Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Where are you and where are you going?
Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

The permanence project is supposed to be the academic program. Where we work out the best possible ways to design a small community. Where we work out all the details we commonly hash out here in political threads, (schooling, housing, transportation, defense, etc) without the financial and cultural considerations. A clean slate for best practices. Defining where, and how to apply those best practices.

The Utopia Launchpad is supposed to be a project management program, that works with the permanence project, to allow people to turn the theoretical into the practical. A platform to allow anyone, anywhere, to get together with others of like minds to go form an intentional community.

Many of you know I believe intentional communities fail. They do. I believe that is because anyone who wants to run away with other escapees from society to form their Utopia, probably doesn't know enough about how people actually work together, to make it work. Usually, it's dreamers, running off with other dreamers to play in wonderland, only to find that nobody actually dreams of washing the dishes, and reroofing the house.

But, by having the permanence project do the defining, anyone, with any agenda, will be able to define their ideal world, to the smallest detail, and find other dreamers who share that dream. Then go out and build it.

The Utopia Launchpad is the experimental arm of the permanence project. A system to allow theoreticians to compare apples to apples, for better designs.

This is all existing technology. And we have the resources. It's just a matter of of applying it correctly. I think I even have a solution to the population problem, that doesn't call for Draconian measures. But the practical side of project 4 ties back to project 2, and I can't go into details yet.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Let me walk that back a bit. The backlash will be fierce, There will be Draconian measures, but should they be delayed until long after I'm dead, and defending against such things should be part of the design of an expensive utopia.

Let me give an example of how that would look:

Ebola came to Dallas, in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Eric_Duncan

Thomas flew on the 20th of September, started showing symptoms on the 24th, and was dead on the 30th. If he had flown 5 days later, or if he had a long series of delays, or he took a Greyhound bus because his family was far from an airport, the world would be a different place today.

We know this. But how much should we do about it?

We have to ask that last question, because nobody is thinking long term. Time value of money, and all. But on a long enough timeline, a deadly pandemic is a certainty. Thought of like this, the world looks different. Priorities look different.

The people with the money, don't know how to resolve this problem. The people who know how to resolve this problem (on a tiny scale), don't have the money. Doesn't this just scream out for a simple solution? When building an expensive utopia, build with a potential long quarantine in mind.

Done.

And then, you have a working example to be tested and improved upon, rather than an unsolvable quandary.

No Politician needed to be convinced. No public funds needed to be wasted. No arms to twist. Just a small scale solution, that can be replicated by anyone with the interest and the money.

And as we are constantly talking about here, money is not the only form of capital. Once the template is created, others will find other ways of achieving the same ends with less cash.

The resources are available, so long as we think private and small scale. Demonstrate that it works, and the inhabitants of this utopia are the happiest, most fulfilled, most exclusive people on the planet, and we will have a new signal of elite status that can't be faked. The 9.9% will sweat blood to buy their way in. If not for themselves, for their children. And so it goes...

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Rereading that, I come off as a bit Looney. Sorry, I have been kicking this around in my head for a while, so the details and caveats are still just stuck in my head. I should have written this out in detail, and then presented the book, rather than trying to post it from my phone.

I imagine you are trying to picture something between a gated community of rich bastards, and a hippie commune. Not a pretty picture.

What I suggesting is a small community, where we discard the limits. Start fresh, and make everything as well as we know how. Because some of us CAN afford it. And the rest of us can benefit from the knowledge gained.

For example:

Currently, we grow avocados in deserts with fossil water, to be picked green by immigrants for pennies, to be shipped to warehouses, to be ripened, and trucked to stores, where we can buy them, "Just In Time". Our elites can get exactly the same product, grown exactly the same way, but without pesticides, with a sticker telling the world it's "Organic".

We can do better, if we spend the money.

I'm picturing a series of greehouses, that allow for variations of season, so one greenhouse is always in season. Like pot farmers do it. Except using reflectors and augmented solar to modify the light and heat levels. With scaffolding inside, so pruning and picking are nearly effortless. No need to drive to a store, just put on your boots, walk through the snow to the right greenhouse, and pick a salad.

When that is a demonstrated reality, who would try to signal status with a sticker on their fruit?

