Privelage.
Holy crap. Is the entire generation of 18-25 year old people going insane, or what?
First country that invades us in 50 years or so, we'll fall like cards.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:01 am
by Leisher
We simply have no adversity.
There's no world war forcing people into service. Everyone has a phone and a TV and internet access. The cold war is over.
Everyone's out trying to find a cause or a purpose.
That's why there's so much stupid shit floating to the surface these days.
We need an enemy or a massive disaster with lasting effects to make the stupid shit go away. China never really stepped up as the next "big bad".
Save us Putin, you're our only hope!
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:05 am
by Malcolm
Everyone's out trying to find a cause or a purpose.
I'm not. The fuck would I want one of those for?
We need an enemy or a massive disaster with lasting effects to make the stupid shit go away.
What an awesome species this is.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:08 am
by GORDON
Malcolm wrote:We need an enemy or a massive disaster with lasting effects to make the stupid shit go away.
What an awesome species this is.
That's just natural selection. Without outside pressure or stress, even the stupid live long enough to reproduce. And, our current society actually encourages the weak and stupid to reproduce.
We are bringing the upcoming disaster upon ourselves. This is exactly how we want it.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:12 am
by TPRJones
The biggest problem is we have no more frontiers. Historically when things got too stupid, the best and brightest would go out to whatever the colony or frontier was that was being pushed at that time. It would be many many years - sometimes even centuries - before the stupids all caught up with them.
With no more frontiers there's no more self-selection and we're just basking in the stupid. We need to start colonizing space. Soon.
Edited By TPRJones on 1400166796
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:14 am
by GORDON
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:18 am
by TPRJones
Not to say that there weren't stupid pioneers, mind you. But frontiers are where natural selection can still take care of that problem.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:25 am
by Leisher
What an awesome species this is.
Eh, we're still young in the grand scheme of things. Give us a challenge, and we keep busy trying to beat it. Give us nothing to do, and we act like the children we are.
But frontiers are where natural selection can still take care of that problem.
A massive space race would be awesome.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:39 am
by TheCatt
My wife last night: You know, we really don't have natural selection any more. I'm not sure were equipped as a society to deal with that properly.
I think the context was stupid people.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 11:45 am
by Malcolm
Give us a challenge, and we keep busy trying to beat it. Give us nothing to do, and we act like the children we are.
Why waste all that time setting goals when you could just go do shit? Do you really need external pressure to force you to? If all it takes to wipe out humanity is tiny window of boredom, perhaps the aliens are avoiding us on purpose.
Edited By Malcolm on 1400168844
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 12:46 pm
by Leisher
Why waste all that time setting goals when you could just go do shit? Do you really need external pressure to force you to?
First day as a part of humanity?
History might be full of interesting people who did interesting things, but for every one of those there are tens of thousands more who didn't do shit.
With no obstacle to climb publicly, the dumber voices have more volume.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 12:47 pm
by Malcolm
Does conflict make the stupid quieter or the non-stupid louder?
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 1:27 pm
by Leisher
It would stand to reason that it makes the non-stupid louder. Or more willing to tell the stupid to sit down and shut up.
If Godzilla showed up tomorrow and attacked New York, I'll bet it'd be the last time in years that we'd hear about Sam who was born a man, but identifies as a woman named Samantha and how she should be allowed to fight as a woman in the UFC's Female division.
(The names aren't correct, but that's an actual debate current going on.)
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 1:43 pm
by Malcolm
It would stand to reason that it makes the non-stupid louder. Or more willing to tell the stupid to sit down and shut up.
Sounds the non-stupid are slacking off or aren't motivated and the stupid are a constant. The latter group doesn't seem like the problem.
Edited By Malcolm on 1400175828
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 2:04 pm
by Leisher
You're looking at it the wrong way.
When you have a very visible obstacle that we all face, we are all more likely to be interested in things about it. Thus, bullshit gets ignored no matter how loud the morons are that scream it.
Without that very visible obstacle, everyone is less focused and they hear the morons yelling, so they listen to what they have to say.
This is human nature 101. Idle hands and such.
Our society faces issues, big fucking issues, but they're not as apparent to the masses.
Godzilla would be a major threat, but if he was invisible he'd be just as big a threat, but you'd have a harder time rallying people.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 2:07 pm
by Malcolm
Thus, bullshit gets ignored no matter how loud the morons are that scream it.
I'm still having trouble with this. That means WWII and the Cold War produced ... less bullshit than today?
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 2:16 pm
by Leisher
Sure.
There's always bullshit. ALWAYS. There are always crazy people. There are always conspiracy theorists. There are always people only looking out for themselves.
I'm just saying their influence is lessened when there is a national crisis or a goal that we all are striving to achieve.
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 2:16 pm
by TPRJones
There's always the same bullshit (see the First Law of Bullshitdynamics) it's just that during wartime it's easier to ignore because there's more important things to do.
It's like your girlfriend always being worried about those pants making her look fat, but who gives a crap about that when the house is on fire put on the damn pants so we can go outside before we die!
Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 3:24 pm
by Troy
So ideally we are looking for a small, easily beatable alien invasion that will still loom as a threat for the new few hundred years.
So like "War of the Worlds" or "Signs", if a bit less destructive on the front end.