Yes, let's put that oot and aboot meme oot of it's misery.

Red Rangers, I understand your perspective and I appreciate your abilities to fight, but I do not condone violence committed by one mortal against another. It is the duty of an immortal to inflict pain and misery upon mankind, otherwise where's the job security in demigodhood these days?

So this is just fucking great. I'll tell you, i recognise the kid in the picture and i remember what happened to Jamie Bulger. What a fucking wonderful way to sensationalise it and get a few quid from youtube views.

Just so you know, that young boy was led away from safety and led on a death march through populated areas, crying himself hoarse and scared - no, terrified and desperate and pleading - in a way that only a child can be. He was marched past some 30 odd people and everyone looked away because they thought they were brothers. To his poor little mind, he must have thought that all those strangers were in on it.

Once he had been walked miles away from where he was found to a secluded spot, he was tortured and mutilated, the details of which are harrowing even to simply READ about.

One can only imagine the relentless fear that this poor little kid went through and it brings tears to my eyes to contemplate it. This is something that affected me really strongly as a child, when it happened, and i can't believe that there are people who would use that to make money. Every single penny that they made off this video should be going to the families that suffered.

I hope whoever made money off this fucking video chokes on it and knows that what they've done regardless of their intent is to glorify and profit off some of the most desperate suffering that very few humans will ever experience. Profiting off the misery of a kidnapped, tortured, dead little baby.

By fucking god i hope there is a heaven and i hope Jamie Bulger is there and happy right now. I couldn't even bear to watch the majority of it. I look forward to the day that the bastards who did it are found and killed and i hope it's fucking slow. It makes you want to wipe the human race out and let nature start again. What a truly disgusting video to make and to present.

It's amusing how cruel people can unwittingly be (on YouTube) making fun of the elderly man being sucked into the sea to die and their misplaced vitriol at the disabled person who is unable to help. It's not so much that an old guy almost died and a crippled person couldn't do anything; it's the the irony in the comments due to people not knowing the truth. Then again, maybe it could also be a skit like the disabled fat guy from Little Britain?

Certainly, it is funny, despite the cruelty in laughing at other people's misery. It could be a gag in an Adam Sandler movie, except the old guy would be Bob Barker and he'd be pulled out to sea and heard cursing as he drifts and blinks out in the sunset. *Plink!*

Everyone would laugh and then Adam Sandler would kiss a blond woman, probably Drew Barrymore, while the sun sets and we do the Looney Tunes fade out, with Porky Pig interrupting with a hand gesture, "A bi-di-a-bi-di-a-bi-di-abi-di-that's all folks!"

@RedSky

First, if it were up to me, you could take over as Minister of Finance in this country tomorrow. Our differences seem miniscule compared to what horrendous policies our last three MoF have pushed. The one prior, ironically, was dubbed the most dangerous man in Europe by The Sun.

We're in agreement on almost everything you mentioned in your last comment, so I'll focus on what I perceive differently.

First, I'd differentiate between fiscal stimulus and fiscal spending, the former being a situational application of the latter. As you said, fiscal stimulus during an economic crisis tends to be inadequate with regards to our macroeconomic objectives. You can neither whip out plans for major investments at a whim nor can you mobilize the neccessary resources quickly enough to make a difference and still be reasonable efficient. Not to mention that it only affects certain parts of the economy (construction, mostly), leaving others completely in the wind. So I'm with you on that one, it's a terribly inefficient and ineffective approach.

Automatic stabilizers work magnificently in this regard, but they barely take any pressure from the lower wage groups, especially if unemployment benefits come with a metric ton of strings attached, as is the case in Germany. A basic income guarantee might work, but that's an entirely different discussion.

The problem I see with merely relying on reasonable automatic stabilizers in the form of payments is that they do put a floor into demand, but do very little to tackle the problem of persistent unemployment due to a lack of jobs. As useful as training and education are, the mere number of highly educated people forced to work mundane jobs tells me that, at best, it doesn't work, and at worst pushes a systemic problem onto the individual, leading to immense pressure. Not to mention the psychological effects of being unemployed when employment is tauted as a defining attribute of a proper person -- aka the demonization of the unemployed.

It's still somewhat decent in Australia, but in Europe... it's quite a horrible experience.

