"Europe has a bleak future ahead of it thanks to Biden and his energy sanction push, and no one seems to have a clue what to do about it."

*sigh*

Either you have absolutly no clue about the thing you are talking about or you lie. Mostly to yourself.

It feels like Biden has divided opinion so comprehensively that the two sides can't find any common ground. They each think the other side is the work of the devil and so are unable to take legitimate concerns seriously.

Speaking from a UK perspective I don't like either side, but I see what Biden and his crew are doing around the world and they seem to be an incredibly dangerous administration. Lighting fires and inflaming tensions in countries across the world.

He's upset the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians hate him, so do most of the middle east and Latin america.

Europe has a bleak future ahead of it thanks to Biden and his energy sanction push, and no one seems to have a clue what to do about it.

I'm really starting to miss Trump.

As Jimmy Kimmel once said (paraphrasing), "The difference between a Rush Limbaugh fan and a Bill Maher fan is, fans of Bill KNOW he is an a**hole!" * And Bill talking about manhood is like Ted Cruz advising someone on how to make friends.

The Ball Count:
Those numbers are stark. Have seen similar numbers. CDC birthrates suggest bleakness. But suggest it isn't lack of manliness but the whole American lifestyle. Long work hours w/low compensation; having little say in how the government works; medical insecurity - - stress, stress, stress - - w/o many signs of hope. (lost a bundle on the Mitch McConnell security blankets)

a lot of issues brought up in his monologue but has very few clues to the reasons.

'Tho his answer to INCELS has already been better stated...
(condensed version starts @ 5:21)

@newtboy
@BSR

Think of it a bit like this (quote from Wilde)

"...surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not p. 3cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.

But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it"
--------------
And allow me to pop this out:
"the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves"
--------------


This is a stark/bleak example. I don't personally agree with it entirely. As I said, I bring cereal for my students and it's there and free and available unless I don't have time to get to the store or unless I myself am out of pocket change to buy extra food.


I don't ENTIRELY disagree though ----> Which is not to say that I agree.

I would say, YES there are structural changes that need to take place, but I also believe that assistance needs to be there to handle some kind of transition period while a problem is realized.

ALL of that being said

Here is a perfect example of a societal ill in our current system that needs to be addressed. It's a disgusting by-product of a structurally unsound student loan system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db9NaPDtAmU


Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1017/1017-h/1017-h.htm

Great message to *promote when things are feeling bleak in 2018.

i am just going to add to the opinions and perspectives that @MilkmanDan ,@ChaosEngine ,@dannym3141 and especially @newtboy who i agree with so clearly that i swear we are related.

since many dynamics have already been covered, i.e:police culture,racism,incompetence etc etc.

i shall offer a historical perspective in the ways of the power dynamic.

while this is a power vs powerlessness dynamic dealing with agents of the state,it helps to understand just how we got to this point,and it is NOT the first time we have been here.

see:labor movement of the 30's and the labor strikes,and the response from not only the business community but our own government.

see: the civil rights movement and segregation,and how demagouges used political power to divide by way of racism,and then used police to intimidate,beat and imprison.

there are many MANY examples here in america where the police have been used to suppress and oppress a people or community for less than altruistic reasons,and most certainly not aligning with the ideology we were taught in school the function of police.nevermind the syrupy sweet,idealized picture shoved down our throats since an early age.

so we see on our facebooks,our twitters and/or whatever social media you prefer,that black lives matter...and the counter point,that NO..ALL lives matter.

now this would make sense in a world that never took history into account,or a growing cultural norm of violence and oppression that had been slowly seeping into poor communities (mainly black and latino).

oh wait..
that's right.
social media pundits NEVER fucking consider any of those factors,because just like bill o'reilly,those are pesky nuances and context conflict with their own narrow narrative.

but let us consider them and how they may possibly be a major driving factor in americas current climate.

let us take ferguson as an example,that is a good place to start.
and let us go back to 2008,where we can see the boiling begin to take place in this extremely impoverished community which was already struggling.

the population is a black majority,poor to working poor.home ownership is low,food stamp recipients are high and the future is pretty bleak.

in 2008 ferguson received approximately 18% of it's total fiscal revenue from misdemeanor infractions i.e:traffic,parking,moving violations.small time stuff.basic fines for small infractions.in 2008 that number jumped to 66%.

