Early Retirement Extreme Forums

@Chad - http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/p/the-fiv ... lapse.html I fear this model could be applicable insofar one does not see the stages as click-click-click-by-stage but rather takes an approach of seeing citizens as a Gaussian distribution and counting how many people there are in each stage. It's fair to say that this election can be categorized as a potential political collapse---certainly a loss of faith in politics as usual---so the mean falls around stage 3 for now. Your example falls under stage 5 or cultural collapse or the point where respect for other human beings is lost. I have a few others: http://chicagoist.com/2016/10/14/the_second_city.php and http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/trum ... -1.2832866 as well as one example from my personal "focus group" who has crossed the WTF level ... but so far they seem to be outliers?

I think the question here, at least in the short term and from a systemic perspective is, how well are the stage 5 group organized. Are we talking independent actors? It seems to me that there's no effective organization at this point. Organized outliers are scary. Independent ones, not so much.

I go with the view of such as obnoxious and pathetic wretches. But there will be incidents and arrests. A few people will have convinced themselves that they can "start a revolution" by murdering some innocent people. (Sometimes I really wish Timothy McVeigh would have written an autobiography -- of how that stupid deluded random murder bullshit does not accomplish anything.) And then maybe most people will come to their senses and be shocked by what this really means -- it means you run around killing innocent people who happen to be your neighbors or local law enforcement and then hope and wait for Alex Jones or similar to call you a hero.

The risk of domestic terrorism will be many magnitudes higher in lower-population areas than in well known parts of the US. Which means it will be multiples of close to nothing. But it will seem like its in your living room non-stop 24/7.

Family crossed the border today for a picnic. After crossing they stopped at a grocery store 8 miles from the border. In the parking lot a guy noticed the Mexican plates on their new SUV and yelled, "Go back to Mexico!" They've been shopping at that store since the early sixties and have never experienced anything like that before.

Obnoxious and pathetic wretches indeed.

@jacob
His categories are a decent way of looking at it. Yeah, I think the extremists, such as the sheriff, the religious war trio from Kansas (of course, it's Kansas), your friend, etc. are more outliers than an organized movement.

It's hard to tell who could join these extremists. Most of the Trump supporters I know are too old, too anti-change, and too privileged to become real extremists. Though, I doubt they actually think they are privileged.

The recent interview done by Vice with Glenn Beck is interesting concerning the extremists, as Beck completely denies having anything to do with building this extremist base.

On a side note, the new 30 minute daily Vice News program is rather good. No anchors and almost no opinion. For instance, they were probably dying to call bullshit on Beck's claim he wasn't part of this, but they didn't even remotely suggest it with the voice over.

@Dragline
Everything seems like it is in your living room non-stop if you watch TV news without context. It's why my relatives can't believe I haven't been killed having lived in major cities for the past twenty years. It's why everyone believes that murders are out of control, when we are really in one of the lowest points in US history.

Also, police officer deaths are near the historical bottom third and, when total population is factored in, the number looks really good historically.

Chad wrote:
@Dragline
Everything seems like it is your living room non-stop if you watch TV news without context. It's why my relatives can't believe I haven't been killed having lived in major cities for the past twenty years. It's why everyone believes that murders are out of control, when we are really in one of the lowest points in US history.

Also, police officer deaths are near the historical bottom third and, when total population is factored in, the number looks really good historically.

Agreed. Most places in the US are the safest they have been in our lifetimes. But people confuse having a lot of access to exciting information about individual incidents in a very large population with what is actually happening in most places most of the time. Which is generally "not much of concern" other than common-place bad habits, addictions and illnesses.

Case in point: Over the weekend I met up with some old friends. No one reported being a victim of crime or terrorist activities in the past year. Or even witnessing such events. There was, however, one heart attack, one instance of prostate cancer and one attack of the shingles. And one of them had acquired a dog due to the suicide of one of his friends. And two had lost and/or changed jobs.

Here is an interesting take on "the real" problem from 538.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/on ... -likes-it/

Yeah, I saw that. It does pretty much sum up the demographic changes going on. But it was interesting to find it all in one county. On the national stage, the two Berks counties are often quite a bit removed from one another, which I think creates even more suspicions about "the other".

I get the feeling this problem would be solved if we could sit people down with their grandparents or great-grandparents - the first immigrants in their family - and give them a dose of America 101.

From our founding we have been a country that gave people the choice to adapt to change or not. If you refuse to adapt then you and only you will suffer the consequences.

Move. Evolve. Float with the tide or get swamped. Immigrants know this intuitively. It is part of their DNA. No, that's not right. It is part of OUR DNA.

Trumpers are screaming at the government to STOP CHANGE NOW. They don't want change and they refuse to accept the consequences.

America 101. We don't work that way. That's why I think maybe the best solution - and the most compassionate solution - is no solution at all. Otherwise we are creating the firefighting trap where we placate the loudest whiners and allow them to grow in strength.

