A Taste of Things to Come

[JohnRoberts]

People aren't naturally evolved to be good at a lot of aspects of modern life (finance, debt, etc). Education is extremely important. But people ARE evolved to do some things very well without rigorous education, like running through difficult terrain or recognizing faces / emotions.

Yes evolution rewards survival skills, not math or probability.

Human decisions making typically operates on a casual intuition level... Thats why humans spend more to purchase branded toilet paper or gasoline when there are little/no difference.

Look at political ads for emotional not logical appeals.

JR

 

[Phrazemaster]

We're done anyway. Fertility rate is dropping like a stone in the west. And that's not because we're not having sex. It's because sperm count is dropping. But not only sperm count. Female fertility is affected too.

Chemtrails (cough cough)

 

[dmp]

No surprise that pollution is harming the environment and people's health. This has been going on for decades. It is a battle of information now.

All the fights before (asbestos, acid rain, Pesticides, PCBs, Heavy metals) the pollutants were regulated by governments against the wishes of business. It is the same today with the continued attacks on the efforts to regulate pollution - the major fight today is CO2 and energy policy. The fossil fuel industry has been spending massively to spread doubt. The $$$ is spent to label it a controversy, maybe even a conspiracy, and try to undermine progress in cleaning up the human footprint.
But at the same time, big business lobbyists are getting regulations gutted, like coal companies dumping toxins in rivers and streams .
There has been a lot of progress, but bad actors (driven by $$$ greed) are formidable.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Almost back on topic, the news reportage of this caravan has inspired a second group of a few thousand to form up down near  Hon/Guat border. This second group is talking about doing this without paying coyotes or cartels... we'll see how that works out.  Not to mention the costs incurred by cities along the route providing food and medical aid.

This is effectively a matter of messaging... somebody need to convince them this isn't a good idea, somehow. Problem is everybody loves a parade. 

JR

 

[DaveP]

Well you all got back on topic eventually via several diversions

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

I've recently, in another thread,  mentioned my one friend  who was all into conspiracy theories and such like 20 years ago...... He said this kinda stuff with borders and mass migration was going to happen , and where the Americas would be one eventually.....or at least that was the plan of the "secret" people..... if I'm recalling it correctly...... I haven't talked to him in a long while...... stressed me out but, he was always pretty convincing in his explaining things....... I always brushed it off....What am I going to do???

just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.  ;D

Yes the chem trails too.......    He told me about those way back when...... 

I hope somebody is researching global cooling.

What's interesting is that most Venezuelans I talk to like the President from what I have gathered....... They know he doesn't like Maduro , which is good in their view, even though the media they have as mainstream pretty much compares the President to Maduro.......

This swings back and forth in SA. Chavez at the UN likened Bush to the devil (he smelled sulfur), while the left is supportive of such governments. Look at how much President Obama did for Cuba... Cuba traded Venezuela doctors for oil, but now Venezuela has just about killed that (oil) golden goose. (The price of oil is increasing at the moment that will help them, but little and late.)

They want the US to help get him out......

Methinks everybody in the world wants us to help them... and we want to, but there is only so much we can do...

Rogue leaders like Maduro need to be removed by their own citizens, but he has engaged the cuban secret police to tamp down dissidents and opposition, and by tamping down I mean eliminate.

It is a hard uphill battle in Venezuela. They do have gun control there... only the government is allowed to have guns.  :

JR 

 

[JohnRoberts]

Yeah that's usually what I tell them.... I think maybe The different/ limited access to free press keeps many in the dark on many of the details and it makes things even more complicated at first glance........  Most would  rather be back in their old homes but are unsure if that's even a possibility with the way it's going there... they always light up when talking about it....... Venezuela is a pretty incredible place. Many topographies and climates all year round..... Pretty cool..... I feel bad for them..... At least they get to eat here...

Venezuela was one of the wealthiest countries in So America before they nationalized the oil industry and ran it into the ground. They are now the poster boy for how to ruin a vibrant economy and squander wealth.

But besides destroying the economy, Maduro is weakening the democratic institutions (legislature and judiciary). He has thousands of Cuban intelligence agents embedded in military and secret police to maintain power, and control opposition. In South America sometimes the military preserves democracy as was the case in Hondouras in 2009 when Zelaya declined to step down as proscribed by term limits and the military removed him, avoiding a constitutional crisis there. Maduro is working to avoid that kind of end game, with his cuban helpers.  :

JR 

 

[JohnRoberts]

It's too bad Putin and Trump aren't as close as is being said....Maybe Russia wouldn't be so against giving the Venezuelan people a chance at something different

It will always be odd man out between US, Russia, and China. Russia and China both have been supportive toward Maduro to hopefully undercut US influence in the region.  Historically all the money Cuba used for South America adventurism was Russian money, but that spigot mostly dried up after the USSR decline and break up. Since then cheap Venezuelan oil kept Cuba going for decades, but Venezuela is having trouble remaining that generous these days.  (Venezuela is reportedly one of several supporting the caravan moving toward the US border just in time for an October surprise.  : )

Maduro owes both china and russia lots of money and hopes to pay them both with future oil.  There has already been some drama with Maduro trying to transfer some Venezuela owned Citgo assets inside the US to Rosneft (huge Russian oil company), to keep them out of the hands of US bond holders who are owed money. The US bondholders saw that transfer coming and nipped it in the bud.   