why?
what happened?
what changed?

well the comptroller of ferguson (and greater st louis),along with HUNDREDS of other smaller municipalities across the country,had bought the rotten fish that wall street was selling in the form of bullshit derivatives.

now wall street and the big banks got their tax payer bailout,but towns like ferguson did not.they lost millions,sometimes billions.this meant pensions were either reduced or outright denied,because there was NO money!

but a town still has to pay police.
fire fighters and school teachers,
clerks and judges,
keep the roads paved and the street lights working.

so what is a local government to do?
can't tax the working class who own homes.you already jacked their property tax to the roof.
can't tax the local business,you already squeeze them as well.
how about those non-property owning people in ferguson?
they need to pay up as well,and let's use the police force to relinquish them of the paltry money they don't have.

to the tune of 66% of all of fergusons revenue.
that is insanity.

so what if you live in ferguson?
chances are you are black,and either poor or working poor.

you make,if you are lucky,20 grand a year and by one man's testimony he paid over 2,000 in traffic tickets in one year.the majority of americans dont see those kind of numbers their entire lifetime.

and what if you began to realize that it was not just you.that almost every person you know or talked to had similar stories.

would you begin to feel a tad bit targeted?

what if the city of ferguson started to become very creative with not only their rules but how they enforced those rules?

what if every year the fines went up?
not remained the same,but actually UP? every year.

what if,as a community people began to actually fear the police? to experience anxiety just by the sight of a patrol car,even though they were not engaging in anything illegal? and who knows...maybe there is some new ordinance on the books that you are unaware of?

would you become paranoid and suspicious of law enforcement?

and then..what if....you started losing friends to cops.people you grew up with being shot in the street,and every time the mayor comes out and calls it a "justifiable killing".

would that make you feel any better?
any less paranoid or anxious?

there was ONE police shooting in ten years and then..as if by magic ..(which is how the media seems to always portray this..shocking news..at 11)..you lose 5 friends in a year.all to cops..all "justifiable".

would you begin to think there was a conspiracy?
targeting you and your neighbors?

i BET you would.
i know i would.

now lets look at the cops.

they are just a tool.
an instrument for the state to uphold the law and write citations for infractions.they dont MAKE the laws,nor the infractions,not even the fines.

they just do what they are told.

and they are told to go into these poor and working poor neighborhoods and write tickets,a LOT of tickets.

do you really think they are unaware of the growing hostility towards them? the looks of disgust,fear and apprehension?

but...this is their job,and they do what they are told.

they see.
they know.
they are aware of the growing hatred towards them,and this makes them anxious..and defensive..and in some horrible,tragic cases...trigger happy.

a natural and normal response to heightened stimuli in the face of great uncertainty.

so they react impulsively and out of fear in a way that ten years ago would have been unheard of.

they think themselves good cops.
they do a good job.
they do what they are told.
and the people hate them for it.
so they respond instinctively and with poor judgement.

we..as citizens,respond with disgust and indignation when a cop abuses his/her authority.we see this as a major moral breach in the citizen/cop relationship,because we feel as agents of the law they should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us...and rightly so,but when you put a human being in a tense and dangerous situation,not of their making,they will fail at some point to react correctly and with sound judgement.

they SHOULD be held accountable,but so should the city council members and the mayor and all the local representatives who created this toxic climate in the first place.

the lesson to be learned here is that nothing is a binary situation when people are concerned.

so when black lives matter protestors address people to make them aware of the situation,this is what they are talking about.the police killing are only a last stage manifestation of a situation that began in 2008 on wall street.

and we need to be aware,because right now it is the predominantly black communities,but soon coming to a neighborhood near YOU.

the poor and working poor have become expendable.no longer relevant to the system.which is why police shootings are being handled the way they are.our value is ever increasingly being judged on how well we can feed the system.

until this disparity is addressed there will continue to be police shootings.people will die and there will be no indictments.

because police do what they are told.

it is up to us to make policy makers accountable for their actions,and in doing so address a toxic climate that both the poor,working poor and cops alike have to swim in.

stop forcing cops to write tickets to fund a city that lost it's savings due to fuckhead bankers.

this blood..all of it..is on those bankers hands.

