http://archive.is/4CVqH

10 year plan. Twice as effective as the USSR's 5 year plans

...Fully rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, restoring our natural ecosystems (needed), dramatically expanding renewable power generation (needed, but it also doesn't mean we should be throwing money away on stupid shit like solar roadways), overhauling our entire transportation system (regional flights, which sort of make up around 70% of total flights, would be targeted for elimination and massively expensive (slower) electrical trains would be put in their place), upgrading all our buildings (most businesses are already moving to green solutions) , jumpstarting US clean manufacturing (see highly expensive and non-competitive with cheaper overseas mfg), transforming US agriculture (forcing a move from cows/pigs/chickens to plant based proteins)...

While we are at it, might as well do the following:

A job with family-sustaining wages, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security (Nice, but you can't just make these jobs available. They are supply and demand.)

High-quality education, including higher education and trade schools (Needed)

High-quality health care (Needed)

Clean air and water (Needed)

Healthy food (Subjective, is meat considered healthy?)

Safe, affordable, adequate housing (because this works, ie Projects...)

An economic environment free of monopolies (Technically this exists already, except in countries outside of the USA and EU)

Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work (SWEET! SIGN ME UP FOR THAT CHECK!!!)

I get that his spiel is comedy based, but the GND is about half reality and half looney tunes.

@newtboy
i like the 'failing liver" analogy.
appropriate and easily understood.

and i can understand where milkmandan is coming from,but my perspective is more aligned with yours newt.

what consistently baffles me,is how so many people are willing to simply accept this short term strategy from our politicians.

there is no surprise when corporations push for this,they are just focusing on their own interests and bottom line,which is short term profit.

or the politicians who bow to their neoliberal masters to receive those tasty campaign contributions.

or even the banks,who again focus on their short term gains.

these players are all behaving as they always have:for their own self interest.so there should be no shock or surprise when they act exactly as they have always acted.

but when i see everyday,normal people defend the behavior and actions of oliticians,financial institutions and multi-national corporations.it baffles me as to why they would choose to do such a thing.

we can understand why those players seek to retain a system which benefits them,their shareholders and their bottom line,but that system no longer serves the interests of the people,community and society as a whole.

so why make arguments defending it?

it is,quite frankly,killing us slowly as a species.

look at germany.
that country has slowly been recruiting,educating and now poised to corner the market in:new energy,renewable energy and are leading the world in breakthrough technologies in all energy fields.

germany has long played the long game.
they now dominate the entire EU in finance,and are now focusing on dominating the globe with new energy technology.

and what are we doing here in america?
pushing through more and more neoliberal policies that immiserate the working poor,both here and abroad.desperately continuing our destruction of entire ecosystems to exploit our natural resources for:oil and gas.military conflicts,which only make this country less safe,all to exploit other nations and extract THEIR oil and gas,and the cost in human lives is absolutely indefensible.

all of it.
every single bit of it for short term gains for an extremely small minority.

and here we are,with trump opening the flood gates to further exploit and destroy our natural resources with no thought or plan for the future.no investment in our communities,nor our society as a whole.

and for those who wish to make an argument that hillary would be better.i will only concede that on a domestic level this may have been true,but hillary is a neoliberal corporatist,and she would have pushed for even MORE military intervention in the middle east.MORE sanctions against countries unwilling to play ball,in order to politically squeeze them out,and even MORE of this countries policy of "regime change" to exploit and extract from those countries their precious resources.

i strongly suspect Iran would have been next on her agenda.

so when are some of these people going to step up,and realize that both trump AND clinton are (or would have been) disasterous for us as a community,a nation and as a species?

because they both only offer short term solutions to long term problems.and those short term solutions only benefit a minority of the population.

we could turn this ship around TODAY,right now,if we so choose.
we need more politicians like elizabeth warren and tulsi gabbard.we need more integrity in our media and journalists willing to do their job and criticize power,not bow to it just for access.we need the people to become engaged and confront their representatives,and make them uncomfortable,not treat them as celebrities.

and we need to reject the system where rich people choose who we get to vote for,and begin to dismantle this two party duopoly.

because trump vs hillary?
this election cycle has just revealed that both these candidates are not the disease,but rather the symptom of a very broken,and dysfunctional political system.

we need to begin to invest in the future.
and reject the status quo as no longer being viable for the continued existence of the human species.

and with the newly energized american public,who are growing in numbers daily,and is a direct response to the unmitigated disaster that is trump.there may be hope for us yet.

because if we stay on this trajectory,we are fucking doomed.