Anyway, my point is that I'd rather see a lot more fiscal spending (permanent!) in the shape of public sector jobs. A lot of work cannot be valued properly by the market; should be done without the expectation of a return of investment (hospitals, anyone?); occurs in sectors of natural monopolies -- all of that should be publicly run. A job guarantee, like your fellow countryman Bill Mitchell advocates quite clearly, might be an approach worth trying out. Economy in the shit? More people on the public payroll, at rather low (but living wage!) wages. Do it at the county/city level and you can create almost any kind of job. If the private sector wants those people instead, they'd have to offer better working conditions. No more blackmail through the fear of unemployment -- you can always take a public job, even if it is at a meagre pay.

I should probably have mentioned that I don't buy into the notion of a stable market. From where I am standing, it's inherently unstable, be it through monopolies/oligopolies, dodging of laws and regulations (Uber), impossibility to price-in externalities (environmental damage most of all) or plain, old cost-cutting leading to a system-wide depression of demand. I'm fine with interfering in the market wherever it fails to deliver on our macroeconomic objectives -- which at this point in time is almost everywhere, basically.

Healthcare is all the rage these days, thanks to the primaries. I'd take the publicly-run NHS over the privately-run abomination in the US any day of the week. And that's after all the cuts and privatizations of the last two decades that did a horrible number on the NHS. Fuck ATOS, while we're at it.

Same for the railroad: the pre-privatization Bundesbahn in Germany was something to be proud of and an immeasurable boost of both the economy and the general standard of living.

In the mid/long run, the effects of automation and climate change-induced migration will put an end to the idea of full employment, but for the time being, there's still plenty of work to be done, plenty of idle resources to be employed, and just nobody to finance it. So why not finance it through the printing press until capacity is reached?

As for the Venezuela comparison: I don't think it fits in this case. Neither does Weimar Germany, which is paraded around quite regularly. Both Venezuela and Weimar Germany had massive supply-side problems. They didn't have the production capacity nor the resources to meet the demand they created by spending money into circulation. If an economy runs at or above its capacity, any additional spending, wherever it comes from, will cause inflation. But both Europe and the US are operating faaar below capacity in any measurable metric. You mentioned LRAS yourself. I think most estimates of it, as well as most estimates of NAIRU, are off quite significantly so as to not take the pressure off the wage slaves in the lowest income sector. You need mass unemployment to keep them in line.

As you said, the participation rate is woefully low, so there's ample space. And I'd rather overshoot and cause a short spike in inflation than remain below potential and leave millions to unneccessary misery.

Given the high level of private debt, there will be no increase in spending on that front. Corporations don't feel the need to invest, since demand is down and their own vaults are filled to the brim with cash. So if the private sector intends to net save, you either have to run a current account surplus (aka leech demand from other countries) or a fiscal deficit. Doesn't work any other way, sectoral balances always sum up to zero, by definition. If we want to reduce the dangerous levels of private debt, the government needs to run a deficit. If we don't want to further increase the federal debt, the central bank has to hand the cash over directly, without the issuance of debt through the treasury.

As for the independant central bank: you can only be independant from either the government or the private sector, not both. Actually, you can't even be truly independant from either, given that people are still involved, and people have ideologies and financial ties.

Still, if an "independant" central bank is what you prefer, Adair Turner's new book "Between Debt and the Devil" might be worth a read. He's a proponent of 100% reserve banking, and argues for the occasional use of the printing press -- though controlled by an inflation-targeting central bank. According to him, QE is pointless and in order to bring nominal demand up to the level we want, we should have a fiscal stimulus financed by central bank money. The central bank controls the amount, the government decides on what to spend it on.

Not how I would do it, but given his expertise as head of the Financial Services Authority, it's quite refreshing to hear these things from someone like him.

The pain and misery which is ultimately the mediocrity of subway kindness viral videos. We are cursed with what we are doing here. The internet is a land that, if God exists, he created in anger. Overwhelming misery, overwhelming fornication, overwhelming lack of order. There is no harmony in the universe as we have conceived it.

But you don't hate it. You love it very much... against your better judgement.

After seeing the colony freeze, go hungry, suffer plague, have it's foreign support removed, get swindled by outsiders, and eventually descend into near-anarchy, Bradford made the following entries:


All this whille no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expecte any. So they begane to thinke how they might raise as much torne as they could, and obtaine a beter crope then they had done, that they might not still thus languish in miserie. At length, after much debate of things, the Govr (with the advise of the cheefest amongest them) gave way that they should set corve every man for his owne perticuler, and in that regard trust to them selves; in all other things to goe on in the generall way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcell of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end, only for present use (but made no devission for inheritance), and ranged all boys and youth under some familie. This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more torne was planted then other waise would have bene by any means the Govr or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente. The women now wente willingly into the feild, and tooke their litle-ons with them to set torne, which before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie; whom to have compelled would have bene thought great tiranie and oppression.

