Jeremiah Donaldson's Blog: This and That - Posts Tagged "social-commentary"
Things to Do
Some would call me pessimistic. They’re the people who see a bright shiny future, sparking with wealth they think human beings will amass in the years to come. Clean, safe, and unbridled from the limits that have brought all things before to the ground, they see the human race’s coming accomplishments as the upmost of achievements.
Some would call me optimistic. War or gradual breakdown of government are their most promising futures. They wait for something to happen, not understanding they're frogs in hot water that'll barely beat anyone else's survival rate as they find out people don't die like in movies and clean water isn't easy to find.
History says that both are wrong. Utopia has never existed. Who wouldn’t get bored in such a place anyway? But neither can chaos rule for very long, for knowledge needs stability to prosper. Finding order in disorder is something man has done throughout history, and they will continue to do as long as the ability to plan for the future is available. Human beings are clearly self-organizing creatures despite their neurotic tendencies that occasionally indicate otherwise.
Pessimistic.
Optimistic.
They’re states of mind resulting from how you perceive the crises that we are all rushing towards. The middle ground is looking at reality and nothing else in a cold, clinical way as the by product of a century of failed social and economic ideals. Socialism and the 'fight' against it alone has caused mass calamity during that time, setting the human race back decades worth of development by wasting finite resources.
People feel reassured when they are told that this or that calamity will occur so many years from now. But why? Global warming is a prime example. Many people are putting forth the effort to make a change in how they adversely affect the climate by using more efficient light bulbs and using less gas. Those who aren’t feel comforted when they’re told that any impact from global warming is decades in the future, and possibly as much as one hundred years in the future! I know I can rest easy now that I know the damage we’ve been doing to the planet won’t become apparent for another whole century. By that same logic, I can rest easy now that I know some sucker in the future will pay for our nearsightedness. I can rest easy now that I know someone else will have to worry about chaos caused by WW3. I can rest easy now that I know someone else will starve when everything is dead and poisoned. I can rest easy now that I know fiat money won't collapse until it's someone else holding the useless wad of paper currency. I can rest easy now that I know Medicare and Social Security won't implode until someone else is 90.
Or will I?
It’s easy for the human mind to think that one hundred years is a long time and be lured into complacency. After all, it's fair to guess no one reading this has reached the age of triple digits. But how many will see this who are over eighty? Seventy? Sixty? Fifty? Even if global warming has a milder effect than many believe most of us under fifty will live long enough to see some very interesting things indeed. We will see the collapse of one of the world's great economic systems. We will see a large scale war between first class belligerents. We will see the final collapse of nature and its replacement with the full scale intrusion of robotic systems. The exact specifics of what we'll see is uncertain, and will remain such until the events happen, but we’ll see memorable things.
And it won't be as long as we like to believe in relative terms. Sure, years are years, but they have a habit of compressing themselves when looked back on. How long ago did we worry about Y2K? Almost 20 years. How long ago was it in a relative sense? A few blinks of the eye.
My life will, with a little luck, carry me halfway through this century. My offspring will live longer, possibly close to the turn of the next century. A century may seem like a long time, but children born now may well see that day, and our grandchildren surely will. One hundred years is a long time when counted by the day, but short indeed when measured against the generations to come and what we have to do.
And the clock is ticking...
Some would call me optimistic. War or gradual breakdown of government are their most promising futures. They wait for something to happen, not understanding they're frogs in hot water that'll barely beat anyone else's survival rate as they find out people don't die like in movies and clean water isn't easy to find.
History says that both are wrong. Utopia has never existed. Who wouldn’t get bored in such a place anyway? But neither can chaos rule for very long, for knowledge needs stability to prosper. Finding order in disorder is something man has done throughout history, and they will continue to do as long as the ability to plan for the future is available. Human beings are clearly self-organizing creatures despite their neurotic tendencies that occasionally indicate otherwise.
Pessimistic.
Optimistic.
They’re states of mind resulting from how you perceive the crises that we are all rushing towards. The middle ground is looking at reality and nothing else in a cold, clinical way as the by product of a century of failed social and economic ideals. Socialism and the 'fight' against it alone has caused mass calamity during that time, setting the human race back decades worth of development by wasting finite resources.