I'm trying to describe making an elite lifestyle, so much richer than is available in our society, that the rich will buy it and want to live it, and eventually, nearly everyone will aspire to it.

And I admit, it does seem a little crazy.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Anyway, I need to get back to work. But that's my long term retirement plan. Building a set of systems to experiment with how to build ideal lifestyles and communities. I don't know how to live life to the fullest, and I don't think anyone else does either.

But I do know how to build the foundation of the way to test ideas for improvement. And to demonstrate the improvements in a way that leads to wider adoption. And I'm only a decade or two from beaking ground...

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I am currently reading "Retrotopia" by John Michael Greer and studying Advanced R Programming. In "Retrotopia", Greer imagines that after the Second Civil War, the U.S.has broken up regionally. The area roughly comprising the Great Lakes realm of the Midwest has adopted a policy where the residents of each county vote on a tax level based on technological era of government services/infrastructure desired, ranging from 1830 level to 1950 level. The residents read old books to try to discover older technologies that might work better than newer technologies. As you likely know, Paul Wheaton has a similar strata of project levels on his ranch. John Plant, states very clearly on his YouTube site that "Primitive Technology" is just a hobby, and he lives in the modern world, but he is single-handed able to re-create much of what likely constituted Stone Age technology from pure scratch.

So, if you think about the greenhouse system within your community that you suggested, you are eliminating a flow of avocados from outside of the system, but you are requiring an initial acquisition of materials from outside the system in order to create and maintain the system. Since weather, fungi and insects can't be effectively barricaded, greenhouse management and maintenance, beyond simple task of harvesting of ripe fruit for breakfast, will be necessary. To the extent that this process is to be automated, high tech inputs and replacements will be required from outside of the community system, and to the extent that it is not automated, affluent people will be called upon to deal directly with icky time-consuming stuff like bugs and mold, unless the less affluent individual, who was previously employed picking avocados in a field, is hired as greenhouse help within the system.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Uh huh. Your point is that gardeners will be forced to... Garden?

Only instead of using the scaled down version of industrial farming in current gardening practice, they will have systems designed for ergonomic efficiency, thus allowing them to garden in less time, with less effort, and in wheelchairs, when necessary.

I fail to see the problem.

All I am looking to change, is to take the current trend, ( high end lawyer, to Facebook artisanal goat cheese farmer, to bitter condo owner), and fix the middle stage to bypass the end stage.

That it is not an absolute closed system isn't a problem. I am not trying to create an entirely separate society. I am looking to use existing technology and widely dispersed knowledge, coupled with intense capital, to give the same people who already WANT to do something like this, a better experience.

That the rest of the world gets experimental data, and chances to improve current methods, is just a positive externality.

User avatar
Mister Imperceptible
Posts: 1669
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:18 pm

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

But what’s artisinal goat cheese without Facebook likes for validation? :lol:

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Well, likes are deeply important, and I imagine they make the cheese better. :roll:

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

So, I brought up the permanence project, because I don't know how to do it, and would be perfectly comfortable with someone else running with it.

My plan was to get projects 1&2 going, just to generate a fire hose of funds to get someone else to build 3&4. Then to fund actually building a small, permanent community from the best contributors.

I wouldn't have brought it up at all, but the despair mentioned in the ladder of awareness thread got my attention. It seemed selfish to not bring it up.

So, if someone, or several someones, want to run with the idea, I would be relieved. One less thing to do. Maybe it would help someone who has the skills, (I really don't.) to be doing something to move us closer to a sustainable future.

If not, I will go back to my plan, and set links here as each project launches. And if no projects launch, I will still be doing the same thing, but at a much smaller scale, and post that here.

And maybe even on Facebook. :oops:

George the original one
Posts: 5404
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by George the original one »

I don't know about a way to get your worthy dream going, but … well, maybe look to the historic record that's recently appeared in England this summer? The hot dry summer has revealed outlines of occupied settlements that lasted from stone age to Roman times and archeologists are scrambling to get the aerial photos charted.


The one that fascinated me was a typical round fort with a single round house that was superceded by a square, presumably Roman, stone house. How many centuries did either stand over the land? Why did they both get built where they were built? Why were they never expanded? And why, in the end, were they forgotten and abandoned?

suomalainen
Posts: 979
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 12:49 pm

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by suomalainen »

Nothing lasts, but nothing is lost.

