The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

[FourFans]

8 hours ago, nsplayr said:

I too can write a caricature about the right and what "they support" and then propose it to folks online asking, "HoW cAn YoU sUpPoRt ThIs???!" My man, I/we disagree with the premise of the things you wrote there.

Pride month allows LGBTQ folks to celebrate their struggle for equal rights and the progress that's been made there, no different than other "XX history" months. I'm neither radically in favor of over-the-top celebrating differences but I'm not against people doing that either.

Some redistribution of wealth via taxes is a hallmark of an advanced economy & society, we can quibble about how much but I support free & fair market capitalism backed by a robust welfare state to help catch people when they fall. A floor, not a ceiling.

I'm not sure what vague "ideologies that will eviscerate the family unit" you mean so you'll have to be more specific. I have a very traditional, conservative-friendly family unit and we're doing just great! Other families I know that are quite different than my own are doing great as well. Some people struggle, as always. I hope the same can be said for you and yours.

This I actually agree with, as do some of my gay friends, although not all. Younger people tend to see it all as the same struggle, but LGBTQ people closer to my age or older I know say that the wild explosions of different identities, flags, tiny shredouts of identities is counterproductive and that radical trans activists need to follow the model more or less of plain-ole-gay rights and not try to move so rapidly as to diminish support from a general populace of straight people who don't live and breathe this stuff and just want to go on with their lives. I am straight, so I don't wanna speak for others, but I tend to agree.

It's mostly from the right in terms of statistically significant losses of support, but it is concerning either way if you are a fan of gay people having the same human and civil rights as straight people.

I'm gonna say this up front and it applies to everything below, you need to update your data / assumptions.

Income inequality specifically has declined for the first time in decades in the COVID recovery where there is very robust wage growth specifically among the lower-paid 50% of workers.

Depicted below is this metric during the Biden Admin, Jan 2021 to EOY 2022. I would argue that both the broad, world-wide post-COVID economic conditions + the Biden admin's actions + Fed/ECB actions have led to our current tight labor market where workers have more leverage than at anytime during my lifetime to negotiate higher wages, switch jobs, or generally leave shitty, low-paid work for greener pastures.

Having a hard time hiring servers at a greasy spoon diner that pays tipped minimum wage isn't a sign of a recession, it's a sign of a strong/tight labor market because those waitresses are working at the other businesses down the road paying $15+ an hour. TBH if you want plentiful low-wage workers, you need to encourage more immigration, as immigrants are often more willing to take low-paid jobs than native-born citizens.

This used to be true, if you only counted Jan 2017 through March 2020 Trump admin. If you take the whole time Trump was President, it was never true due to the huge losses during COVID. Understandably there are some asterisks there, and rightfully so. Trump did not cause COVID and the whole world took a beating.

BUT, it's no longer true. The Biden admin has set new records for declines in income inequality, low unemployments rates, "black unemployment" as Trump so frequently touts, etc. Trump often says on the stump he had the lowest black unemployment rate ever...which is a good thing and was true!

But it's not true anymore. Lowest under Trump was 5.3% in August of 2019, current under Biden is 4.7% in April 2023 and continuing to drop. I support a low unemployment rate for all Americans, and the Biden admin is leading the way on employment.

Bottom line: if you wanna debate current events, you have to stay current.

I've got a lot of thoughts here, but two quick ones: 

To answer your question about the nuclear family: Anti-family policies surrounding welfare (dads in low income families are incentivized to make children and leave the home), divorces has never been easier so families are split more often, abortion couldn't be more contentious and there is currently no policy that incentivizes men to have accountability in the baby-making process, in several states 'the state' in the form of schools and teachers unions are effectively trying to take over the moral instruction of children...to include the legal prosecution of parents if they 'mis-gender' their own 12 year old, there's a lot more.  In short, the federal government should have absolutely no hand inside a family unit, yet they currently do.  All of those policies are not tolerated or accepted, but celebrated and in some cases enforced by our current administration.