People feel reassured when they are told that this or that calamity will occur so many years from now. But why? Global warming is a prime example. Many people are putting forth the effort to make a change in how they adversely affect the climate by using more efficient light bulbs and using less gas. Those who aren’t feel comforted when they’re told that any impact from global warming is decades in the future, and possibly as much as one hundred years in the future! I know I can rest easy now that I know the damage we’ve been doing to the planet won’t become apparent for another whole century. By that same logic, I can rest easy now that I know some sucker in the future will pay for our nearsightedness. I can rest easy now that I know someone else will have to worry about chaos caused by WW3. I can rest easy now that I know someone else will starve when everything is dead and poisoned. I can rest easy now that I know fiat money won't collapse until it's someone else holding the useless wad of paper currency. I can rest easy now that I know Medicare and Social Security won't implode until someone else is 90.
Or will I?
It’s easy for the human mind to think that one hundred years is a long time and be lured into complacency. After all, it's fair to guess no one reading this has reached the age of triple digits. But how many will see this who are over eighty? Seventy? Sixty? Fifty? Even if global warming has a milder effect than many believe most of us under fifty will live long enough to see some very interesting things indeed. We will see the collapse of one of the world's great economic systems. We will see a large scale war between first class belligerents. We will see the final collapse of nature and its replacement with the full scale intrusion of robotic systems. The exact specifics of what we'll see is uncertain, and will remain such until the events happen, but we’ll see memorable things.
And it won't be as long as we like to believe in relative terms. Sure, years are years, but they have a habit of compressing themselves when looked back on. How long ago did we worry about Y2K? Almost 20 years. How long ago was it in a relative sense? A few blinks of the eye.
My life will, with a little luck, carry me halfway through this century. My offspring will live longer, possibly close to the turn of the next century. A century may seem like a long time, but children born now may well see that day, and our grandchildren surely will. One hundred years is a long time when counted by the day, but short indeed when measured against the generations to come and what we have to do.
And the clock is ticking...
A Host of Issues
This is another nonfiction word or two that goes along with 'The Taming of the Pansy' in some way. The other is '1950: The beginning of the death of men'. The story in 'Taming', like most of my essays, touches on sensitive social issues. Issues that need to be dragged out into the open and beat with a stick for all to see. These issues are the root of a vast number of problems. Consolidation of wealth in a few hands. Increased entitlement. Increasing homelessness. An increasing level of drug intake caused by legitimate and illegitimate use along with doctor errors. An increasing number of overdoses. An increasing suicide rate. An increasing infant mortality rate. Along with a corresponding decrease in life expectancy. They are many that any great power past its zenith must face and figure out as the limitless power of money starts to dry up.
Consolidation of wealth is through the roof. We are at the highest level of debt inequity in half a century and there are no easy solutions. Take money from the rich and give to the poor? Wouldn't do any good. Just look at all the money California has thrown at homelessness and still have to clean up Hepatitis infected feces off their streets. Give it to middle class people? Still no good. It'll just be used to pay bills and be funneled right back to the people it was just taken from. Give everyone a Universal Income? That's a zero sum game as proved by Finland's experiment. The only possible solution I can think of would be to give owner/operator incentives to increase the rate of self-employment and business startups. This would, over time, spread consumer money around slightly more evenly as the more competitive people picked up their pace in response. The less competitive people that think they are owed something would be presented with an improved system they could possibly learn something from before all government entitlement agencies go broke. Some people even still believe the money they're getting for their Social Security and what pays for their Medicare is money THEY paid in. Such a concept is naive at best or the system wouldn't be due to start collapsing by 2034 due to unbalanced fundage. Sooner if people keep sucking it dry at all levels.
Meanwhile, prescription drug use is rising. Suicide rate is rising. Obesity rate is rising. We have a bad infant mortality rate compared to other such countries, and that's without counting abortion (which kills 188 per 1000 live births compared to the US mortality rate of 5.8 per 1000, or put another way, 32 are aborted for each one that doesn't make it naturally). Life expectancy is falling. It doesn't take Einstein to see where this will go over the long term. You can't fix a drug problem with more drugs anymore than you can put out a fire with gasoline or revive a drowning person with a bucket of water or keep someone from being an alcoholic by handing them a bottle. The concept that people can be 'cured' of their addiction with the introduction of yet another drug into their system is the medical equivalent of letting Jim Jones pick your evening drink. Likewise, you can't fix an obesity problem without personal responsibility and perhaps clauses for such in health insurance contracts. People think they can shove five pounds of garbage down their throats a day and live to a ripe old age. That's like thinking you can dump sugar in your gas tank and drive across the country. You can't. Your car will die. YOU will die. We need a national fitness program. About 71% of people aren't even fit for the military to send off to be shot at. Maybe insurance contracts don't need a personal responsibility clause, maybe the country does.
