I'm sorry, but those conclusions are pure emotional based off what you see in the MSM. If you can find me a study, a legitimate one, not one from Faux News or Huffington Post, that actually shows that a government safety net induces vagrant behavior, then I will believe you. Until then, I will stick with all the studies that show very clearly that social safety barriers do in fact work, and that the decades old gutting of the programs are wrecking havoc on the system. Not to mentioned the systematic desecration of the educational system that's been designed solely for "efficiency" and pumps out students that are over qualified, unhappy, massively in debt and lead to believe a lie in which they can never achieve, or the exact opposite and ditches those most in need yet are the most visually different.

Combine this with white flight, red lining, and a culture of fear mongering, race baiting and rapid communication and we have a perfect storm. The general population is so overrun with sad stories and empathy inducing situations they actually go into empathy shock - a state in which they cease to care and numb themselves so they don't have to make a decision. A decision which they may later feel bad about. Instead, it's "nothing I can do about it so I won't care." And yes, this happens with those "gang-bangers" you talk about.

Instead of solving the situation, which is a blatant and total discrepancy in incomes, social normality, and general empathy, we will continue to have this problem. So long as white flight occurs and the NYPD openly racially profiles and harasses 110% (no joke) of the black community, and so long as the Christian Right still chants "it's ok to profile brown people" both in NYC, Arizona and everywhere else we will continue to have this problem.

Ever hear of the Theory of Attitudes? Or Reactance? There is far more going on than "if we give them money they'll stop working." Because I'm pretty sure every Christmas when your parents (general assumption) gives you presents, you instantly stop working. Totally proven concept, eh?

May we suggest the most glaring (common sense with a view trumping the most gracious of mortality odds) 'security flaw' inherent in ANY similar device (including off-brand/hype models) with functionality requiring two thumbs, a pair of eyes, and a challenge to their users of navigating the useless shit whilst performing mundane tasks such as saaay, crossing a street, waiting in line for groceries, operating a motor vehicle much less, operating your legs while not looking at the GROUND? Who needs any of this engineered obsolescence garbage anyway?...The cunts who want you under their thumbs, that's who and if they are LUCKY(all indications point to this a inevitable)-you or someone you just texted die crossing a street using some ineffectual device, car wreck while the manufacturer staffs lobbyists while crunching quarterly loss numbers.

Incorporating distraction into large populations who can afford these ancillary toys is KEY to these cunts who compete to make available these consumer grey-matter-killers and it has been the goal of providing you with the convenience of your own self-importance and slow death from the OUTSET.

Use less of the shit (civil and economic disobedience), stop fawning-over it and selling it without compensation to your friends (because after all, you have nothing else to communicate about of substance or meaning since yer skills have fallen-off a bit after the in-crowd hi-jack feeds on trashing or band-wagoning the latest devices every week..(gotta have one gotgaotta have the best)) HINT: THEY ALL HOBBLE YOUR MIND, THEY ALL SUCK-

EVERYONE do the experiment collectively (don't use their services for a month and threaten to drop service altogether) and YO, maybe develop some lasting relationships along the way....remember "eye contact!?"

Watch how miraculously interesting, stress-free and simply satisfying your unnecessarily complicated, dull-fucking life changes overnight and adds 10 more quality years to it when you numb or otherwise mitigate your use of this and all tech connected by satellite or cable. Ssuddenly, the emperor has no billy-club, a birthday suit, and the obvious becomes clear:..He's a FUCK THAT CONTROLS YOU WHO SHOULD BE ON AN INTERNATIONAL SEX-OFFENDERS DATABASE.

Had a similar experience with a buffed 35 years old security guard... Back when I was 11. On a daily basis. Made me a stronger man... With a bit of numb tissue.

@artician

Even if the models for the decline of empires are inexact, poorly sourced or even exaggerated, they are doing so to combat the overwhelming force of the status quo that feeds us a constant stream of comforting, mind-numbing bliss through mass media, mostly delivered though TV news, advertising and cleverly veiled in the actual entertainment that the audience enjoys.

It's hard to mount a comeback against a presupposed cultural truth supported by any form of economic interest. The tobacco industry, for example, mounted powerful misinformation and doubt as scientific evidence slowly leaked out that smoking was harmful. People just don't want to hear that the way they live and what they "know" to be true is going to change and that personal choice is going to have to be limited to some extent.

The same is true for global warming, deforestation, species extinction, pollution, etc., etc. You can resist the "ineffectual mumblings" of Hitchens, Chomsky and the like, but you do so to at your own peril. People like you are the do-do bird in this scenario. People like you are the 2 pack-a-day smoker who thinks they've been smoking for 20 years and feeling fine so why quit now. "Screw the scientists, they're all out to make themselves rich so they concoct these cackamamy experiments to 'prove' they need more research funding." Okay, it's your right to dismiss the advice of people smarter than you.

This video follows the same vein as Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist series (which I suggest you watch or rewatch for shits and giggles.) The idea of consumption tax seems a lot easier for our system to adopt than Joseph's idea of a "Resource-Based Economy." It just sounds more fair that those consuming resources pay back into the system and less airy-fairy than some socialist "to-each as to his need" idea. And let's face it, it's right on a social level. It's just too hard to get there based on our current economic and political structure.

