Good and interesting stuff in there.

I think Sharpe is right that this escalation happened for a pretty silly reason (known blowhard and mouth-runner Trump runs his mouth, news at 11), and the NFL vs Trump skirmish detracts from the root issue that Kaepernick was trying to bring attention to a year ago.

On the other hand, I kinda agree with the other guy that maybe bringing attention to that skirmish will also bring attention to the original issue, so maybe it is a net good thing.

Yeah, the owners aren't going to give a fuck until shit lands on their doorstep. Yeah, calling people a "son of a bitch" rates at about a 2 on the "Trump just said what?!" scale. Sharpe's cynicism about how we got here makes a lot of sense.

I didn't care about Kaepernick sitting for the anthem a year ago enough to pay attention. I wasn't against it. I didn't think the was trying to "disrespect" the flag / soldiers / country / whatever, but I wouldn't have really cared if he was. Aren't people allowed to be anti-war? Opposed to mindless nationalism?


Fast forward to today. The billionaires that Sharpe mentioned who donated big sums to Trump's campaign finally get upset when his shit lands on their door. His (comparably tame) "Twitter attacks" on the NFL kick off a dog-and-pony show that may possibly have been cunningly intended to distract from the much more weighty stuff that Kaepernick was trying to draw attention to in the first place, but I seriously doubt that Trump is that clever.

However, something good did come of it: I went from "meh" to paying attention. I went back and listened to Kaepernick's interview about why he was sitting for the anthem from a year ago (embed below), which I didn't watch at the time. I heard a rational, honest, and eloquent young man calmly and clearly explain what he was doing and why he was doing it.

He saw injustice, and wanted to do something about it. He had access to a soapbox that very very few of the people on the receiving end of that injustice have. So, he made up his own mind to do something to try to get conversations started. He was surprised and confused that anyone would see his actions as disrespectful towards soldiers / military, and was later persuaded (by a Navy SEAL) to kneel as opposed to sit for the anthem in an effort to make that more clear.

He seemed aware that he can only control what he does -- not how people will try to spin it, and not how people may react to it. And he also clearly accepted that his actions could have consequences, and that he didn't want to rope anybody else in to acting with him unless they were prepared to accept those consequences also.

So, yeah. Some good came of this recent escalation, even if it came for the wrong reasons. Because some of the people that get drawn in to the dog-and-pony show might decide that they care enough to go back and take a deeper look at it, like I did. And when they look deeper, they're going to see Trump's standard, everyday twitter nonsense on one side compared to a lot of more rational stuff like, say, perhaps actually listening to words of the person that got the ball rolling on the other side (Kaepernick, and others). I like the way that scale balances out.

I'm going to have a really big problem with this show if it's in the JJ Abrams style with lens-flare and characters constantly running from scene to scene to instill a sense of urgency, descending into mindless fast-and-the-furious action as the series progresses.

The main character (the one from Walking Dead) is a solid choice, which was necessary in a show that had such strong female leads as Jeri Ryan and the incredible Kate Mulgrew.

The way some people have written about "destroying" North Korea, it would make you think that we haven't been talking about a weapon of mass destruction which would indiscriminately incinerate women, children, pets, and leave swathes of radioactive land uninhabitable which would then leak mutation/radioactivity into the rest of the world's ecosystem.

Western civilisation has surely succumbed to some kind of mental sickness, turning us all into mindless clones repeating "the greater good" when we get promised large, colourful explosions. When war after war ends in disaster and further misery, we continue to talk about "bringing an end to suffering" everywhere in the world as though it's both a duty, and something we haven't catastrophically screwed up time after time. Worse is the underlying pride in that perceived duty; "We're gonna make their lives better whether they want it or not! OORAHH!"

The moralising about whether or not they deserve it is an exercise in narcissistic god complexes, covered with a veneer of regret, "oh no, we should have gone to war years ago, now it's too late, should we? shouldn't we?" Like it's great fun to discuss whether or not people should burn and rot to death over the course of weeks, from the comfort of your breakfast table back in good ole metropolis.

And if you decide to bomb? Ah well, it had to be done. Yes, it's a terrible burden, the kind of pain that people burning to death will never understand or thank us for. But we'll continue, because we're the hero they need not the one they want.

Trump's handling of the NK situation is a perfect marriage of the worst elements of the usual neoliberal approach (pro- profit & power orientated) and the thuggish exaggerated threat approach favoured by teenagers in playgrounds.

Our own countries are in an absolute SHIT state. With our indifference towards global warming, the developed nations are the most dangerous threat to life on Earth for *every* country. Why do we still have the arrogance to go around discussing how to improve countries that we've never even fucking been to?

I like finding collectibles in games. It gives it some actual PURPOSE besides mindless combat the whole time.

I've gone to church for a few years. And I see no women staying silent, nor any man telling them to. I really don't care about "tradition" and would voice serious concern if these type of crap happens in the modern church. Believe me, my church sisters takes no crap from the brothers. And I don't really see much old-school practices except communion, and that's not far-out unacceptable a tradition considering its purpose.

I (or at least hope to) continuously carry a critical eye & mind on these social-issue things as in many others at the church. Church "doctrine/tradition" is no excuse to justify bad social/inequality/bigotry behavior. For me, discussion on why the heck Paul wrote these words is fine, it's good to find faults how those people who lived 2000 years ago and evolve the modern church practices to align better with Jesus' intention.
Overall, in my church, I think most people are pretty grounded in real-life struggles... but hey, I fully understand these are subjective opinions... we all have our blindspots. I think we're all better man/woman if we can take in criticisms.