Second: go to your stat source there: https://realtimeinequality.org/  and play around.  You'll find that the Times did a wonderful job of zooming in on a very specific data set to tell a story that simply isn't true.  Moreover, if you want to compare data, use the same time frame.  You compare Jan 2021 to EOY 2022 directly to Trump's entire term.  Not an apples to apples comparison.  With stats like these, a long view of at least a decade, usually more, is the only way to get a real picture of the impact of policies.

[TreeA10]

I'm all for capitalism.  Its the worst form of good and services management except for all the others   Still, sometime you have to see it to appreciate it.  Spent a week in St. Thomas enjoying my ill gotten lifestyle due to my Christian male white privilege and was headed out on a sailing charter to do some snorkeling.  Also parked at the pier was the Yacht Infinity.  

Break out the Google and this $300 million boat is owned by Eric Smidt, former Google guy.  And this isn't his only boat the picture.  See the boat behind the yacht?  That's the $40 million toy hauler.  It's got speed boats, jet skis, helicopter, etc. and a crane on the deck and follows the yacht around to supply entertainment.

And yes, I still had a great time snorkeling despite rough sailing conditions and a rather large whiskey front blowing through the night before.

Google people give most of their political money to democrats.  Don't think Eric is going to go along with wealth equalizing as long as he can buy influence.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ex-google-chief-built-oligarch-style-empire-influence-ai-biden-white-house-public-policy-report

 

[uhhello]

2 hours ago, TreeA10 said:

I'm all for capitalism.  Its the worst form of good and services management except for all the others   Still, sometime you have to see it to appreciate it.  Spent a week in St. Thomas enjoying my ill gotten lifestyle due to my Christian male white privilege and was headed out on a sailing charter to do some snorkeling.  Also parked at the pier was the Yacht Infinity.  

Break out the Google and this $300 million boat is owned by Eric Smidt, former Google guy.  And this isn't his only boat the picture.  See the boat behind the yacht?  That's the $40 million toy hauler.  It's got speed boats, jet skis, helicopter, etc. and a crane on the deck and follows the yacht around to supply entertainment.

And yes, I still had a great time snorkeling despite rough sailing conditions and a rather large whiskey front blowing through the night before.

Google people give most of their political money to democrats.  Don't think Eric is going to go along with wealth equalizing as long as he can buy influence.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ex-google-chief-built-oligarch-style-empire-influence-ai-biden-white-house-public-policy-report

 

What's even more incredible is the annual operating costs.  $20-30 million on the low side 🙂

[Blue]

2 hours ago, gearhog said:

Exactly. And it's not just DC. Your average socialist wringing their hands over wealth inequality fail to realize they will never defeat cronyism as long as their agendas, ideologies, and movements can easily be purchased and co-opted.

It is kind of stunning when you look back at the last ~15 years.

Progressive politics have co-opted nearly the entire Democrat Party.  Meanwhile, the nation has faced incredible crises, that in years past might have seen people marching on DC with literal pitchforks and torches.  Covid, Proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine, rampant inflation, crushing wealth inequality, etc.

Instead, in the face of those challenges, the national discussion is centered on an endless stream of increasingly fringe nonsense (I don't know how much further you can extend LGBTQQIP2SA, for example).

It's incredible what's been done to this country, all in plain sight.

 

[Lord Ratner]

On 6/17/2023 at 2:22 PM, Negatory said:

But wealth inequality is an actual problem that needs to be solved. History also shows that the higher wealth inequality goes the worse society gets. And if you look at society from an average 25 year olds eyes, you’d see that American capitalism as is hasnt made much progress since the 1970s when real wages stopped increasing.

My views on this have evolved a lot. Here's where I am now:

 

Wealth inequality is irrelevant. That part I've always believed, but what matters, and what I didn't see before, is how the wealth disparity is produced.

 

I think the people who make things are able to be as rich as possible without much consequence. Think Bill Gates, Bezos, Musk, Carnegie, Walton. Something about our connection to their products and services makes their immense wealth understandable. Plus, the creation of technology or a service that makes humans more productive (even as a second or third order effect) ultimately adds far more to the collective wealth of our society than the millions and billions that accrue to the founders/inventors.