The experience that was had in this commone course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of Platos and other.ancients, applauded by some of aater times; -that the taking away of propertie, and bringing in communitie into a comone wealth, would make them happy and $orishing; as if they were wiser then God. For this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their benefite and comforte. For the yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour and servise did repine that they should spend their time and streingth to worke for other mens wives and children, with out any recompence. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in devission of victails and cloaths, then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter the other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, etc., with the meaner and yonger sorte, thought it some indignite and disrespect unto them. And for mens wives to be commanded to doe servise for other men, as dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, etc., they deemd it a kind of slaverie, neither could many husbands well brooke it. Upon the poynte all being to have alike, and all to doe alike, they thought them selves in the like condition, and ove as good as another; and so, if it did not cut of those relations that God hath set amongest men, yet it did at least much diminish and take of the mutuall respects that should be preserved amongst them. And would have bene worse if they had been men of another condition. Let pone objecte this is mens corruption, and nothing to the course it selfe. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdome saw another course fiter for them.


Yes it is important the field you work in. You are going to spend something like 40% of your waking hours doing it. If you think doubleshifting manual labour under scorching sun and whips is somehow equivalent to 8 hours in an office environment where you answer phones or w/e, you've lost the thread.

You're right that not everyone can change jobs. You grossly exaggerate what is required to do so, however. Yes, changing between highly skilled careers that required a significant amount of specialized knowledge isn't available to all that many people. But you can't even see the miseries of slave labour from the desk of your first career, they're so far away.

You haven't thought too much about infrastructure and what it would mean to have it removed, have you? Of course infrastructure is a benefit to employers, but that's not relevant to how beneficial it is to the 'slaves'. I expect casual access to electricity, water, and world wide communication would have done a lot for slaves, to name just a few of the elements of infrastructure. I'm honestly starting to doubt your sincerity now.

Slaves had good healthcare? Holy shit. I never expected to hear something like that. I don't need to make a counter point here, as you've ridiculed yourself. American healthcare is shitty -- COMPARED with other developed countries. It is light years ahead of anything that has existed outside the jurisdiction of a government.

Yes, the influential have an advantage. Nobody is disputing that. It doesn't utterly negate your rights across the board. You can still travel. You can still educate yourself. You can still own property. You can still address many grievances by wielding your rights. This list goes on and on. ALL things a slave couldn't ever hope to do. I think the rest of your paragraph should have been moved to the protection from hostility section so I'll address it there.

I was addressing hostility from other slaves. You are probably right in that the tribalism it fosters can be very dangerous where countries clash. In a system without government, spats would result in undending blood feuds, all across the territory ruled by the anarchy, whereas under a state, if they happen across borders they can erupt into something far worse.

I don't agree with the way the US has handled the extremist muslim situation that they mid-wifed in the middle east. But are you going to tell me that you're less safe, now, even after all the alluded too transgressions, than some rural farmer in South Sudan, who is effectively living without any guaranteed rights?

I'm definitely for more compassion and socialism than seen in modern US policy, so I'm not sure what your point is. Are you trying to claim that policies on slave plantations were more generous towards the slaves than our current policies are towards us?

Let's just say that I'm loathe to accept an unsourced opinion than medieval peasantry lead better lives than the average government-laden citizen nowadays. I'm sure there are some points on which they did better. Superstition, sickness, famine, war, flooding. We honestly don't have anything that even compares to these in the modern world. If you could link it or something though, I'd love to read it. It sounds interesting.

These posts are getting too long.

The dance party is in heaven. Misery is for those in hell. Take some bottle water you will be parched.

I'm not a historian so i might be getting this wrong, but i'd been led to believe:

a) Germany itself was in debt after WW1, and the economic hardship forced on them in the form of reparations has been postulated as a reason why the Nazi party rose to power in the first place. When people are desperate, they look for someone to blame. Over in the UK, the government have ensured that we're blaming immigrants and anyone on welfare for these economic hardships that were caused by the rich elite and ruling classes, corrupt to the very core and no longer working in the interests of the country and its people.

b) European countries agreed to forget large portions of Germany's debts, because back then we seemed to know that is was pointless to wreck a country and cause untold misery, pain and death to the residents all in the name of profiting off them.