He was really extremely inconsequential for comedians. I remember Bush jokes were practically a genre of their own. Anyway, as a snooty European I am looking forward to again being able to look down by nose and across the Atlantic. Almost 8 years of President Envy is hard, its about time we return to our natural state of smug superiority.

@transmorpher

It's a little difficult to 'debate' your comment, because the points that you address to me are numbered but don't reference to specific parts of my post. That's probably my fault as i was releasing frustration haphazardly and sarcastically, and that sarcasm wasn't aimed at you. All i can do is try and sum up whether i think we agree or disagree overall.

Essentially everything is a question of 'taste', even for you. There's no escaping our nature, most of us don't drink our own piss, many of us won't swallow our own blood, almost all of us have a flavour that we can't abide because we were fed it as a child. So yes, our decisions are defined by taste. But taste is decided by the food that is available to people, within reasonable distance of their house, at a price they find affordable according to the society around them, from a range of food that is decided by society around them. Your average person does not have the luxury to walk around a high street supermarket selecting the most humane and delicious foods. People get what they can afford, what they understand, what they can prepare and what is available. Our ancestors ate chicken because of necessity of their own kind, their children are exposed to chicken through no fault of their own, fast forward a few generations, and thus chicken becomes an affordable, accessible staple. Can we reach a compromise here? It may not be necessary for chickens to die to feed the human race, but it may be necessary for some people to eat chicken today because of their particular life.

I don't like the use of the phrase 'if i can do it, i know anyone can'. I think it's a mistake to deal in certainties, especially pertaining to lifestyles that you can't possibly know about without having lived them. Are you one of the many homeless people accepting chicken soup from a stranger because it's nourishing, cheap and easy for a stranger to buy, and keeps you warm on the streets? Are you a single mother with coeliac disease, a grumpy teenager and picky toddler who has 20 minutes to get to the supermarket and get something cooking? Or one of the millions using foodbanks in the UK (to our shame) now? I don't think you're willfully turning a blind eye to those people, i'm not tugging heart strings to do you a disservice. Maybe you're just fortunate you not only have the choice, but you have such choice that you can't imagine a life without it. I won't budge an inch on this one, you can't know what people have to do, and we have to accept life is not ideal.

And within that idealism and choice problem we can include illnesses that once again in IDEAL situations could survive without dead animals, nevertheless find it necessary to eat what they can identify and feel safe with.

Yes, those damn gluten hipsters drive me round the bend but only because they make people think that a LITTLE gluten is ok, it makes people take the problem less seriously (see Tumblr feminism... JOKE).

I agree that we must look at what action we can take now - and that is why i keep reminding you that we are not in an ideal world. If the veganism argument is to succeed then you must suggest a reasonable pathway to go from how we are now to whatever situation you would prefer. My "ideal farm" description was just me demonstrating the problem - that you need to show us your blueprint for how we start again without killing animals and feeding everyone we have.

And on that subject, your suggestions need to be backed by real research, otherwise you don't have any real plan. "It's fair to say there is very little risk" is a nice bit of illustrative language but it is not backed by any fact or figure and so i'm compelled to do my Penn and Teller impression and call bullshit. As of right now, the life expectancy of humans is better than it has ever been. It is up to you to prove that changing the diet of 7 billion people will result in neutrality or improvement of health and longevity. That proof must come in the form of large statistical analyses and thorough science. I don't want to sound like i'm being a dick, but any time you state something like that as a fact or with certainty, it needs to be backed up by something. I'm not nit picking and asking for common knowledge to have a citation, but things like this do:

-- 70% of farmland claim
-- 'fair to say very little risk' claim
-- meat gives you cancer claim - i accept it may have a carcinogenic effect but i'll remind you so does breathing, joss-sticks, broccoli, apples and water
-- 'the impact to the planet would be immense' claim - in what way, and what would be the downsides in terms of economy, productivity, health, animal welfare (where are all the animals going to be sent to retire as of day 1?)
-- etc. etc.

Oh, and a cow might get its protein from plants, but it walks around a field all day eating grass, chewing the cud and having sloppy shits with 4 stomachs and enzymes that i don't have................. I'm a bit puzzled by this one... I probably can't survive on what an alligator or a goldfish eats, but i can survive on parts of an alligator or fish. I can't eat enough krill in a day to keep me going, but i can let a whale do it for me...?

you are once again mistaken. only approximately 10% of non-human animals are obligate carnivores. common sense tells you that it cannot be a high number as it would not be sustainable otherwise.

factory farmed or not, other sentient beings suffer and die for no other reason than a momentary taste sensation. unlike the Masai (of whom i have never heard of but am taking your word) all you have to do to greatly lessen the harm you do to others is to buy different products in the grocery store.