- famous philosopher :lol:

Campitor
Posts: 1227
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:49 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Campitor »

@Rigger

When I think of your project, 2 things come to mind: aircrete and Eliot Coleman:
You can build your homes using aircrete and incorporate R-value appropriate to your region. There are workshops that show you how to DIY an aircrete home. And you're greenhouse can be built in such a way that incorporates Coleman's winter harvesting techniques.

prognastat
Posts: 991
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 8:30 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by prognastat »

Campitor wrote:
Fri Aug 17, 2018 7:44 am
The aircrete stuff was pretty interesting. Wonder what the r value per inch of thickness is when using their DIY ways of creating the aircrete rather than the commercial grade.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Well, again, I seem to be unclear. I have a very hard time communicating what I am thinking. Thanks, everyone, for the feedback, I need the practice.

GTOO, I know how to build the house. At this point, my main concern for its longevity is being crushed by a tree, or a negligent homeowner allowing a tree to take root too close. I'm in the PNW, so if trees are not manually removed from an area, they will grow, and eventually fall. With Western Red cedar growing for hundreds of years, that is a lot of mass to have come down from a great height, and the higher a tree grows, the farther back it needs to be cleared to assure that it doesn't fall on the house in a storm.

I feel a bit silly worrying about stopping 300 year old trees that haven't sprouted yet, from falling on a house that hasn't been built, yet. But before a house is built is the right time to consider such things, IMO.
Nothing lasts, but nothing is lost.
This is a nice idea, but I don't believe it is true, at all.

@Campitor, aircrete is fine, if one is looking for an infill material in a framed structure, but it really sucks in lots of ways. Loss of compression strength, the main advantage of concrete is first to mind. Not very light or insulative. In my opinion, it's one of those materials that SEEMS like it should be awesome, but in every practical application I can think of, it has been sub par.

If one is interested in such things, I would recommend googling Hexayurt. Now stop looking at Burning man pics, and search ferrocement. Now stop looking at Flying Arches, and look at fiber reinforcement. Now sit back, with mind blown, and think of how we do build what we build, and why.

All our current building techniques are tied to the specialization of trades. This is how we deal with too much information. We specialize, and specialists are the ones who can correctly apply this specialized knowledge.

But...

This is changing. We have networks of knowledge now, that allow crossing these artificial barriers of knowledge. In academia, the richest ground seems to be where one science is combined with another. And that is awesome, but not of concern to me.

What I love, is blogs and Wikipedia. Blogs, where experts talk about their areas of expertise, and their concerns. Wikipedia, where everyone can look up everything, and contribute to the body of knowledge.

These seem to be vastly underappreciated.

See, I'm not very interested in the newest tech. Yes, someone needs to figure out nanotubes, and such. And that is expensive, and difficult, and necessary.

Looking at the world in terms of how many of us there are, and how we currently do things is profoundly depressing. Worse, if one can do simple math easily. Much worse, if one can do advanced math and understand systems well, see Jacob's conclusions, or the ladder of awareness thread.

What fascinates me, is all the things we already know, that we aren't doing. There is so much of this low hanging fruit, that I see a world of nearly endless possibility where I used to despair.

The Permanence Project is a Wikipedia type of platform, with the goal of specifically addressing this kind of knowledge, using the right platform to allow common people to find and use specialized knowledge. I'll try to describe that better with my next post.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

The Permanence Project (PP)

We don't think in permanence. Ever. In anything we do. Mainly, because it would be unbelievably expensive, up front. And if one is thinking in the time value of money, and scarcity, and opportunity costs, that upfront cost is unbearable.

But some of us are rich enough that unbearable upfront costs, can be the ultimate in conspicuous consumption. The ultimate barrier between the "haves" and the "Have-nots" A social signal that can't be faked.

Even as we are piling capital in huge private mountains of cash, those same, extremely rich people, really don't have significantly better things to do with their money. I want to fix this.

I want to make permanence the ultimate signal of wealth and prestige. And I think I know how.

The problem, personalized:

Imagine one is a concerned parent (probably not a huge stretch for many of you), and the local school is going to need to be built to accommodate all the recent growth in town. Being concerned, one wants the very best school.

