How America Got Divorced from Reality

Started by GSOgymrat, December 09, 2017, 11:59:40 AM

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GSOgymrat

I haven't read Andersen's book Fantasyland yet but I thought this video makes a lot of good points on how Americans got to where we are today. I think one of the biggest transitions we are going through, which he points out, is how social media and online behavior is affecting us as individuals and society. I believe we are going through a major and unprecedented change in how we take in information and how we interact with others. We don't know what it is doing to us politically, culturally, economically and psychologically in the long term. I don't think the technology is bad but we still don't know how to best apply it or where it is leading us.

https://youtu.be/XirnEfkdQJM

Baruch

Virginians did get rich ... but not with gold, with tobacco.  The US has been a drug pusher (sugar, rum, tobacco) from the beginning ... if you include the Caribbean.  The South didn't make much money from cotton, due to Egyptian and Indian competition, until the cotton gin was developed.  Slavery was on the way out, until the cotton gin made it profitable again.  All the cloth making at this time was in England, so that is where the cotton sailed to.

Yes, this is where the Europeans sent their losers, until Canada and Australia became more available as a dumping ground.

Reality = European monarchy and papacy and warfare?  We fled from that reality.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

fencerider

Its not just technology. Don’t forget there are rich people and politicians that want to divide us so that they can manipulate us for their benefit.

We have this thing that has done a good job in the south called the GOP. GOP(government of the president) was invented while Nixon was president, but he screwed up their plans so they had to wait for a later time. The mission of Republican GOP is to destroy and permanently put down the Democratic party by any means. That includes: lying, stealing, bribery, planting false evidence. and if uou didnt know already Fox Entertainment Center is the whore of the GOP.

Unfortunately the same people that can be fooled by religous manipulation can be fooled by political manipulation.
"Do you believe in god?", is not a proper English sentence. Unless you believe that, "Do you believe in apple?", is a proper English sentence.

GSOgymrat

Quote from: fencerider on December 09, 2017, 03:16:09 PM
Its not just technology. Don’t forget there are rich people and politicians that want to divide us so that they can manipulate us for their benefit.

Some argue technology allows the rich to do this with greater efficiency and subtly. As I see it there is nothing subtle about it.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale

Cavebear

The GOP is fighting to return to 1900.  The Dems are searching for 2100.  I like their goals better.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on December 12, 2017, 02:32:34 AM
The GOP is fighting to return to 1900.  The Dems are searching for 2100.  I like their goals better.

If only that were true.  I thought like you, in 1974.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: GSOgymrat on December 09, 2017, 11:59:40 AM
From the video:
"Trump.  We should have seen this coming."
He states that like it was a big surprise, but many people did see it coming.  Perhaps a bit surprised by Trump, but expecting a leadership where political chaos, nonsense, and alternate "facts" becomes the order of business. We were heading in the direction where fantasy becomes the new reality, and was viewed as political salvation by a semiconscious public.  That was happening, and many people saw it being nurtured by our leaders and the media.  Many people saw the outcome.  Many hoped they could continue on and the decline would be postponed for a few more years, while we endorsed the same old habits under the banner of free speech, democracy, and trust of those who told us what we wanted to hear.  And there is no indication that voters are now in the process of waking up and accurately assessing how they let it happen. 
Quote
"We don't know where the new media, and the fantasy thinking will eventually lead us.  It might not be a collapse."
That's the same attitude we have been displaying for generations.  The hope that somehow better judgment will prevail as we gain momentum on our slide down the slope of fantasy.  Some day we will look back fondly as this time being a golden age we long to return to.  You thought Bush was the destroyer?  Obama was a charlatan?  Trump is a self aggrandizing fool?  The direction we are going has been apparent for years, just as the same direction is apparent right now.  There is no theoretical bottom where things can't be worse than they were before.  We know that now.  What reason is there to believe the direction will change?  The indicators just aren't there, and there is no reason to believe a cliché like, "It's always darkest before the dawn," should give us hope.  Because it's even darker when you're dead under a pile of rubble.

SGOS

Quote from: fencerider on December 09, 2017, 03:16:09 PM
Its not just technology. Don’t forget there are rich people and politicians that want to divide us so that they can manipulate us for their benefit.
NPR interviewed a political science guy a while back who talked about Russian meddling in US politics.  This should not be a surprise because they meddle in the politics of many other countries too.  "Their goal is to weaken political systems so they can spread Russian style corruption to as many other countries as they can," he pointed out.  A bigger threat than Russian meddling are our own political leaders and their media for causing every bit as much division in the population at large for their own benefit and their own style of political corruption.  We can divide the country well enough on our own without outside help.

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on December 12, 2017, 08:53:28 AM
NPR interviewed a political science guy a while back who talked about Russian meddling in US politics.  This should not be a surprise because they meddle in the politics of many other countries too.  "Their goal is to weaken political systems so they can spread Russian style corruption to as many other countries as they can," he pointed out.  A bigger threat than Russian meddling are our own political leaders and their media for causing every bit as much division in the population at large for their own benefit and their own style of political corruption.  We can divide the country well enough on our own without outside help.

Be a patriot.  Support only American mobsters!
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on December 12, 2017, 08:53:28 AM
NPR interviewed a political science guy a while back who talked about Russian meddling in US politics.  This should not be a surprise because they meddle in the politics of many other countries too.  "Their goal is to weaken political systems so they can spread Russian style corruption to as many other countries as they can," he pointed out.  A bigger threat than Russian meddling are our own political leaders and their media for causing every bit as much division in the population at large for their own benefit and their own style of political corruption.  We can divide the country well enough on our own without outside help.

If our own political system was clean, we wouldn't have to worry about the Russians much.  And while I won't say the Democrats are pure, the Republicans are sure less so. 

Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

There is an official term going around for that "least dirty shirt".  Look ... NorK is not as happy a place as the US, so the US must be wonderful.  And besides, reality isn't liberal ... it is tooth and claw.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on December 15, 2017, 05:14:30 AM
There is an official term going around for that "least dirty shirt".  Look ... NorK is not as happy a place as the US, so the US must be wonderful.  And besides, reality isn't liberal ... it is tooth and claw.

Craziness in one place like NK doesn't mean that any other places are necessarily sane.  Iran, Syria, and Turkey are also doing the job just fine lately.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!


Cavebear

Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

pr126

QuoteAnd your point is?...
Crazy. That's it.

And a nice song too.