I know many more people will die premature deaths caused by all matter of preventable issues before the rest really start getting the picture because people are already dying while obesity and drug use continues to increase. Many of them are people taking prescriptions given to them by a doctor, and they will argue until they overdose or go psychotic that it's okay because the doctor gave it to them. The more people that die and go batshit crazy, the more that will take notice. Long term prognosis says it will fix itself. In the long run, only the ones that keep their heads together will remain. The short term outlook is far messier. People will continue denying that what they get from doctors will hurt them. People will continue denying that they need to get more exercise. People will continue to deny that our economic system can't support masses of non-producers latched onto it like ticks bleeding a host dry. And the longer they deny, the more will die earlier than they should, the lower our life expectancy will go, the more serious the retirement problem will be in two decades, and the farther the country will sink before righting itself.
Additional reading:
The richest 1 percent now owns more of the country’s wealth than at any time in the past 50 years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/w...
San Diego Washing Streets With Bleach To Combat Hepatitis A Outbreak: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...
Basic income: world’s first national experiment in Finland shows only modest benefits : http://theconversation.com/basic-inco...
Entitlement Mentality Still Destroying America: https://www.newsmax.com/finance/andre...
Social Security must reduce benefits in 2034 if reforms aren't made: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/05/politi...
2018 Prescription Drug Abuse Statistics You Need To Know: https://talbottcampus.com/prescriptio...
How does infant mortality in the U.S. compare to other countries?: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/c...
CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs: https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealt...
The decline in U.S. life expectancy is unlike anything we've seen in a century: https://www.popsci.com/life-expectanc...
THE U.S. SUICIDE RATE IS AT ITS HIGHEST IN A HALF-CENTURY: https://psmag.com/news/the-suicide-ra...
U.S. Obesity Rates Have Hit An All-Time High: https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmcc...
The Looming National Security Crisis: Young Americans Unable to Serve in the Military: https://www.scribd.com/document/37253...
Consolidation of wealth is through the roof. We are at the highest level of debt inequity in half a century and there are no easy solutions. Take money from the rich and give to the poor? Wouldn't do any good. Just look at all the money California has thrown at homelessness and still have to clean up Hepatitis infected feces off their streets. Give it to middle class people? Still no good. It'll just be used to pay bills and be funneled right back to the people it was just taken from. Give everyone a Universal Income? That's a zero sum game as proved by Finland's experiment. The only possible solution I can think of would be to give owner/operator incentives to increase the rate of self-employment and business startups. This would, over time, spread consumer money around slightly more evenly as the more competitive people picked up their pace in response. The less competitive people that think they are owed something would be presented with an improved system they could possibly learn something from before all government entitlement agencies go broke. Some people even still believe the money they're getting for their Social Security and what pays for their Medicare is money THEY paid in. Such a concept is naive at best or the system wouldn't be due to start collapsing by 2034 due to unbalanced fundage. Sooner if people keep sucking it dry at all levels.
Meanwhile, prescription drug use is rising. Suicide rate is rising. Obesity rate is rising. We have a bad infant mortality rate compared to other such countries, and that's without counting abortion (which kills 188 per 1000 live births compared to the US mortality rate of 5.8 per 1000, or put another way, 32 are aborted for each one that doesn't make it naturally). Life expectancy is falling. It doesn't take Einstein to see where this will go over the long term. You can't fix a drug problem with more drugs anymore than you can put out a fire with gasoline or revive a drowning person with a bucket of water or keep someone from being an alcoholic by handing them a bottle. The concept that people can be 'cured' of their addiction with the introduction of yet another drug into their system is the medical equivalent of letting Jim Jones pick your evening drink. Likewise, you can't fix an obesity problem without personal responsibility and perhaps clauses for such in health insurance contracts. People think they can shove five pounds of garbage down their throats a day and live to a ripe old age. That's like thinking you can dump sugar in your gas tank and drive across the country. You can't. Your car will die. YOU will die. We need a national fitness program. About 71% of people aren't even fit for the military to send off to be shot at. Maybe insurance contracts don't need a personal responsibility clause, maybe the country does.