But the school building process, from design to construction, is already laid out, and results in a large, poorly insulated box shape, with a flat roof, that will need constant maintenance and a complete gutting and remodel in 20-30 years, Built to minimum standards, by the lowest bidder. Go look at your local schools, then the schools in the most exclusive and expensive areas, and tell me I'm wrong. Money doesn't fix this.

If one has truly unlimited funds, one could engage the services of a visionary architecture firm. Set them free with a blank check, and get a building that costs way too much, looks like a beautiful glass egg, and will require intense, and expensive maintenance, and need to be remodeled in 30 years.

If one is environmentally conscious, or just concerned about not building disposable buildings, your options are... bleak. Maybe one could find some aspect of "building Green" that could be incorporated in the design, but really, you are going to get a flat roofed box and a chance to try again in 30 years.

The problem, from the other end:
If one is a roofer, and knows that flat roofs leak, one is going to be very frustrated trying to get that next school to have a well designed roof. Because we don't know how to do a well designed roof. We know how to cover an existing frame with roofing materials that will certainly last longer, think steep pitched copper sheeting. But the best we know how to do is only going to last decades, not centuries. And we don't even consider the best for most purposes.

And if one is a sculptor, and knows all the strengths of ferro-cement, and thinks it would be a great roof (maybe, probably not), there is no way for one to build and test and propagate this idea, that doesn't require so much of one's time, that one still has time to be an artist.

The problem, from yet another end:

There are all kinds of green building websites. One of my favorites, if you are looking for best practices of current tech is building science .com. But each technique of green building is surrounded by proponents and detractors, and one can get very deep in the weeds trying to find just which apply to whatever project one is contemplating. That which is appropriate to a root cellar in Maine is not necessarily appropriate to a house in Arizona. Comparing and contrasting is very difficult.

My solutiuon: The Permanence Project

A Wikipedia type of platform, similar to the ERE Wiki, But dedicated to solving these issues, WITHOUT REGARD FOR UPFRONT COSTS. Simply the very best possible solutions, and defining where each best solution starts to overlap another best solution.

For instance, our current best solution for a slab foundation in a heated building is to insulate the slab from the ground with EPS foam. This saves so much energy, the design was modified to require that same slab to be insulated against the foundation walls. This truly is the best solution from an energy savings perspective, and thus it is written into Washington State Energy code.

However, from a seismic perspective, this is building in a flexible bumper, and separating the slab from the rest of the foundation. That same energy saving slab, becomes a multi-ton wrecking ball, slamming around and destroying the house's foundation in an earthquake. So, maybe, the thermally efficient slab is not appropriate to seismically active regions, like Washington State.

After The Big One, code agencies will review and change this requirement, and the destroyed houses will be broken up, moved to landfills, and rebuilt. The system will improve, after we deal with all the damage. That slow process is how we have made all our improvements to date, and I am not criticizing it. I'm saying that with the ubiquitous availability of networked information, it shouldn't be necessary to wait on coding authorities to slowly, painfully, and in a backwardly compatible way, to solve these problems for us in ways that ensure the interests of all existing parties.

We need a way for the artists and the roofers and the homesteaders to get together with the solar system designers, the frustrated architects, the green engineers, and experiment, and define, and play. And come up with the best designs. And we have these, in existing green building websites.

But these people are doing what we have always done, tried to make the best solution, with available resources. We all have a budget to worry about, and only so many man hours to dedicate to learning before we commit to a design.

Fuck that. It's time to go big. We are out of time for the slow, measured approach, and too rich (collectively) to not do better.

What we need, is the bottom up, organization of Wikipedia, coupled with an approach of simply the best, deepest green, sustainable practices, price be damned. Because some of us have that kind of capital, but don't have ANYONE who both knows enough to design it, nor build it. With a blank check written off of a nation's budget, we still can't solve this. See the goofy eco-domes of the 90's and their billions of wasted dollars as an example.

But what we can't engineer from scratch, we can develop from existing practices. And what we can build once, can be improved upon, making each generation cheaper and easier. So we speed the process up, by removing the resource limitations. Now those rich bastards we so roundly criticize in the viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10054 other threads, can be funding the improvements we care about, if only to show that they can. Let me describe what that looks like in my mind.