speaking of science, here is what a very wise man had to say on this subject:

“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.”—Albert Einstein

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”—Albert Einstein

“Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of mankind.”—Albert Einstein

“If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.” -Albert Einstein

It's not inhumane ('humane' being another oxymoron, because it's meaning, and acting like a normal human, are opposites) because 1)they have a life at all, which they would not if not given the opportunity by my family 2) they have a place to live that life, which they would not if not given the use of the land and 3) nature also creates barriers to movement, so it's not unnatural for an animal to live it's entire lifespan in one place...perhaps for cattle, but not the rest. Farm animals are not humans, and those that have an aversion to being stationary have no place on a farm. You could say that not being nomadic is 'inhumane', as our natural state is not sedentary, but few would argue it's 'cruel'.
'Animals' are not humans, so are not slaves. That idea makes you sound ridiculous. See the South Park episode for a good example.
Stopping suffering is not within our scope.
There are many reasons why stopping meat eating is not reasonable, but the one you should be the most interested in is, if humans didn't eat cattle, they might be extinct. The same goes for many animals we eat, and if we didn't eat things like pork, the ecological disaster feral pigs create would be almost as bad as what humans do.
It would be easier and cheaper to change the conditions in the slums of India and elsewhere than it would be to eradicate the meat production (edit:and consumption) of the entire planet. What do the people do now that no longer have jobs? What do you do with all the animals that no longer have a 'use' and don't own property to move onto? How do you control their numbers so they don't destroy what's left of the planet?
Technically, yes, all humans are animals. Mentally handicapped humans are not TREATED 'like animals', by which you MEAN treated poorly and without thought for their comfort and well being, which in fact is NOT how most animals are treated in our first world society, no matter how much you think so. Factory farms are a different matter.
When dolphins take control, they can treat mentally handicapped dolphins better than average humans. It's not arbitrary to treat your own species as the most important, it's an evolutionary trait almost all species likely possess.
No, I can't eat an entire vegan diet. I've tried many vegan foods, and found them ALL inedible, some made me sick.

You made blanket statements about how ALL animals are treated, and how ALL meat is produced and then defended that blanket statement. I'm glad you now admit your mistake, I hope you can see it through and stop blanket blaming ALL meat eaters.

What other people eat is farther outside your influence than how they treat their children.

Without the calorie dense food that is 'meat', we would still be nomadic gatherers, if we could exist at all. Eating meat is one of the things that gave us the energy to evolve those 'higher brains' that can choose our actions and determine what's 'rational'.
You will never see a vegan Olympic athlete. (Edit: well, maybe in Olympic curling...)

Daesh has brought about change...a change that THEY see as positive. That's not a good argument.

Yes, you are a monster for supporting such unabashed, unproductive carnivores ;-)...and I would hazard a guess that you don't feed them only free range, gmo free turkey carcasses, so you sound worse than me, the unashamed meat eater that pays the extra money for proper animal treatment....not just for them but because it's healthier meat too.

I did my part for the animals and the planet by not having children. ;-) Too bad I'm such a minority that it won't make a whit of difference.

I'm prejudice but that's because its human nature. I find black women disgusting ugly. But that's just me, I can't see them any other way. Its ugly. I don't like dark tanned women either.

Moron political correctness sjw mongs need to quit labeling preference as racism. I personally find idea of 2 guys rutting gross, heck even Jim carrey puked in his movie after seeing it. Many find it gross, but that's just personal preference.

I won't tell others how to live, but I want to live my way and no sjw PC retard will get me to do otherwise.

Political correctness sjw, want to force everyone into collectivism. That is the sheep herd mentality, unable to think for yourself, everyone copies same morals and ethics and tolerates all.

That is not human

Individualism is human, individual choices, prejudices, morals, ethics and do not tolerate those that try to brainwash you into collectivism.

Even Morgan Freeman recently stated humans are bigoted and must be so its our nature and has allowed our survival and evolution and progress. If we eliminate bigots and force collectivism human progress stops. Evolution ends, no more survival of the fittest, but Mike Judge's idiocracy comes true in a collective political correct society.

Political correct and sjw should be banned and instantly removed for being antihuman, anti freedom and anti individualist. Sjw and PC are true hate groups more lethal and crazier than any fundamental religion.