I am so disgusted and overwhelmed by how badly everything is being run, and how obviously it is being run for the benefit of a minority. I hope Greece sticks two fingers up to the lot of them and does an Iceland, followed by every other European country doing something similar. We can't hope to carry on like this, we can't let power hungry psychopaths control the world... we won't survive like this.

@newtboy,

How about great big citation needed. Your making a lot of assertions and about zero references to back anything, your just one step shy of claiming because I say so as your proof.

The rotting material creates exponentially more methane than any mechanism could trap.
Citation required.

your study quote did not say that "they've identified regions up north where the soil absorbs more methane the warmer it gets
The abstract is only a paragraph and the charliem gave the link up thread, just go and read it already, they did numerical estimates AFTER going in and directly measuring the actual affects. And I must additionally add, it's not MY link but was instead the ONLY claimed evidence in thread of your catastrophic methane release.

Let me start us off, the IPCC once again summarizes your problem as follows:
However modelling studies and expert judgment indicate that CH4 and CO2 emissions will increase under Arctic warming, and that they will provide a positive climate feedback. Over centuries, this feedback will be moderate: of a magnitude similar to other climate–terrestrial ecosystem feedbacks
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter06_FINAL.pdf
From FAQ 6.1

There are caveats prior to the above quote about unknowns and uncertainty and the possibility the affects will be less or more, but the consensus is, don't panic. Like I said.

As for bringing that person from 1915 in today, you don't get to tell them the environment will be destroyed 100 years from 2015 in the year 2100 as a result. You have to prove that first, which you have merely asserted, not proven. On the other hand, my evidence was bringing our visitor from the past showing them the year 2015, and the consequences of rising global temperatures by 0.8C since his time in 1915. Then I say we ask him if abandoning coal power, airplanes, satellites, and cars to prevent that warming is a better alternate future he should go back and sell the people of 1915 on. I'm thinking that's gonna be a hard sell. I'm additionally pointing out that the IPCC projections for the next 100 years is 1.5C warmer than today, so we'll be going up by 1.5 instead of the 0.8 our visitor from the past had to choose. The trick is, I don't see how you can claim that panic should be the natural and clear response. You need a lot more evidence, which as stated above you've failed to provide, and more over what you've posited is contrary to the science as presented by researchers like those at the IPCC.

It may be unfishable in 15-20 years at current acidification rates.
citation needed.

by 2025 it's estimated that 2/3 of people worldwide will live in a water shortage.
citation needed, and you need to tie it to human CO2 and not human guns and violence creating the misery.

Northern India/Southern China is nearly 100% dependent on glacial melt water, glaciers that have lost 50% in the last decade
citation needed

The downvote was not for your opinion, it was for your dangerously mistaken estimations and conclusions...
, says you. If you don't use any evidence to refute me it's still called your opinion...

I say things like that because they are objectively true. The very concept of omnipotence and omniscience violate all kinds of physical laws. They are paradoxes; the "immovable force meeting the immovable object", but all our experience and learning tells us the universe does not work like that. Again, we might be wrong, but the more we learn, the less likely it becomes that we've missed something so vast.

We haven't missed it, chaosengine; the vast majority of people on Earth believes there is a God.

Human history is full of misery, suffering and cruelty to everything around us. One of the few bright points is our quest for knowledge, and you willfully reject that to cling to a stone age belief system that has been demonstrably proven false (geocentricity, for example) again and again.

In every important way, man hasn't learned anything and hasn't changed at all. The misery and suffering in the world increases year by year, it doesn't decrease.

Factually, it's incorrect.
Morally, it's bankrupt and consistently on the wrong side of history.

Matthew 24:35

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.

One day you might wake up and realise (to paraphrase the much missed Douglas Adams) that "the garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it".

Until then, you are welcome to indulge in your fantasies, but if you insist on injecting your irrationality into debates like this, expect disagreement.

I've read most of Douglas Adams works. I grew up secular and you would probably be shocked at the level of agreement we would have had in the not too distant past. I have been set free from the bondage of slavery to sin, and have been born again into a living hope. What you know on its own profits you nothing, because without faith it is impossible to please God. Ask God to reveal Himself to you. You don't have to acknowledge it to me, but that is the only way you will ever know anything about God, is by His personal revelation to you. He is faithful to give you a revelation of your need for a Savior.

I say things like that because they are objectively true. The very concept of omnipotence and omniscience violate all kinds of physical laws. They are paradoxes; the "immovable force meeting the immovable object", but all our experience and learning tells us the universe does not work like that. Again, we might be wrong, but the more we learn, the less likely it becomes that we've missed something so vast.