President Trump being on friendly terms with Putin and Xi just means they will stab each other in the front, instead of in the back.  8) We actually have some common interest as all three nations have domestic problems with terrorism/radical islam, but national interests generally outweigh these few common international interests. 

JR

 

[Scodiddly]

Speaking of taxes and how dumb can people be, how about the lottery..? This is basically an ignorance tax paid by the dumbest and poorest sector of the economy.

Governments that support lotteries should be ashamed of themselves.

Abrupt change of subject, duly noted.

 

[JohnRoberts]

This is interesting......  timing anyhow.... 6 months ago

"Trump administration moves to expel some 57,000 Hondurans

NEW YORK/TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The Trump administration said on Friday it will end temporary protections for immigrants in the United States from Honduras on Jan. 5, 2020, leaving potentially 57,000 people vulnerable to deportation.

The government of Honduras said on Friday that it “profoundly regrets the cancellation of the program” and pledged free legal and consular support for Hondurans living in the United States.

Marlon Tabora, the Honduras ambassador to the United States, said the conditions did not exist in the Central American country to deal with the repatriation of tens of thousands of people. "

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-honduras/trump-administration-moves-to-expel-some-57000-hondurans-reports-idUSKBN1I52DW



What I'm unclear about is, if you're here for a long time, with no desire to go back, why wouldn't you apply for citizenship or asylum at some point.....or have they and were denied???? .... seems like a long time???

If they were undocumented, and probably skated on status hearings, why would they turn themselves in to get deported? They are living in the country due to our inefficiency to identify and deport them. We can't even get sanctuary cities to turn over criminal migrants for deportation. 

Another question is how do they get work (or support) to stay here? As I have said before, past immigration reforms never followed up with funding for enforcement, and teeth to fully stop employers from taking advantage of the cheap labor. I suspect all of this is being reviewed and subject to change.

POTUS is probably negotiating to get central america to better manage their own citizens better. We can't possible collect up 10+ million undocumented migrants lacking legal status to repatriate them, and pretty much everybody knows this. First issue is stopping more from coming in, then we'll deal with the ones here. In the past we granted blanket amnesty BUT didn't seal the border leading millions more to come in expecting the same deal.  : So its our own (government's) fault. 

If we keep doing the same thing we shouldn't expect a different result.  8)

JR

 

[DaveP]

When Angela Merkel invited refugees to Germany in 2015, tearing up the rules obliging migrants to seek asylum in the first country they arrive in, the consequences were pretty immediate.

They are for her now  too, she has announced her political career is over.  All those years of being an ultra reliable "Mutti" lost after one poor decision.

The consequences were that it affected the Brexit vote too, which in turn affected the Pound/Euro exchange rate and cost the 1 million Brits living in Europe to lose out on every single transaction.  But this is small time compared to the damage caused by IS terrorists who were smuggled in with the genuine refugees.  Then there has been the rise of the far right parties as a reaction to the immigration.  Any nation that goes soft on immigration law is simply asking for trouble.

DaveP

 

[living sounds]

But this is small time compared to the damage caused by IS terrorists who were smuggled in with the genuine refugees.  Then there has been the rise of the far right parties as a reaction to the immigration. 

Overreaction. A handfull of people have been killed by islamic terrorists in Europe and the US in the last five years.

But how many people have been killed as a consequence of rightwing policies like austerity? Insufficient work and vehicle safety  standards and lack of environmental regulations? Failure to combat climate change? Hard-line drug policies? Insufficient gun regulation? Insufficient access to quality affordable health care?

Irrational fear created by brain circuitry left over from the stone age is the real problem.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Overreaction. A handfull of people have been killed by islamic terrorists in Europe and the US in the last five years.

But how many people have been killed as a consequence of rightwing policies like austerity? Insufficient work and vehicle safety  standards and lack of environmental regulations? Failure to combat climate change? Hard-line drug policies? Insufficient gun regulation? Insufficient access to quality affordable health care?

Irrational fear created by brain circuitry left over from the stone age is the real problem.