Fallout 1 was a technically antiquated VGA (that's right, 640x480, 256 colours) post-apocalyptic turn-based tactical RPG where you could not control you team mates during combat. It was a bit buggy (and so was F2). It was Mad Max, without cars.

And yet.

Fallout is arguably the best world-building work in the history of video games. People are probably going to dispute that, but most other games are built on pre-existing lore or works, or do not have that scope*. Fallout built its world pretty much from scratch, conflating a pre-war 1950's, golden-era, overly-optimistic world-view with the bleak desolation of the nuclear holocaust that ensued (to clarify for those who really know nothing about Fallout: in this universe a nuclear war happened in the 50s**. all that's left is from that era). Beside its content which was plentiful in and of itself, this created a contrasted, yet highly coherent and mature world (and by mature I don't just mean killing friendly NPC, I mean doing Morally Very Bad Things that don't necessarily result in graphic scenes). An open world that you could roam freely, be surprised by a new discovery that you made, and at the same time find these discoveries to fit perfectly with the game's logic. In most large games you just access new areas or are carried by the story, in Fallout you would go "Holy shit I'm in the middle of a city populated by centenarian ghouls!", shortly followed by "ho, of course it's full of ghouls, that's perfectly normal". There are not many games that have this mix of unexpected/logical and dark/humorous content.

Fallout 2 had the same ho-my-God-how-could-they-get-away-with-it VGA engine (so next to zero evolution there), but quadrupled the world map (with a minimum overlap with the one from F1) and brought it fifty or so years forward, expanding the world greatly (there are now rival quasi-city-states, and your action may influence their future), while also building on the first one: some antagonists 'classes' from F1 have now grown their own identity and became NPC, and some characters are still around -- a young character you saved in F1 went back to her settlement, became its leader, built it into a town, and is now in the process of expanding it into a new state...So Fallout 2 is basically the same game, except they did that one important thing: push the game world's boundaries even more. You could never guess what next city would be like, but you could bet it would have some crazy shit in it, and yet somehow still make sense.

That's why many people don't like Fallout 3. It is not in itself a bad game, but comparatively, it's kind of coasting. Also it's too damn easy.

I'm sorry, I got carried away, you were asking if you should play the previous ones? No, you 'should' not. But you could, and for F1 & F2 you would certainly not lose your time if you know what you're getting into. And if you don't, at least go and watch their intro on Youtube, they'll give you the feel of the world.

* Possible contenders in terms of "original video game world": Elder Scrolls (vast, but less original), Deus ex (not as large), Bioshock (same), Final Fantasy (original and vast, but not as complex). Any other idea?
** Technically not the 1950s, but in practice the 50s + a bunch of high tech gizmo.

Looking forward to this. I've been binging on the old Doctor Whos, Series 7 & 8 (Jon Pertwee & Tom Baker). They are so different to the last few years. The old ones had a real sense of menace that few of the new stories have. Not as cartoonish and some like "Genesis of the daleks" are so bleak they would never make them now. Less swelling music and melodrama, more hard sci-fi.

enjoyable when walt and jessie were on top of the game, cooking together... otherwise just tens of hours of dark bleak stress

I watched the whole thing over a week when I was off work sick.

Really enjoyed it, but found that watching it like that got pretty bleak at times.

Can't help but think the Canadian version wouldn't be as good.

I think we have to give them artistic license to show as many examples as possible of the worst it can be, but at the same time it paints a pretty bleak picture where every single "man" acts compulsively and exaggeratedly sexist whenever they're within earshot of a "woman".

I don't like the more subtle aspects either - "men" peeing in alleyways? I've seen women peeing in alleyways and i consider it equally disgusting as men peeing in alleyways. Whoever does it is gross or utterly desperate, and by dint of easier access men are probably more inclined to take the risk of it. This embellishes the misogyny.

The clothing comparisons made is another example - they compare loose fitting shirt and shorts with (for example) skin tight, see through, almost naked stuff. Her dialogue at the end makes me think the author was being quite a bit tongue-in-cheek about that and therefore other bits. Topless jogging? How many would want to do that? Doesn't make good mechanical sense to me and i think you'd find a topless woman walking around my neighbourhood would be shopped in by the women who saw her, not the men.

I think if they're going to try to make a point with the rape scene then they needed to be less tongue-in-cheek with the goofy stuff that i think is added for a level of humour.

