Dude if there’s no rice there’ll be another mass migration crisis. That’s a problem, and an expensive one.
Anonymous asked:
kissingerandpals answered:
I guess this is where the issue gets political, doesn’t it.
I’m inclined to believe in a sort of Pandora’s box view of history, one of technological determinism. Our world will adapt itself to our short attention span, there will be no going back. Audio-visual media have a content bias for brevity in expression, they demand an immediate emotional response from their audience, they present information through iconography and dramatics, and they present information disjointedly in a sort of “peek a boo” fashion: this happened, then this happened, then that happened, here’s a jeans commercial. If an entire culture is raised on such a medium, the cognitive biases the media develop will not be exclusively limited to that medium. We have been conditioning ourselves to favor brief, iconographic, and contextless forms of communication for decades, it’s no wonder we progressively are getting sillier and sillier by the minute. In what world is Twitter a surprise when we have been conditioned to accept 15 second commercials as normal forms of communication for decades? In what world is our tribalized political life a surprise when our primary forms of communication can only communicate symbolically, in tribal signalling messages, when our dominant forms of advertising sell us unconscious images of ourselves?
Anyway, my point is that a world which has given reign to this sort of media atmosphere can go no direction but forward. Accelerationism is inevitable. State sanctioned censorship will not reverse this process. Information incoherence is useful for the powers that be, anyways. Bread and circus has never been easier.
There is beneficial use in teaching kids responsible uses of technology and media. I can see “media literacy” being an acceptable use of having kids use computers and tablets in class. I personally think this is a crutch though and would never promote regular usage of electronic media in a class. Tablets and computers are really an entirely different level of concentration killers and conditioners, ones that deserve their own posts tbh.
Really the only option you have is to exercise proper judgement as a parent. The Luddite position is impossible, the Chinese position sucks, all you can do is get a sense of what’s healthy for you and what’s not, and do and all you can to pass that on to your child. A smart phone probably isn’t the best thing to give a kid. Using the TV as an instant babysitter isn’t a good idea. Let them use the computer but obviously make sure they aren’t going on weird fucking websites. Reading to your child if they’re young is probably beneficial for developing aural concentration. I don’t know. It’s all about judgement, I guess.
I take it you disagree with my plan to quit dabbling around the edges and unlock the true power of computer-based education, then?
Putting in disaster gouging laws is not really the virtuous thing, because
This policy is more of a looking good than doing good thing. It lets the politicians get away without actually doing anything, spending any money, or successfully bringing more water into the zone. (It also costs resources to keep all these laws on the books.)
Having supply depots already nearby as part of a multi-layered civil defense system capable of responding to a broad range of emergencies is the actual virtuous policy, the tough one that we can’t actually have because reasons.
I know @collapsedsquid suggested that having supply depots would be defeated because tax breaks for the wealthy, but that isn’t the only factor.
Any money spent on civil defense depots with stockpiled water filters would also have to contend with complaints that it was depriving resources from any other groups - for instance, from education, healthcare, etc. It might even get accused of being racist for being connected to some distant probability-calculated need rather than the immediate needs of the local community. (Tho that last one can be reduced somewhat by giving the ¾ shelflife MREs over to homeless shelters.)
When Hubby had a job that offered insurance, it was gonna be $700+ per month for the 4 of us.
There is NO HEATING listed on that budget & heat usually includes the gas for cooking & hot water, unless they have a really nice electric range and 100% electric water heater. A $600/month apartment probably won’t have those.
Cable & phone looks too low. Internet in my area is $80+/ month without even a minimal cable package & nowadays phone is separate because cell phones which are about $40/ month for each person.
They are legit trying to pretend this is normal what the fuck is wrong with these people
Why does everything I see never point out that this budget doesn’t include FOOD.
Also doesn’t include insurance deductibles (which are around 3K) and co-payments (which are 20-35 bucks PER visit)
wtf is up with phone and internet prices in america? like, it’s around £20 including line rental for the landline here for regular non fibre optic broadband, or around £30-40 per month for fibre optic. and i pay like £8 a month for my mobile phone bill, when i was still paying off my phone itself it was like £25 but you don’t need to always have a new phone, once you pay off your phone then just pay for the SIM?
America lets cable companies sign deals with municipalities to prohibit competition, and is also way sparser than Britain.
What do people think of the “Trump Humiliated By Health Care Failure” and “Health Care Rejection Shows Trump Is Already Lame Duck” and “Paul Ryan: Worst Speaker Of All Time?” discourse?
Most people I trust seem to think the health care bill was crap. Blaming people for writing a crappy health care bill seems fair enough.