Our wasteful way of life is just unsustainable. I don't think anyone can deny that the ponzi scheme of FIAT money is eventually going to collapse because the balance of wealth is way out of whack AND ONLY GETTING WORSE. And the USA is at the top, and yet owes trillions in funny money that they can only pay back if they stop building missiles and tanks. But I think we all know that when the shit hits the fan, we're going to want to get behind those tanks to ride out the storm of resistance from the 99%. Not the privileged 99% in the west, the 99% of destitute, impoverished poor that build the toys, sew and clothes, glue the plastic Walmart crap, and GROW THE FOOD that we want.to have cheap. We're doing this all on the backs of the "free slaves" in undeveloped countries: Columbia, Bangladesh and on and on.

Search your feelings, Luke. You know it to be true.

Seriously mind-numbing vamp that-

So these thingy-dealies won't contaminate ground water if they gusplode? (He really would make a lovely he-she though, and Chloe with a flapper-cut, a fettishing boy)

Someone's physical androgynous characteristics has nothing to do with their sexuality, does it? merely an observation...similar to the one I made based in my 'ignace' of nuclear power, and all her fucked iterations.

I've been anti-nuclear from the git-go, always will be-
I also must maintain that the power that will push the planet into the next exponential blast (if numb, distracted peeps don't let asshole humans turn the place into a dystopian shit hole) won't come from an energy source that uses radioactive anything-It's gonna be something else that creates the energy needed for whatever sustainable future awaits.

my instincts is all I'm going on, but this cat's gonna get snatched-up by insect-keepers for profit and mayhem...Or fuck me, maybe he's gonna be another Nicole Tesla-(pun-intended, the kids cute)

sexuality my ass.....

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Comfortably Numb - Makana - Slack Rock cover. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

I'm going to respond to that last one in a couple of parts since I might have to close soon...

I LOVE Comfortably Numb also!!!! I was actually debating on which one I was going to tell you was my favorite because that one rates right up there!

Can you believe I have never heard "In the Flesh" before? I don't know how I missed it - it's definitely one of the better ones. Thanks for sharing it with me. I've got it playing in the background now as I type to you.

Embedding is easy once you know how...I was actually able to copy and paste from the https://www.youtube.com part to view your embeds...but here's how to do it...

1. Under the video on youtube, click "share"
2. Then click on "embed"
3. Then tick the box saying "use old embed code"
4. Then copy the embed code in the box and paste it in your comment here.

Test it out. Give me another good song to listen to.

This system works fine for Norway and serves as a model for a humane system of rehabilitation/education/reintegration-This would work as a model for any modern civilized society given a similar petri dish.

Any transition to something similar in the U.S. would take a few generations and maybe something as simple as re-indoctrination of her population through eliminating television and consumer advertising and re-claiming education as a system of human potential and critical thinking rather than a mind-numbing-and-dumbing of young minds and a platform for the roboticism of humanity.

Hardly any violent crime in Canada and this is due mainly to the lack of 24/7 violence and disinformation being pumped-into homes through the cathode-ray nipple....The only wet-nurse that could create a cripple!

Developmental-disability and criminals running the machine has created the big business of "criminal" recidivism in America-The real criminals are in charge of the prisons system apparatus-

For these pieces of human garbage, there should be no-quarter and televised trials should broadcast worldwide for about five solid years should they ever be brought to justice...

The U.S. systems' broken and beyond redemption.

A "Rains of Castamere" montage would have been excellent, but I actually really liked Catelyns death. There was this sense of just numbness from her, that she's been through so much she can't even function any more.

But yeah, the red wedding was definitely one of the high points in the story. Martin really needs to get the story moving again in the next book.

God, this thread....It's rather mind-numbing-

"And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird (and Wolf)." Rev: 18:12, choggiphrased

Let this 134rth comment go down on record as another reiteration of the fact that CNN is nothing more than a programming organization, with so-called "news" as a facade for an agenda to render it' s viewers cognitively sterile through stultifyingly, surfeited horseshit.

More please Blitzor, on that mother who held her daughter like a kite by the hair to keep her in the bathtub??

I'd just like to say a big FUCK YOU to whoever started people saying 'could care less' when they actually mean 'couldn't care less'. It's brain numbingly stupid. Stop it.

The whole thing is laughable... well, it ought to make for a good mind-numbing flick to watch. Leave yer brain at the door! I should check for some Portal-themed items and see if I can walk into the theater with that shown.

I just don't get the complaint that automation has put people out of jobs.

You've taken shitty, menial, repetitive jobs and made them automated... like they should be.

In an ideal world, the people who used to do shitty jobs like that should be better educated and skilled and be able to do more fulfilling jobs.

Sure it doesn't always happen like that, but decrying the lack of mind numbing jobs that are better handled by automated procedures is really setting a fucking low bar on what you think quality of life should be.

Complain about the lack of education that leaves droves of people with no skills to be able to do meaningful work.