I see what you mean about irrational fears... They predict suicides will be up because of climate change, but I blame the media hysteria more than any changing weather.

I recall a couple years ago a climate protester went to the south pole to document it melting and lost a couple toes to frostbite... (I can't find the story now, maybe I should google "ironic").

There is pretty much nothing about politics that is thoughtful and rational, everything is an emotional appeal (because that is what works). The world could use a little more rationality but I don't see how, human nature does not embrace that.

JR

 

[DaveP]

Overreaction. A handfull of people have been killed by islamic terrorists in Europe and the US in the last five years.

The reaction of the relatives of the victims may be quite different from yours.

But how many people have been killed as a consequence of rightwing policies like austerity? Insufficient work and vehicle safety  standards and lack of environmental regulations? Failure to combat climate change? Hard-line drug policies? Insufficient gun regulation? Insufficient access to quality affordable health care?

I would say that because right wing governments are a fairly recent event, most of the genuine ills you describe are down to the left wing governments that preceded them.

DaveP

 

[ruffrecords]

The reaction of the relatives of the victims may be quite different from yours.
I would say that because right wing governments are a fairly recent event, most of the genuine ills you describe are down to the left wing governments that preceded them.

DaveP

Hmmmm. Hilter was right wing. Look what he did.

Cheers

Ian

 

[cyrano]

Politics are analog, not digital. Trying to paint a picture with only "left" and "right" as colours, will fail.

Another point to think about: our average iQ was going up 'till the late nineties. That's when it started goin' down again. That was first noticed in Scandinavia. Meanwhile, it's been confirmed in other parts of the world. No exceptions have been found.

Global warming too?

Wildife is dying at an alarming rate. More than half of amphinians worldwide have almost vanished, due to a fungus from Korea. Most other species have declined by over 60% in the last twenty years. Some insects by as much as 85%.

Global warming too?

 

[DaveP]

Hmmmm. Hitler was right wing. Look what he did.

Exactly, my father fought against Hitler from Tunisia, via Sicily to Italy, his mantra was moderation in all things and I agree with that, extremes of left or right never work for long.  I don't actually support right wing politics, but I do support the Democracy that might elect them from time to time.

DaveP

 

[ruffrecords]

Exactly, my father fought against Hitler from Tunisia, via Sicily to Italy, his mantra was moderation in all things and I agree with that, extremes of left or right never work for long.  I don't actually support right wing politics, but I do support the Democracy that might elect them from time to time.

DaveP

My Dad went over on D-Day +6. He was a tank commander and fought from there via Belgium and Belson to Berlin. He did not speak about his experiences until the last time we went on holiday as a family when I was 18. He and I went on a boat trip across a loch in Scotland (my mum hated water). We sat in the bow and right out of the blue he told me all about it. I guess he thought I was old enough to understand. What he hated most was the inhumanity of extreme politics and he saw plenty of that.

Cheers

Ian

 

[living sounds]

The reaction of the relatives of the victims may be quite different from yours.

Obviously. But we cannot let emotional reactions determine policy like that. We're still hard-wired for life as a member of a small group of hunter-gatherers, not as a the globally interconnected high-tech civilization we have become.

For instance, far more lifes have been lost (as well as productivity) because of sucessfull lobbying by the food and gun industry in the US over many decades than in 9/11. It takes far more cognitive effort to realizes a long-term structural thread and react to stop it than with a violent short-term thread like terrorism. It's what the terrorists are banking on.

In my home town, Cologne, we now had a number of attempted islamic terrorist acts. Thank goodness they all didn't get very far.

We already abandoned all semblances of privacy vs. the government to "stop the terrorists"... People in the west live in historically unprecedented safety and security. Yet, or rather because of that, they are more fearful of these kinds of threads.

My last thought is about the morals: Should we let the thread of a few terrorists getting into the country push us to abandon our humanitarian duty to a million people fleeing war and famine (our Nato allies helped create with their wars)? Is the live of a syrian refugee worth less than the life of a EU citizien from Britain or Germany or France? Think about that.

 

[DaveP]

My last thought is about the morals: Should we let the thread of a few terrorists getting into the country push us to abandon our humanitarian duty to a million people fleeing war and famine (our Nato allies helped create with their wars)? Is the life of a Syrian refugee worth less than the life of a EU citizen from Britain or Germany or France? Think about that

.
I agree with most of what you are saying, but what annoys me is that I have seen so many US and UK flags burned in Muslim countries over the years, yet when they have a problem,  they head for Christian countries.  I exclude Turkey and Jordan from that criticism, they have borne the greatest burden.  Yet Iran, Saudi and the gulf states seem to get away with it along with the North African Arabic speaking nations.

DaveP