 

But the unleashing of modern banking since the 70's has been altogether different. You should not be able to make billions off financial engineering. At best, loans enable the above innovations, but the banking system has found a way to make as much or more than the industries they enable. Problem is, so much of modern financial markets are simply transfers of wealth between parties. It's gambling. Guess who's better at that game? It ain't you. Nothing demonstrated this better than the nauseatingly-ironically-named Robin Hood. Nothing more than a transfer of wealth from the retail investor (poor) to the banks and private equity managers (rich). And when the retail investor found a hole in the armor with GameStop, they shut it down. Disgusting.

The third element is the unstoppable printing of money by the Fed. These made up dollars are vacuumed up by the top .1% of Americans at a stunning rate. So when the inflation hits from boosting the money supply, the already-rich are sitting on a greater share of the money, drastically reducing the impact of inflation on their purchasing power, while the commoners like us get crushed. This wealth is created by political access, favoritism, and shady banking practices. It is this type of wealth inequality that will destroy our society if we don't stop it, yet the pandemic wildly accelerated the problem.

 

But it gets worse. The Republicans are still reflexively defensive of business from the communist movement of the left in the 50's and 60's. They haven't figured out that modern crony capitalism has two sides of business, the makers and the bankers. Until the find a way to escape the bankers, they will be useless. Tucker Carlson is the strongest voice against this new phenomenon, though he flails around the center of the problem at times.

 

The Democrats are equally useless, because they are hell bent on attacking the makers while the bankers fund their campaigns and promote their ESG nonsense. In the war against crony capitalism, the Democrats have decided to attack the capitalists with the help of the cronies. Talk about missing the mark.

[Biff_T]

It’s almost like the super rich and powerful don’t really care about us common folk (dems and repubs, doesn’t matter).  This sounds strangely familiar?  Has this ever happened before in human history?  I’ll give us all a big hint, yes.  I’m not going to source every single time this happened because it is littered everywhere throughout the human story.

I’d rather be alive today in the US than any other part of the globe or history, but we too have corrupt humans in charge.   It’s the problem with having some sort of power hierarchy with humans behind the wheel .  The dirtbags always find their way to the top.  

The best human society needs to be a compromise of capitalism, socialism (we gotta pay for roads and shit, universal healthcare seems like a human thing to do) with an elected body of government, chosen by the people.  Sounds familiar.  We have a really good system in place here in the US.  The reason it’s not working:  Turds (our leaders, regardless if it’s a political one or a CEO of a company) seem to float to the top of the power structure.  Greed is rewarded instead of being a good human.  Also, the rich and powerful have better means to take control of the law making process and stay in charge.   
 

But Biff, what about the people in Mississippi or North Dakota who don’t agree with the beliefs of those living in the looney bin also know as California? 

States rights.   

The Federal government needs to realize this.   Not everyone agrees with the same laws.  That’s why I can smoke a giant doobie in CA but not in AL.  The US has the unique problem of having ethnicities from every part of the globe (maybe even the universe with Lizard People and Aliens lol).   We will not make everyone happy.  We all need to realize this and learn how to compromise.   I don’t care for abortions, but the majority of voters here (CA) do so it’s legal here.   There are more people of puritan heritage in the Deep South, so they vote against it.  The majority of the people are happy.   If you live in the Deep South, you’ll probably have to compromise your abortion rights.   
 

We almost have it figured out.  We just need to learn to live with our differences and compromise.  

Edit: And somehow we need to get rid of the dirtbag mentality of the wealthy.   Basically, the "fuck you, I got mine" attitude needs to go.  
 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Biff_T
Afterthought

[Prozac]

Biff”s got the big picture view. Sometimes I think it’s ironic that we see heated arguments (on this forum & in society in general) about the merits of voting for one party or another. The irony is that they want us at each other’s throats. I recently had a conversation with someone who has spent a lot of time in DC lobbying (for a pilot union). This individual rather quickly became jaded (as is the way in Washington), and one of the things they told me stuck: the politicians yelling the loudest about hot button issues don’t want to solve said issues. In fact, they work very hard to make sure the stalemate continues. Why? Their very generous donors go away when the issue gets “solved”. This is universal regardless of party affiliation. Think about that the next time you want to demonize your fellow regular Joe, who may disagree with you on a particular issue. “They” want you screaming at each other because it energizes & makes their donors’ fundraising jobs easier. One of the reasons all of us should fight one another a lot less, and fight for campaign finance reform & term limits a lot more. 