The new school in Palo Alto needs to be built. As the process described above gets going, a concerned parent looks at PP, sees a few designs that would be way better than anything in the proposals, but also ridiculously expensive and difficult to build. Said parent also knows through work, this Zukerman guy, who would like yet another monument to his greatness. The pitch happens, the monument as a school is built, the costs for the school district goes down and the savings allow them to hire more administration to hang out in the new school (I know how school districts work).

That didn't fix everything, but it made a better building. one that can be studied, improved upon. When next we build a school in a rich neighborhood, we have an example to point to. We can see what can be done better, cheaper, and what broke down, and fix that. The next expensive school is both cheaper and better than the first.

And, because this is a Wikipedia style platform, for each person working on a better school roof design, there are hundreds hashing out what a better school would look like. Why are classrooms the size and shape they are? Because rectangles are easiest to build, thus cheaper. But is that best? I don't know, but I bet there are millions of people with ideas...

This project is all about removing the limitations we naturally place on or best ideas, and providing a place for adversarial collaborations http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/04/26/ca ... borations/ of green experts to better define the possibilities. Moving knowledge out of the specialist's arenas in into the general populace.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

However, I am not a programmer, or an administrator, and while I would love to see this happen, I don't have to skills to build or maintain it. Nor have I the time or interest to learn such skills. My plan was to get other projects going, so I could fund someone else to do that. That is still my plan, right now.

However, if someone else wants to run with it, that's just one more thing I don't need to do. Any volunteers?

prognastat
Posts: 991
Joined: Fri May 04, 2018 8:30 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by prognastat »

I like the idea, but I do think it will be hard to generate actual change as there would have to be a massive shift in the culture as far as how much people plan ahead. Currently if you can get people to plan ahead more than 30 years it's quite an achievement.

Another problem would be investing a lot into a permanent structure only to find out the structure isn't up to the task anymore after say 150 years not because it is no longer in good shape, but instead because what we expected out of a school for example has changed or the demands of the area for said structure has changed. Then the amount spent above making it last those 150 years would have been a waste.

An example would be look at European fortified structures like forts and castles that are still standing after hundreds of year. They have very little purpose these days outside of being tourist attractions as they no longer are capable of serving their original function as a military structure because the requirements the military has of it's structures has changed.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Yes, the purpose of structures change. a sole purpose structure is vulnerable to change in that purpose. I used structures as an example, because it is something visceral, that can be understood by a wide audience, but this isn't about buildings.

It's about permanence.

If one is thinking of a permanent community, all aspects need to be addressed. Infrastructure is my favorite, simply because I know how much better we could do it. But others should address their areas of strength. Someone should game theory conflict resolution mechanics, or how permaculture could be adapted to a more medium scale, or work out a theme song. I don't care what people care about, just that they have someplace to work out the best way to do it, and in fact what "it" is. This is the strength of the wiki platform, it is very easy for anyone to branch out of any existing subject, for further elaboration. No need for a central directive body, simply admin.

See, we have gone fairly deep into the world's problems, and the solutions are... nebulous to nonexistent.

But I believe what can't be solved on a large scale, CAN be resolved at a tiny scale, with limitless resources and a focus on the very long term.

And that anything we CAN do, and practice doing, will be improved upon. Each aspect will be cheaper and easier, with repetition. We need a process to be working, for improvements to be made. Then we can start getting some size into it, scaling up to resolve each crisis as we develop the skills to tackle the issue.

Getting things actually moving in that direction is what my projects are about. PP is the platform for the people who know solutions to any problem, to gather them, and compare and contrast them with other solutions. PP is for the thinkers.

UL is for experimental projects to test them, for the doers. And that feeds back to PP with real world results.

And projects 1 and 2 are to firehose cash at PP and UL, to keep the interest, and speed progress.

I don't need anyone here to do anything for this to work. I just need to address my communications deficiencies, and get the first project going. That involves YCombinator, ideally. Once that gets going, I can use their help to launch project 2, and in a few years, when the money starts flowing, I will direct it at PP, and when that gets enough traction, launch UL, and fund the first Permanence Utopian Community, with people who already want to do something like this. And what we screw up, will be addressed when someone else tackles the second Permanence Utopian Community. And on it will go.