Human history is full of misery, suffering and cruelty to everything around us. One of the few bright points is our quest for knowledge, and you willfully reject that to cling to a stone age belief system that has been demonstrably proven false (geocentricity, for example) again and again.

Factually, it's incorrect.
Morally, it's bankrupt and consistently on the wrong side of history.

One day you might wake up and realise (to paraphrase the much missed Douglas Adams) that "the garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it".

Until then, you are welcome to indulge in your fantasies, but if you insist on injecting your irrationality into debates like this, expect disagreement.

i think some here are missing the point of this short video.
while we can all argue the particulars of religion,it's failings and its successes,the fundamental reasons for its existence remains.

the militant atheist will argue holy text with the very same literalism that a fundamentalist exhibits,all the while ignoring the massive contributions to humanity in the realms of:art,philosophy,politics and even science.

while this dynamic of the argument is not necessarily wrong,it is,however,inaccurate.one cannot ignore,nor dismiss the positive contributions of religions,which have been legion.this does not mean that religion is above reproach nor criticism,just that a militants argument is incomplete without acknowledging this vital facet of human history.

the problem gentlemen,is fundamentalism,of ANY flavor.
religion is not going anywhere,much to the chagrin of atheists,but the reasons why humanity gravitates towards religion,or a search for the divine and sacred,remain a very powerful influence.

religion must,and has over the centuries,evolve to incorporate the paradigms that are added daily.the religion that is rigid in its interpretations and implaccable in its philosophy...dies.human history is littered with the remains of lost religions that refused to evolve with humanity.

a good example is the dark ages.which was partially perpetrated by a rigid understanding of christian theology (and an abuse of power and authority)affecting millions.it halted human progress and imposed a suffering and misery that is still remembered to this day.then the church experienced a philisophical shift and the reformation was exacted,ending the dark ages and introducing the 'age of enlightenment"...and human progress was allowed to proceed.

interestingly enough,while this was all happening in europe and human misery was a direct result of religious rigidity,the muslims were carrying the torch for human progress.making such additions as algebra and other huge strides in the sciences.

how is that for irony?

fundamentalism,in any form,must be fought at every level.so on that note i tend to side with atheists who are on a constant vigil in revealing the utter hypocrisy of a fundamentalist theosophy,but i will not ignore the wonderful and fantastic contributions that religion has added to human history.

because the fundamental reason why humanity gravitates toward religion is still there and it is not going anywhere.so religion,like man,must evolve to encompass the new paradigm in order to express our humanity,inspiration and awe in the face of the divine.

i am not an overly religious man.
that form of theosophy is not my path,but i recognize the importance of religion and its positive contributions.the challenge is to allow the more archaic and atrophied theosophy to fall away and dissolve like a vestigal limb.keep the parts that inspire and exalt humanity and allow the unnecessary and irrelevant to die with dignity,to become a footnote in our history.

which is what i gathered this video was attempting to convey and why i found it interesting.

@shinyblurry
thanks for the link buddy,now i am depressed.

@bobknight33
please do not take offense when i say:your last comment is so riddled with contradictions,fallacies and outright ignorance in the understandings of -religious history,politics and philosophy that i cannot even begin to address a singular point.that comment is just one big mess.

i will say this in regards to your comment.
to assert that atheists have no moral compass due to their lack of faith and/or religion is just patently bullshit.unless of course,you secretly wish to murder,steal and bang your neighbors wife and the ONLY thing keeping you from acting out is your fear of god.
or hell..whatever..judgement.

do you see what a facile and inept argument that is? morality is inherent to each individual.we all develop our own moral code.now religion can help clarify that moral code,but if you take religion away? we still will all have a moral code we live by.

we also rationalize.
ah..now there is something we humans excel at..rationalizing.or better put:lying to ourselves in order to justify poor behavior.here is where the atheist and the religious diverge.because the atheist has no holy text to twist and manipulate in order to justify that poor behavior,they have to own it and take responsibility.the religious person,however,can abdicate responsibility onto an ancient text based solely on their own interpretation (or some authority they have given power).human history is burdened with the mass graves of such justifications.

ok..i am rambling.
i love this subject and rarely get to engage in discussions such as this.if you have made it this far..i thank you for your kind patience with my own proclivities towards verbosity.

Yes, I agree, I know the job needs to be done, and he's got the job of doing it.
But it's his attitude, that he likes causing other people grief, and he's loving other people's misery. In fact, he's getting off on it.
What kind of a person must this guy be when he's off camera. Not a compassionate bone in his body.