They are the real terrorists

Stevia is too new to make any real determinations on. Currently, there is a lot of uncertainty. Just because something comes from a plant doesn't make it safer. Almonds used to be loaded with cyanide before we eliminated the trees that had those kinds of almonds. There have been recent studies questioning the safety of stevia, and this will likely be dealt with over the next decade. Unfortunately, certain countries have gotten around the necessary procedures for sufficient scientific inquiry because they are marketing it not as a food additive or sweetener but as a dietary supplement, which makes it easier to avoid such scrutiny. Unlike xylitol, which is perfectly fine for human consumption and has been shown to inhibit growth of oral bacteria that leads to caries and plaque, stevia is simply an unknown at this point.

However, stevia has also been around for a while. It has been a product since the 90s and has been banned and un-banned in numerous countries. European reports have shown that it is safe, but it is also still banned in many countries there.

For those of you think that it is "natural" and thus safer, I urge you to look up the naturalistic fallacy on wikipedia before going any further here. It has also been used as a sweetener by certain tribal peoples for centuries, so that means absolutely nothing as far as science goes, but it will still sway many people over, just like traditional herbal Chinese medicines like tiger penis powder and rhinoceros horn powder.

However, it is not a "natural" substance whatsoever, even though that word means nothing in nutrition anyways. Basically they take a small amount of Rebaudioside A from the stevia plant and use a bunch of alcohols and other chemicals to extract out the active sweetening ingredient and then crystallize it. This is then renamed steviol. It is significantly less sweet than most of the other sweeteners, except maybe saccarin, at only about 150x the sweetness of sugar.

Basically, Stevia is probably not bad for you, although the verdict is definitely not in on this one. It is no more "natural" than any of the other sweeteners. You need more of it to reach the same level of sweetness as your other sweeteners so dosage could be an issue. But you have to understand that each of the companies that makes these sweeteners has to find a way to sell their product. So, what do they do? They claim that their sweetener is "natural" and "safe" which implies that all of the other sweeteners that came before it aren't, and as evidence by my previous tirades, this is simply not the case. But they profit from our unwillingness to look at the data for ourselves and play on our natural tendencies to trust them.

In short, we are not certain about stevia yet, but we are certain that sugar is bad and aspartame is fine. However, you probably shouldn't eat any processed food, but we already know that in our bones. We all know that cooking up a delicious meal from simple ingredients is the best way to eat healthy but we don't do it because we are lazy. I am just as guilty of this as the next person. We can only dream of a future similar to "The Invention of Lying" where marketers aren't allowed to lie to us and can simply say that their food is bad for you but you drink it because it tastes good and because you have been for years. A world where they can't market to our children so we don't all grow up addicted to halloween candy or cereals that are more sugar than grains. The best way to do this is to cut your cable from the television and live on the internet with AdBlock installed. Then those fuckers can't get at you as easily.

*quality video.

If anyone would like to read more on this subject, I recommend Steven Pinkers The Better Angels of Our Nature, which also covers deaths by crime, disease, malnutrition, etc. It's one of the most information dense books I've ever read, filled with all kinds of historical anecdotes* and grisly statistics about violent deaths per capita throughout history, but it basically boils down to this:

we live in the healthiest, happiest, most peaceful time in history.

The reason it seems so bad is that we simply have more access to information about conflicts, murders, etc than we did in the past.

It's important to note that while Vulture Capitalism isn't as bad as colonialism, it's still Pretty Fucking Bad.

* fascinating fact: the reason dinner knives are generally blunt (apart from steak knives) is because it's stopped people getting into an argument over dinner and stabbing each other. It was previously commonplace for everyone to carry their own knife to dinner and eat with it.

She still owns half the land. The military, police and intelligence services all swear their oaths to her above us. The higher courts belong to her along with the Judges & QC's. The Prime Minister has to meet her once a week, she can veto any law parliament passes (and to pass it must gain "royal ascent"), or even dissolve parliament itself. etc. etc.

But more than any of that it is a genuine fucking embarrassment to me that in the 21st century we still accept any member of our society declaring themselves our natural betters in law, or indeed the rest of us as being "subjects".

You are not a free citizen of the UK, you are a "Subject" of the crown in law. Even if this was pure symbolism (which I don't agree with anyway), what it symbolises is disgusting and backwards. (that could be the UK's tagline "disgusting and backwards" )

If you have a nation built upon a principle of Nepotism the end result should come as no surprise to anyone. The only good argument I've ever heard for keeping the monarchy is that due to the amount of land they own, paying their "wages" works out considerably cheaper than the rent they could charge the government......

...But if that's not a reason to strip them of their power AND rights to the land WE live on I don't know what is. They want to hold us to ransom? The mature response would be to give any such people a stark lesson about the collective consensual prerequisite of personal property. Not put a fucking crown on their heads and bow to them like the feckless goons we are .