Or, I won't get project 1 off the ground, and I'll just publish what I think the solutions are, in a blog or something, and go back to my original plan, involving building my own utopia, at a personal scale, and happily live there with DW. Either way, I am on the path I want to be on, it's merely a question of whether I can open that path wide enough, for others to follow.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

I'm going to divert from my retirement manifesto to immigration for a minute, bear with me.

I live close to the border, and regularly have issues with foreigners causing problems.

It's the Canadian border, and the problems range from worthless pennies in my change, to too many shoppers coming down and clogging traffic to get to outlet malls. And their openly ridiculous policy of stopping for pedestrians, like walkers are people. :roll:

But that's not the kind of problems I saw when stationed on our Southern border for 3 years in my youth. I have written before of my experience of Operation Blockade, but I'll do it again, to save anyone from searching it out.

https://cis.org/Report/Operation-Blocka ... trol-Model

For some reason, Wikipedia has removed their page on Operation Blockade. It was pretty neutral, but the above link will do.

The long and the short of it was INS (remember them?) decided to stop illegal immigration, within 10 or 20 miles of El Paso, for two weeks. This was such a huge undertaking, border guards were pulled from the northern border. Locally, it caused havoc.

If I remember right, 3 INS officers were shot.

Protests at the border were bad enough the commanding general of Ft Bliss pulled riot gear out of storage and prepared to issue it. This was when I got nervous, I had no desire to wear jack boots, and certainly not to face down poor people who wanted to make a living. It didn't happen, eventually things calmed down, and I went back to drinking like a soldier should.

But still, there were other problems that didn't go away.

Car thefts. El Paso at the time was fairly low on the list of cities with high car theft rates, but topped the list of unrecovered thefts. A local news program took a car thief just out on parole, and had him steal a car they set up, on camera, from the local mall parking lot. He went through the alarm, the club on the steering wheel, started the car, and drove it across the border, in under 8 minutes.

Drive by shootings, there were over 200 of them the last year I was there. I saw one happen across the street, as someone fired into a crowd emptying out of a bar at closing time. We had a gang chase someone into, through, and out of the bar I was DJing at. Later, a friend was jumped in the parking lot, beaten and stabbed a few times with a broken bottle. I took him to the ER.

There were regular inspection sites laid out along the highways, for INS inspections. They looked like the weigh stations we have up north, only they were for immigration enforcement, not taxation. That always creeped me out. It violated my personal understanding of the 4th amendment.

My last mission before my discharge, was to convoy explosives to an old ammo dump in Arizona. This was typical of my military experience, many trucks, driving down the road, with many break downs. At one point, we were parked under an overpass, waiting for some truck to cool off, and we had been there for a few hours, I went off to take a piss, and heard some angry yelling in Spanish, and there's on soldier yelling in Spanish, at 2 others, clearly livid. He stomped off, and the guys he was yelling at were just confused.

I walked over, always looking for a distraction from boredom. The 2 guys who had been yelled at were near a tree with trash and panties hanging from it. This seemed weird, but not super weird. The borderlands are full of litter. None of us knowing what the problem was, we wandered away, and mostly just forgot about it.

On the way back, the Sergeant of the detail traded seats with my co driver, and I got the backstory from him. That trash and panties covered tree was what is known as a trophy tree. Where organized crime in the north, met coyotes bringing groups from the south, and took the marketable women off to their new profession. Removing their panties was part of their introduction to America. Marking the tree, was some form of communication between the gangs and the coyotes, and a way of marking territory. The soldier who had lost his temper had family who had disappeared that way. Many of those panties were too small to fit adults. :evil:


...

I left my time in the service considerably less patriotic than I went in. My time in TX was a strong influence in that. 25 years ago, our southern border made me ashamed that with all our wealth, we allow this to happen. The 25 years since, has made me ashamed that what we call "support for immigrants" is merely shit flinging at outgroups. Real immigrant support would be looking to stop this.

I am in support of more unskilled Latin immigration, and in support of very strong border security. I cannot understand how anyone could be for one, without the other.

I am deeply offended by what we allow to happen on our soil, and that both sides that fight about this, sum their arguments up with a wall, or racism. Neither side is interested in a solution, just shaming the other side. So let me describe the problem and solution as I see it, and maybe someone can tell me what I'm missing.