I can't for the life of me understand the U.S. "Christian Right" (but I'm Canadian, so I'm just a passive observer, as I can't vote on US politics) nor, from my understanding of Him, Jesus (as a preacher of love & peace) could be a far/alt-right-winger. But oh, sorry, I don't mean to talk politics... just hope to convey from which side of the discussion I come from.

It's foolish (and arrogant) to take the Bible literally... so much contradictions, inconsistencies, if read this way. And really, I keep thinking - WHY LITERALLY? - I don't dare listen to my pastors and think their words MUST be what God/Jesus meant. Martin Luther's movement freed us from those chains of mindlessness from the church preachers' power over us.

Akways look to the intention of Jesus, which for me, is honestly good, relevant and much in demand, and do those as the Christian mission. The Bible can be confusing, but the message is crystal clear. And that's love & compassion towards our neighbors, go a preach THAT! Not hate/fear-filled "damn this, damn that"/"End of the World is nigh"-type rhetorics.

Seriously man, looking from a distance (again, Canadian here) those loud-voice Christian Rights in the States scare the hell out of me and most of my brothers & sisters, the general thought around me is that they've move way far out from the Christian's way that Jesus want us to be (that I know of)... makes me so sad.

You know what they call people who mindlessly murder and torture for sweet, sweet strawberry smiggles...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/13/why-ridiculous-official-propaganda-still-works/

The primary aim of official propaganda is to generate an “official narrative” that can be mindlessly repeated by the ruling classes and those who support and identify with them. This official narrative does not have to make sense, or to stand up to any sort of serious scrutiny. Its factualness is not the point. The point is to draw a Maginot line, a defensive ideological boundary, between “the truth” as defined by the ruling classes and any other “truth” that contradicts their narrative.

I rail against mindless consumers all the time, but I went to the hardware store a few years ago to get a new cordless drill, and ended up buying an Impact Driver because I had to own something called an Impact Driver.

First of all passing law to allow pedophiles and perverts in opposite sex bathrooms is wrong.
I'm not rooting for a team. Democrats are just worst. buy an ultra small margin.. They approve low moral standards.

Both are woefully disgusting and hence the ultra low approval ratings and Trump getting in.

I would much rather see more States stand up for States rights and actually limit the FEDs power to 1/2 or more of its current size.

Even better is for News to actually report truth and for the people to stop watching stupid mindless shows ( ie 99% of them) and tune to to what the heck is going on and VOTE. The people represent the "4th" branch of government in a sense. We need to kick out the Harry Reid's and john McCain's of government. They are the truly rich 1% and they did not build shit, they just bought and sold favors at the peoples expense.

With respect to chaos does nto matter where he lives on tihs issue. He was given a video of what is going on and still stood on the side of perverts.


With respect to Trump. Who knows what will unfold. But I do see a bright man who built an empire. That takes skill and ability. Hopefully he will use it to the betterment of the world.

Clinton is and utter disaster of a pick. Corrupt to the core.

The POTUS selection was a no brainier.

Bernie and my pick Cruz would have been an choice. True opposites. One one cheated and one was bullied.


No I am not a republican.. The Bushes were the final straw.

Sadly are only 2 teams and we must pick... Jill Stine No

We live in a world populated in the enormous majority by mindless tribals. Of course their rituals are idiotic.

Educational videos are fine, but what we need is a cull.

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I think perhaps we have more of a semantic disagreement here than a conceptual one.

That's fine, "meaning is use" as Wittgenstein would say.

I do take some contention with the idea that rule by intellectual elite would be necessarily "depressing". I'd happily take something like that over the kind of chucklefucks we get now. (as I said before, just trading one kind of political elite for another)

& the kind of meritocracy I'm talking about can be very broad. Any citizen could earn their votes within each branch of governance (and if they were very accomplished, most/all of them). It's just a matter of limiting the influence of mindlessly held opinions, which undermine the whole idea of "democracy" as you are defining it.

I don't think the existing examples of stable quasi meritocratic governments occurred by luck. Those places (Norway, Denmark and such) have considerably better educated populations and a greater cultural emphasis on intellectual elites.

As for the AI thing, I suspect we won't have a great deal of choice in the matter anyway.

I for one welcome our new robot overlords!

Much Love.

Yup the paygap thing is indeed murky ground.

Therein lies the difference between mindless ideology and critical consideration of ideas & solutions.

There is a clear trend over time towards parity, one which does not appear to be stopping and is lightyears ahead of any previous time in modern history.

But that is not to suggest perfection or a lack of rational means to help move closer towards it.

This is very different to exclaiming "mysogyny!" and disregarding the immense complexity of both problem and solution.

I really have enjoyed Fallout 4, but having watched this i'm surprised that i kind of agree with it. I think out of all the quests i've done in the game, a good 90% of them must have been to kill everything in a certain area, sometimes even when i'd already cleared out that area. Mindlessly ferreting away huge amounts of scrap stuff and making trips home just to store it was boring as hell, a better option would have been to let us strip useful stuff out junk and have it weigh less.

It says something for what they've put together when you think that it makes almost all of the critical errors of rpg making and still somehow manages to make me enjoy it. But i think the mistakes it does make takes away from its longevity, i played all the time for a few weeks and now not at all, and i can't quite bring myself to finish any of the main storylines.