[brabus]

Term limits would make a hugely positive impact. It’ll never happen. 

[gearhog]

They may not be alive, but rest assured they were inspired. There's a lesson for the AF here somewhere.

https://twitter.com/OvertonLive/status/1671406572902273028?s=20

Edited June 21, 2023 by gearhog

[slc]

Yep, the amount of man hours/assets being utilized to execute this "rescue"? (more like recovery) mission, all in the interest of disaster tourism.  The Titanic sank, was found, photographed (all of which can be viewed online) and should be left alone.  

[Biff_T]

2 hours ago, gearhog said:

They may not be alive, but rest assured they were inspired. There's a lesson for the AF here somewhere.

https://twitter.com/OvertonLive/status/1671406572902273028?s=20

You know what a 50 year old "white dude" (race is really not important, I'm just paraphrasing what was said in the video) retired sailor has, experience.  

Experience saves lives.   Not inspiration.  

[BashiChuni]

We survived!

[Biff_T]

Just now, BashiChuni said:

We survived!

We're all dead and this is a version of Hell.  Lol

[Pooter]

12 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

We survived!

My favorite part is the fastest way to kill off a massive part of the developing world would be to outlaw fossil fuels on a super aggressive timeline with no suitable replacement infrastructure. But that nuance is likely lost on the petulant professional complainer who grew up in Scandinavia driving mommy and daddy's electric polestar around. 
 

Maybe, to get some perspective, instead of Gucci climate conferences in NYC and Lisbon she could sail her stupid f-ing catamaran to Somalia and see how well her fossil fuel plan is received. 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Pooter

[Negatory]

19 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

We survived!

Dumb and distorted. We have hit 1.0C, are going to hit 1.5C of warming shortly, and are well on our way to 4+. What does that mean? It means your children are gonna have much tougher lives. And the point of the quote was not that we would die in 5 years, but that there would be mass deaths in the future if fossil fuels were not significantly curtailed by 2023. But that’s standard for you, you just don’t know how to read.

19 hours ago, Pooter said:

My favorite part is the fastest way to kill off a massive part of the developing world would be to outlaw fossil fuels on a super aggressive timeline with no suitable replacement infrastructure. But that nuance is likely lost on the petulant professional complainer who grew up in Scandinavia driving mommy and daddy's electric polestar around. 
 

Maybe, to get some perspective, instead of Gucci climate conferences in NYC and Lisbon she could sail her stupid f-ing catamaran to Somalia and see how well her fossil fuel plan is received. 

Sorry that a kid is trying to reduce fossil fuel usage because of actual global warming, and that the right wing media has literally convinced you to hate her. It’s sad to look at. And I’m sure it’s hard for you to always be so mad about everything.

Also, it’s a typical pattern to have a fallacy on here, but it’s always worthwhile to point out: No one said we needed to disproportionally affect industrializing societies over already industrialized. In fact, the VAST majority of emissions are due to first world consumption and production (US, China, EU). So we could just cut YOUR (and people like your) emissions, and that would be the 90% solution. But you can throw out a totally unrelated point that we should all be able to roll coal in F350s because if we can’t it would hurt Africa. Bro, you (and your base) don’t give a fuck about Africa or the developing world.

[gearhog]

1 hour ago, Negatory said:

And the point of the quote was not that we would die in 5 years, but that there would be mass deaths in the future if fossil fuels were not significantly curtailed by 2023. But that’s standard for you, you just don’t know how to read.

Huh? This is the exact article from the link in her Tweet, found in about 5 seconds.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180501150731/https://gritpost.com/humans-extinct-climate-change/

Some brilliant highlights:

A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.

“The chance that there will be any permanent ice left in the Arctic after 2022 is essentially zero,” Anderson said, with 75 to 80 percent of permanent ice having melted already in the last 35 years.

However, the bad news for humanity is that as long as Donald Trump is President of the United States, swift action to combat climate change seems unlikely prior to 2020

LOL. So Ridiculous. Why are you accusing anyone else of not being able to read?