Riggerjack
Posts: 3182
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2011 3:09 am

Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

I was raised as a Liberal. The first time I met a black man with a white wife, my mom afterward wanted me to know "that was OK". As a 7th grader at the time, what I had seen was a large, good looking, charismatic black man married to a distinctly unattractive white woman. Using all I knew about romance at my advanced age of 13, I thought he should've done better. It never occurred to me that someone who have a problem with it.

I bring that story up, just to ward off the inevitable charges of racism that come up when talking about our southern border.

(Thanks, halfwits :roll: )

But I also grew up Atheist, so my outgroup growing up, was conservative Christians. What with their crazy prayer in schools crusade, Moral Majority trying to take away my porn, etc. I bought into all the characterizations of the conservative Right propagated by the Left.

But my time in the service, raised some questions. And I started looking closer, things were not as they were portrayed.

Then, I married into a cult. You know the one, the white one in the mountains, who supported Prop 8. All my in-laws are cultists, and conservative. Yet they are very tolerant of my Atheism, and DW's Apostasy. (DW may not share that opinion, but they are more tolerant than I ever expected.)

This has given me a chance to see my outgroup from my youth in a different light. Let me describe what I have seen, comparing extreme left culture with extreme right.

First, righties mature faster. I didn't expect this, but it is absolutely true. Working with a life script that revolves around family and community, many of my in-laws are more mature at 22 than I was in my early 30's. Then they have kids, and there is a second stage of maturity that comes of being a parent. They then tend to double down on the family and community aspects.

They are able to do this, because they have a culture that does much of the "growing up" work for them, and I had to figure this out on my own. Simply by conforming to the norms as laid out by the community, they had a script to go by, and adult education infrastructure built in to the culture. I don't think this system is better than that of the left, but it is different, and has different results.

One of those results, is extreme sensitivity to cultural changes, and a groupthink tied to identifying bad influences on culture. The primary difference between left and right culture is how they react to those bad influences.

Every conservative I have ever met, understands that rules that are not enforced, whatever they be, are bad. Unquestionably bad. Rules that are not enforced, will be selectively enforced, when the hand that holds the sword decides to enforce them. This is the road to tyranny. Rule 1 is rules need to be enforced. Unenforced rules train people that the rules don't matter. This undermines the basis of their culture.

So these people see the lefties as incapable of understanding basic civics. Lefties tend to be much more concerned with what the rules are, not how, why or if, they are enforced. A bad law, that is no longer enforced, is a solution, not a problem.

Now think of how this applies in our border war states.

Violent crime is high. Gangs rule territories virtually unchallenged by law enforcement. There are large populations unprotected by law. Businesses are taking advantage of the ambiguity, drawing in these same people, and treating them very badly, and the externalities of that fall squarely on the locals. Uninsured, unlicensed drivers, and all the havoc that plays. Too much drain on local charities and the tax revenues. Schools that need to address foreign cultures and ESL, when they are already failing to provide the same education levels achieved a generation prior. In a world that requires more credentials to maintain standard of living, their children are being held back to support the causes of urban elites, just as those same elites are raising the bar for attaining those credentials.

And when conservatives complain about this, Progressives calls them racists. The same people who mock them, ignoring the problems created by leftist policies, are closing door on opportunities for the children of rural conservatives.

The media tries to get morons to be morons on camera, so they can paint everyone with the same brush (This is just click motivated media, the left feels the same when the media interviews SJWs. But it's very clear that most media is produced by and for the left.). Flame wars erupt, and we get what we have today:

One side wanting a wall, knowing it won't solve anything, but at least it will last beyond the next election cycle.
The other calling for sanctuary cities and shaming anyone who complains about the effects.
And a growing group in the middle, who are ready to stop hearing from each. About anything, ever.

And to the center, I propose a solution that I think 60% of Americans could support.

Militarize the southern border. We are a nation at war. Border security should not be controversial. Build the wall to far enough on each side of any population center, that there can be no accidental crossings. Enforce with rifle fire. Enforce the rest by artillery and Argos drone systems. Close this zone of lawlessness down, with extreme prejudice. Any human attempting to move thru this area is to be treated as an enemy combatant. Surrender is possible, but a dangerous proposition. This may seem inhumane, but by comparison to what we currently tolerate, it seems kind.