Fuck the Queen, fuck her castles and fuck her family. The Corgi's I can turn a blind eye to, they seem quite friendly.....


"Struck a nerve Mr. Woo?"
Yes I fear you have! Please try not to take that as an attack on yourself however Mr. Flowers, you're not the one I'm being angsty at if you see what I mean.

@lucky760

Well, the terminology you used is a bit charged, isn't it? "Manipulate oneself" into feeling something? Compassion is all about putting yourself in someone else's shoes--imagining being them. It's not manipulation; it's actually perfectly natural thanks to mirror neurons--when we see other people in pain we activate the areas in our brain as if we were experiencing pain. The thing is, our higher order cognitive abilities can override this natural function. Basically compassion is our natural state and we later learn how to turn it off. I'm sure there is some evolutionary advantage to that but what I've been trying to discuss here are the disadvantages.

But that's more of an aside to the main issue. The main point is we both agree that showing compassion is important. Splitting hairs about the semantics of feeling/showing compassion doesn't add anything to the discussion so I'll simply tip my hat to you for being willing to engage in this conversation with me for so long and be on my way.

Poppycock!
Humans have always been cruel to each other and they always will be. Religion, nationality, these are all just excuses. We are herd animals, tribal in nature and this will never change. It is just natural for us to look at how we can seperate us and the ones we love from everybody else. The easiest way ist to look for looks, that's why we have racism. It's something we can see. Next are things like how we sound( language, nationality), how we act (mentality) and how we think (political and religious views).
We are simply more focused on recognizing what seperates us from each other than appreciating what connects us. That is what comes natural to us.
Empathy is the exception, the bonding agent between the chasms of social divide. Sometimes it comes to us naturally but the horrible truth is that we're more likely to hack each other to pieces with machetes than to reach out for each other.
We are flawed creatures looking for reasons to hate each other because that's the easy thing to do. It's in our nature. That's who we are, finding an "us" to pit against a "them"

ah thank you for your kind words my friend.
much appreciated.

many here on this site of late appear to have acquired super powers and have the ability to discern my intentions.
which to my surprise are always egotistical in nature....the mind..it baffles.

the belittling,trolling and smug arrogance grates on my nerves and is so un-necessary.
all multiple forms of bullying i detest.

little kings..
in their little fiefdoms..
demanding respect while giving none.

i would chuckle if it were not so heart breaking.

but i am duty bound to stand up and point to the rot and the decay.
few ears listen and even rarer for a heart to be touched.

and even when i do that my words are ridiculed and dismissed.
corruption seeks to blind the seeker and deafen one who would listen.whispering always to the most intimate and despicable of our natures.
selfishness knows no bounds...it just wants more.

i am losing this battle.
my integrity..questioned.
my motivations...projected by those with lesser constitutions.
sacrifices ..all in vain,for naught but a harsh word and a suspicious glare.

as if i were the enemy.

where is the love?
the joy of creation and just being?
of connecting with another and rejoicing in that small moment of realization?

ah my friend,i struggle with those who choose pettiness over substance and to the absolute deafening roar of silence.the pervasive shadow of fear has infected and conquered more territory over the past year,seeping like a stain.

and the oblivious rejoice in their own ignorance.
thinking themselves clever.
doom has never before held such a beautiful and entrancing countenance.
we revel in our own stink and call it lovely.
dancing like macabre ghosts on a sterile landscape...
love and joy left long ago...
and we clap like monkeys and gleefully chatter as the noose is drawn tighter.
and the smell of death and fear grow stronger,but the allure of violence distracts us from our own emptiness.

what is it worth if there is no love?

ah..but this is why yours was/is so precious.
thank you my friend.

there is love,
and with that...
there is hope.

because i love you.

Remember what Loki said to all the peeps in that Iron Man flick, enoch??...It's in our nature to bow-down and grab our ankles so we can be told what we a re supposed to do; Robotic apes can't help it, we're predictable creatures with shitty habits!

Sooooo...hesitant beating the term "paradigm" into oblivion, but until our collective way of being makes the next leap in societal/spiritual/biological evolution, the world is doomed to a continual cycle of power and resources consolidated and exploited by the few.
Our current archetypical criterion have been used as whips and chains, and the distillation or contamination knowledge has always wielded the most effective results for those who would dictate humanity's course.

Right, well thankfully we no longer live in the dark ages.

And you're actually wrong about fear. We live in the safest time in history (statistical fact) and we don't use torture as a deterrent, yet when state sanctioned torture was considered a deterrent (which was much of human history) violent crime rates were much higher.

I suggest you read "The better angels of our nature" by Stephen Pinker.