No Jigga, you are wrong as well. The people who filmed this wish only to expose the rampant encroachment of the police into every aspect of civil society. The advent of technology in the hands of most people and the increasing awareness of the growing police state worldwide is one of the many stopgaps to a bleak future of decreased human rights and control of humanity by a small majority of agenda-oriented tyrants.

As far as police 'turning into' shitbag assholes? NO. Again you are wrong and completely clueless as tho the psychological profiling that goes on in the process towards someone becoming a 'law enforcement' dickbag.

Alpha types with low intellect and questionable imprint and socialization. Many come from abusive homes or generations of law enforcement. Many in the U.S. are members of or are sympathetic to, the clan and other such organizations or fraternities. MOST are racist, sexist, etc. Many police, were they not accepted into academies of sanctioned thugs would become criminals. Some were very close to becoming gang members, petty criminals, etc.

They dredge from the damaged-goods of society to fill their ranks, and this only gets worse as people like you, and others detached from what really goes on, continue to come the defense of force as a means to control society.

Cops definitely don't need any help form a deluded general public to grow in ranks or develop new and improved ways to exercise force as an arm of those who would control society to their ends.

I can do this all fucking day long, and there will still be the voices of insipid dullards who have by choice, drunk the Kool Aide of "give a fuck as long as I have my MTV."

If you'd have a " bad attitude too if someone was heckling me for my entire career," chances are good you'd make an excellent state thug or sympathizer to the cause of safety over freedom.

Your argument is pathetic and week.

Look to the people who have everything to gain from remaining hidden who are orchestrating this bleak future of surveillance, control, and thought-crime?
How can people do anything but do nothing with 'eyes wide shut' without freeing themselves from the programming that makes each generation more willing to accept anything that may come in exchange for creature comforts from a vending machine or television and an illusory hope of a future?

I got yer point, but the answer is in asking the sensible questions, the simple ones that any journalist knows and fails to press: Who, what, why, when, and where only work if you have no ulterior motives for gathering and transferring information.

Who wants drones everywhere and whom are they to be deployed against, what do they want drones for, why do they want to use them, when, where, you get the gyst?

To answer your inquiry, the only way they can implement this surveillance/domination/fascist future is to create the environment ripe for it, that being a world full of humans unable to think clearly, practically, and critically. In case you are unaware, the stage is being prepared through the same brand of disinformation and misdirection the goddamn Nazis used to dupe Germany, it's simply more sophisticated and polished nowadays.

The world is fast becoming a collection of easily manipulated and controlled idiots, morons, imbeciles and dysfunctional humans...easily convinced of anything they are fed.

Thank God the pep-rally for political pundits and fans of the next big election have died down on the Videosift for it means to me that the far 'left' and 'right' are beginning to realize they have been hoodwinked. Apolitical extremism gives me hope and scares the shit outta me at the same time, because the puppet-masters mean business and have an agenda, and you and I... HUMANITY, are not in their buddy-club.

I don't think you're grumpy, radx. Granted, my posts tend to have that same ominous tone, in general so I guess I'm a grump too. If you really think about the scale of inequality today, the absolute plundering the ultra-rich enjoyed during the recent recession and the efforts to keep money in politics to perpetuate this cycle with brilliant tools like Citizens United, it's hard not to be bleak.

Unfortunately, what we like to call democracy simply does not have the teeth to affect meaningful change. I am encouraged by the relative economic performance from the list of countries that have scrapped first past the post (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation ) except for maybe Portugal, but even with more effective elections there is still an extra seat for the rich in every government.

Even more unfortunate will be the painful revolution the world will endure to either change from capitalism to some other form of economics (maybe resourced-based, a-la Peter Joseph.) If we don't simply slide obediently into greater and greater concentrations of wealth for the ultra-rich, we get closer and closer to revolution. But all it will take will be one upheaval to spur the revolution into action, be it:
- another, even more severe recession (maybe the EU will implode, taking the world economy down with it)
- severe global warming positive feedback loop from the arctic methane stores
- nuclear war

And who the hell knows what else might set people off. Maybe a solar flare will fry all the satellites in orbit and the lack of new tweets will create a world-wide frenzy of irate twats. And who knows when it will happen. Maybe 5 years, maybe 50 years. Since money pulls the strings, I think we're doomed to guess as to the source of VoodooV's "tipping point."