This would end the low grade war currently raging on the border. People will try to cross a border and dodge patrols, when the downside is deportation. Not so much when faced with artillery strikes, called in by aerial camera systems that spot movement. Smuggling and human trafficking will move to border crossing stations and the coasts, easier places to secure. Easier enforcement will raise the cost of attempts, reducing the problem.

Comprehensive immigration reform. We need a guest worker program. Work visas that only require speaking English as a written and verbal test, fingerprinting, facial recognition, and DNA tests. Allow businesses to recruit guest workers for any position that conforms to employment regulations, in their entirety, that can't be filled from local labor pools. That means the chicken processing plants will have to pay at least minimum wages, and the wealthy won't have cheap gardeners and housekeepers. We NEED to eliminate the market for illegal labor. I suggest a fine of a year's wages at minimum wage to any business for each nonconforming employee. Anyone fleeing a work site during an inspection, will be assumed to be a nonconforming employee, and fines will be assessed as such. The businesses can appeal with whatever evidence they can gather on their own. End all agricultural exceptions to employment law. Any business that can't be profitable paying American wages and benefits, has no business on American soil. We, the public, don't want or need these externalities, and damned sure shouldn't tolerate them.

Current illegal immigrants will receive amnesty, in the form a of a guest worker visa. Guest worker visas are revoked easily, and automatically, with any misdemeanor or federal convictions. Think of it as a two strikes policy. Guest worker visas go away with the first strike. This isn't justice, this is opportunity spread to what we expect to be a better prospective neighbor. Guest worker visas expire after 5 years, and can be renewed, by local support by the guest worker's neighboring citizens and coworkers. I stole this from Swiss immigration policy, where immigrants must be supported by a vote of their neighbors. This seems like a great compromise of workability, and morality. We want good, ambitious, immigrants. We don't want or need any more criminals, or drains on our resources. Our neighbors and coworkers know us best. We shouldn't require a conviction to remove bad actors.

Guest worker visas will alleviate the main cultural damage that concerns conservatives, give a legitimacy to our current crop of illegals, and the quick auto-default policies to eliminate problems, without the current quagmire of unenforced, and unenforceable policies conservatives fear. Most conservatives would get behind a one strike policy for illegals, if we suddenly removed all the other concerns of current illegal immigrant presence. But there needs to be a immediate deportation policy for anyone not conforming to these new rules, after an application window closes. Get a guest worker visa, available in each major city, pay taxes, come out in the open, with a legitimacy currently denied to illegal immigrants. No tolerance for noncompliance. Immediate deportation after criminal sentence is completed, no further due process. No delaying tactics or reviews. Compliance or deportation, these are not citizens, they have not yet earned better treatment.

We need a path to naturalization from the guest worker program, for those who want it. If one can go 5 years without a strike, pay their taxes, and get the support of coworkers and neighbors, that is someone who has made a solid case for assimilation. We should welcome them. By the same token, we shouldn't require it, allowing guest workers to continue working as guest workers as long as that is beneficial to both parties.

Comprehensive immigration policy reform will greatly reduce demand for the human trafficking. Human trafficking will not be used to smoke out border patrols to clear lanes for smuggling. Move immigration of unskilled labor from a net negative, to a net positive for our society. And stop allowing a second class of people, unprotected among us, that allows all of the abuses to such people. People in hiding are subject to massive abuses, and very limited recourse. It is unconscionable that we tolerate this on our soil. It is unwise, to have a vulnerable population in our midst to train and feed organized crime. We should protect them, to protect ourselves.

Of course, we still won't have secured the coasts, but those are much more heavily populated, and moving border problems to the urban centers that have so thoroughly embraced immigrant rights seems to have a delicious irony. Sanctuary Cities can pay the costs of attracting illegal immigrants, on their own.

Now I can understand that a 3000 mile "no man's land" doesn't seem like much of a solution, and it's downright distasteful. As it should be. But remember that it's not a choice between a working, peaceful solution and a war zone. It's a choice between a distasteful "no man's land", or trophy trees.

Post Reply