But there seems to be more of an element of picking on them for being too weak to pass the bill, as if now they’re losers and we can never respect them again.
Can we just say something like “Elected officials should propose bills that they and their constituents want, give the rest of the country a chance to weigh in, and if the rest of the country says no, that means democracy is working and they should come back with something better”?
Like, this is complicated because I don’t want Republicans to pass a health care bill right now. But if this were actually important legislation, I would want the government to say “Good thing the American people made their voices heard,” roll up their sleeves, and then write a better bill.
Whereas now it seems like the incentive is to never propose anything that doesn’t have a 100% chance of getting passed the first time. And the other incentive is to desperately try to steamroll your legislation over everyone’s opposition and never admit you’re wrong, because if it fails (even for good reason) everyone will make fun of you.
Or am I missing something important here?
Bro, it’s the Orange Capitalism Man. Anything that can be used to verbally attack him will be.
Why are you expecting good faith or actually caring about long-term incentives on the meta? Neglecting long-term incentives on the meta is how we got here in the first place.
Bad Ending: Chelsea Clinton 2020, Misogyny and Berniebros Prevented Hillary From Going to Michigan
True Ending: Emanuel/Bloomberg 2020, We didn’t learn shit my dude
Golden Ending: Jeb!
Bad Ending: Chelsea Clinton 2020, Misogyny and Berniebros Prevented Hillary From Going to Michigan
True Ending: Emanuel/Bloomberg 2020, We didn’t learn shit my dude
Golden Ending: Jeb!
@ranma-official: “should’ve pokemon gone to Michigan” is better imo
I just like the combination of noticing they’d be foolish enough to do something like running Chelsea, with the distant dream, the far timeline, beyond 1% divergence, where Jeb! manages to become the President.
“Hey there’s some low-probability, high-cost health problem that it’s crazy to try to prevent/prepare for on an individual basis, let’s contribute to a communal pool to deal with it when it comes up, maybe with some incentives to keep controllable risk factors down”
“Hey negotiating per product/service on every health maintenance transaction is kinda crazy making, how about I (or my patron) pay a flat monthly fee that cover all my basic needs and you handle the details?”
“I am foreseeably going to need more care as I get older or my disease progresses. Let’s make some sort of social / financial arrangement that leverages this, like I raise kids who will care for me or I give you investment money now and you pay my medical bills later.”
“most people don’t like the policy where we just let disabled people die, but disabled people can often cost tens of thousands of dollars a month or more to keep alive, and they rarely have the high incomes that would enable them to keep themselves alive”
Ozy, that’s not insurance, that’s charity.
However unfortunately… This.
bloomsxchneet replied to your post:
emotional wounds aren’t the only legitimate negative consequence of cheating; some people value playing it safe with their health
I don’t doubt this. But no one objects to cheating only because of health risks, and to frame the immorality of cheating as arising solely (or even primarily) from the health risks is therefore absurd.
Interestingly, when I first started poly-ing I had a couple friends who had really negative reactions. And they tried very hard to justify their negative reactions in terms of health and safety stuff.
But it was pretty clear that that wasn’t the “real” problem—they were trying to explain to themselves why it as bad, and that was the first idea they came up with.
Their instincts aren’t entirely wrong. There are issues of sex/gender demand imbalances, risks of financially unstable childbirth, emotions that can run high including jealousy (which evolved for a reason), lower exit cost creating a greater risk of being abandoned if a more desirable partner comes along… Poly isn’t only a high risk activity in terms of direct physical health.
right after the con chair took the mic, she introduced one member of the convention committee, who proceeded to name 8 or 9 American Indian tribes that had lived in Southeast Michigan in the past and said that “we are their guests here”.
Ｉｍｐｌｉｃｉｔ Ｅｔｈｎｏｎａｔｉｏｎａｌｉｓｍ
~You can’t stop the ethnonationalism because you are ethnonationalists~
right after the con chair took the mic, she introduced one member of the convention committee, who proceeded to name 8 or 9 American Indian tribes that had lived in Southeast Michigan in the past and said that “we are their guests here”.
Ｉｍｐｌｉｃｉｔ Ｅｔｈｎｏｎａｔｉｏｎａｌｉｓｍ
~You can’t stop the ethnonationalism because you are ethnonationalists~
I’d be pissed off too, Tron Guy, having to sit there and listen to that without objecting that no, it’s still ethnonationalism when Leftists do it, and no, Leftist rationalizations are just rationalizations.
If I go to one of these things, maybe I’ll wear a Lee Kwan Yew T-shirt.