A problem has to be defined before it can be solved. I thought this was an interesting (mostly pro-Trump) take on the Trumpers perspective from an unlikely source. The presentation is annoying but his explanation of why Trump is still rising is interesting.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-t ... lks-about/

Good article. It covered rural racism in a way that matches my experience. The only people I have ever known to do or say anything offensively racist (which i will define as acting or saying stupid things in the presence of the subject of such stupidity.) were city folk, or excons.

All the other racists I've ever known, were fine with the examples they knew, but wouldn't go to that side of town, etc. In fact, if they were to ACT in a prejudiced way, I would expect it to be religion based, rather than race based.

Still, he sure beats that dying small town drum. Is it only in the PNW that small towns are still growing?

No. My hometown in Kentucky is growing. That said, it's in a tourist area, and most places in greater Appalachia are not destination spots.

I quite stupidly got sucked into a debate about Trump on Facebook yesterday. I came away both extremely thankful for all of you, and a little fearful that I'd lost a few IQ points by electronic osmosis.

Riggerjack wrote:
Still, he sure beats that dying small town drum. Is it only in the PNW that small towns are still growing?

Pretty much. Here's the recent data: http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1952235/eib145.pdf

Unless someone brings in a casino to the area. When I drive by places like Charles Town, West Virginia, you can see where they have built the new housing developments and school just outside town.

I also spent some time in New Mexico last summer. I learned that one of the reasons Gary Johnson got elected was by supporting casinos, which garnered him a lot of Native American support. Now almost every single Pueblo has a casino, and it's the newest, shiniest building in most towns. I was told that you can now identify Pueblos as distinct from just towns by whether there is a casino there or not.

GandK wrote:
I quite stupidly got sucked into a debate about Trump on Facebook yesterday. I came away both extremely thankful for all of you, and a little fearful that I'd lost a few IQ points by electronic osmosis.

Danger! Danger! Inane debate ahead!

Was it like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c

Dragline wrote:Was it like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCU36pkH7c

I wish. My "opponent," and I use the term very loosely, seems to have been the sort of man who only comprehends the first third or so of any remark and jumps to questionable conclusions about the remainder. He also seems to have memorized the names of all the logical fallacies at one point, but has no recollection of what they actually mean:

K: I am concerned that certain people on the left are simultaneously saying that all of the WikiLeaks documents are fake, and that Russia hacked them from Podesta illegally... yet few citizens seem to notice the inconsistency in those two positions.

Him (friend of my friend): Trump supporters like you who watch Faux News always blame the left! The documents have not been authenticated. You are cherry picking.

K: ? All I said was that those two positions are incompatible. If Podesta truly was hacked by Russia, then actual documents have been stolen.

Him: How are those positions incompatible? Russia could have made the whole thing up just to throw the election. You and everyone else who watches Faux News all day are just introducing straw men.

K: What??? And who said I watch Fox at all? And if you're right, and Russia did fabricate all the documents, then they were not hacked from Podesta.

Him: No, there was A HACK. It's all over every news site! YOU are clearly not reading the news and are just hopping on the bandwagon here.

K: I'm... speechless.

My friend commented to him then, quite sensibly, and I withdrew in confusion and fear that this man is my fellow citizen and I think it very likely that he will cast a vote come November, assuming that he can figure out how to operate the voting machine.

@GandK: "...yet few citizens seem to notice the inconsistency in those two positions."

Acknowledging such contradictions would constitute thoughtcrime.

@Spartan

Well, in theory the hacked documents could have been altered after the fact, which is perhaps the original argument upon which his second order (at least) opinions were based. Were I in a rational debate I would have said as much, but I'm sure in this case that would have made me No True Scotsman, whereupon I would have lost my temper and started swearing. And that would've rendered me a Texas Sharpshooter, no doubt. Then he would have won the argument in both his mind and mine, seeing as how violence is not possible on Facebook.

Haha, that's exactly right. They could have been altered after the fact, that is the only obvious way to reconcile the contradiction. Of course, the response to that is Wikileaks' 100% vetting record, the DNC not actually denying any of it and in fact taking action (firing DWS, etc) as a result of their revelations, Clinton implicitly confirming the emails' accuracy in her response to one of the debate questions about it, etc. The claim that the emails are inaccurate/altered appears to be as unsupported as the claim that a Russian hack is the source. But I digress.

What I've learned about a few of my acquaintances out there: if it's not reported on MSNBC, it never happened. If it's reported differently than on MSNBC, it is falsified.

Only trust The Onion.

Tangentially related article about the divide between rural and urban communities ... http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016- ... in-america

Is the 'fix' really that almost everyone should move to urban areas? Is that really best?

"move" is probably more of a metaphor these days. as has been indicated, a farmer who doesn't have work in the countryside likely won't find work in the city. the reason urban areas are drawing more and more economic power is because the jobs that pay well these days tend to profit from large communities/network effects in the area, and thus the humans who go for these jobs move to cities.

the point being that if humans sit on their metaphorical ass and complain about how great things used to be, they likely won't get much sympathy.