Edited June 22, 2023 by gearhog

[FourFans]

@Negatory  

Curious: What do you do for a living?

[Biff_T]

How many times has the Earth heated and cooled?   How many times were humans involved?   

I don't think we're going to kill ourselves off due to using petroleum.  If the Earth starts to heat up, us humans aren't going to stop it.  Im not saying we should litter and blow poison into the sky with reckless abandon, I'm saying that it's possible that both sides of the aisle use "Global Warming" as the gotcha I'm smarter than you argument.  There's that, abortion and civil rights.  No real meat and potatoes, its just low hanging fruit to grab onto and fight about.   Do the world leaders really care about humans and the condition of Earth? In my opinion, No.  But it makes an easy heated debate for us common folk doesn't it.  

[Jam]

59 minutes ago, gearhog said:

 

LOL. So Ridiculous. Why are you accusing anyone else of not being able to read?

Because it says "Humans Will Go Extinct if We Don’t Fix Climate Change by 2023" not "Humans Will Go Extinct by 2023 if We Don’t Fix Climate Change"

Yes it's definitely a clickbait title but its quite obvious (maybe not to some) what the article is saying.

[FourFans]

Another climate prediction based on computer modeling.  The same computer modeling that can't even predict where a hurricane will land inside 48 hours of landfall.  Yeah, we trust you.

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/

[gearhog]

1 hour ago, Jam said:

Because it says "Humans Will Go Extinct if We Don’t Fix Climate Change by 2023" not "Humans Will Go Extinct by 2023 if We Don’t Fix Climate Change"

Yes it's definitely a clickbait title but its quite obvious (maybe not to some) what the article is saying.

It says humanity would be wiped out if we did not "stop" fossil fuel usage by 2023.

Well... we didn't. And we're not going to. Humanity has remained undefeated in the last 2 million years.

You have my personal guarantee that you're going to be okay. No need for hysterics.

[GrndPndr]

Isn't all of this "Climate Change" by politics?  Facts do seem to get in the way of swaying someone's opinion, and that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.  Glad to see everyone has chosen a political side, and knows what to say about climate and can accurately predict our demise.  

[BashiChuni]

8 hours ago, Negatory said:

Dumb and distorted. We have hit 1.0C, are going to hit 1.5C of warming shortly, and are well on our way to 4+. What does that mean? It means your children are gonna have much tougher lives. And the point of the quote was not that we would die in 5 years, but that there would be mass deaths in the future if fossil fuels were not significantly curtailed by 2023. But that’s standard for you, you just don’t know how to read.

Sorry that a kid is trying to reduce fossil fuel usage because of actual global warming, and that the right wing media has literally convinced you to hate her. It’s sad to look at. And I’m sure it’s hard for you to always be so mad about everything.

Also, it’s a typical pattern to have a fallacy on here, but it’s always worthwhile to point out: No one said we needed to disproportionally affect industrializing societies over already industrialized. In fact, the VAST majority of emissions are due to first world consumption and production (US, China, EU). So we could just cut YOUR (and people like your) emissions, and that would be the 90% solution. But you can throw out a totally unrelated point that we should all be able to roll coal in F350s because if we can’t it would hurt Africa. Bro, you (and your base) don’t give a fuck about Africa or the developing world.

the globe isn't in danger.

the climate change cultists are after a story as old as time.....money and power. greta is their instrument to get useful idiots like you to carry their water.

the climate change cultists have distorted and doctored historical warming charts to fit their narrative. if COVID didn't teach you not to "TRUST THE EXPERTS" i'm afraid nothing will.

[uhhello]

28 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

the globe isn't in danger.

the climate change cultists are after a story as old as time.....money and power. greta is their instrument to get useful idiots like you to carry their water.

the climate change cultists have distorted and doctored historical warming charts to fit their narrative. if COVID didn't teach you not to "TRUST THE EXPERTS" i'm afraid nothing will.

The 'globe' def isn't in danger.  It'll be here for a long time.  Whether it'll be able to sustain life is up for debate :)  

[Scooter14]

Somewhere between “we are all gonna die tomorrow” and “nothing to see here, everything is fine” is the truth.


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