I know many more people will die premature deaths caused by all matter of preventable issues before the rest really start getting the picture because people are already dying while obesity and drug use continues to increase. Many of them are people taking prescriptions given to them by a doctor, and they will argue until they overdose or go psychotic that it's okay because the doctor gave it to them. The more people that die and go batshit crazy, the more that will take notice. Long term prognosis says it will fix itself. In the long run, only the ones that keep their heads together will remain. The short term outlook is far messier. People will continue denying that what they get from doctors will hurt them. People will continue denying that they need to get more exercise. People will continue to deny that our economic system can't support masses of non-producers latched onto it like ticks bleeding a host dry. And the longer they deny, the more will die earlier than they should, the lower our life expectancy will go, the more serious the retirement problem will be in two decades, and the farther the country will sink before righting itself.
Additional reading:
The richest 1 percent now owns more of the country’s wealth than at any time in the past 50 years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/w...
San Diego Washing Streets With Bleach To Combat Hepatitis A Outbreak: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...
Basic income: world’s first national experiment in Finland shows only modest benefits : http://theconversation.com/basic-inco...
Entitlement Mentality Still Destroying America: https://www.newsmax.com/finance/andre...
Social Security must reduce benefits in 2034 if reforms aren't made: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/05/politi...
2018 Prescription Drug Abuse Statistics You Need To Know: https://talbottcampus.com/prescriptio...
How does infant mortality in the U.S. compare to other countries?: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/c...
CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs: https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealt...
The decline in U.S. life expectancy is unlike anything we've seen in a century: https://www.popsci.com/life-expectanc...
THE U.S. SUICIDE RATE IS AT ITS HIGHEST IN A HALF-CENTURY: https://psmag.com/news/the-suicide-ra...
U.S. Obesity Rates Have Hit An All-Time High: https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmcc...
The Looming National Security Crisis: Young Americans Unable to Serve in the Military: https://www.scribd.com/document/37253...
Dehellenization of the West
“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.” ― Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Part I
People like to think that things always move forward. That progress is always made. That once something is learned it can't be lost. None of those things are true. Things can and do move rapidly in reverse. Progress can be halted. Knowledge can be lost. And sometimes those things are due to intentional actions. Pope Benedict XVI first used the term 'dehellenization' first in a speech called “Faith, Reason, and the University: Memories and Reflections” when speaking of separating Christianity from Greek philosophy. The word has come to refer to the rejection of the use of reason in particular, which has befallen many in history. Currently, it appears the Western world, led by the US, has headed, at least partially, down such a road.
The biggest crack in logic is the first I'll touch on: climate change denial. Sure, Trump doesn't believe climate change. Neither do most the people relying on oil and other products that are implicated in the increase of green house gases. But also, neither do most other US citizens. Why? Well, basically, the problem is bigger than their TVs and cars and they don't understand, just use, those things, so why would they understand climate change? Especially with such common sense wisdom going around as 'it's cold today, so there's no climate change' and thinking that creating carbon emissions by manufacturing signs to wave is going to help anything. Reading between the lines on such things indicates the majority of people fall short of understanding the problem we face. Then there are those that deny to escape responsibility. They'd have to do something other than exist if they sat down and realized that their ocean front home will be worthless in another decade, or less, depending on the hurricanes. Easier to wait until water is lapping at the foundation to try unloading it on a sucker. Meanwhile, I'll side with the 97% of scientists that think we've screwed up, because it's pretty obvious we have, and if nothing else, the level of denial indicates we have because denial goes up in relation to immediate danger, just like the closer someone lives to a dam, the more in denial they are anything could happen to wash them away. I'll continue to prepare a plot of land to be as self sufficient as possible for when reality crashes down and people realize it's not a joke and their children and grandchildren aren't the only ones who have to worry.
Now to something that is a joke: flat earth. In 240 BC, Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth for the first time. In 1633, Galileo Galilei was charged with heresy, sentenced to imprisonment that was reduced to lifelong house arrest, and all his words were forbidden to be published. All because he defended a heliocentric solar system that contained a round Earth. All total, we've known the Earth was round for about 2250+ years, despite the fact some people have wanted to think otherwise at times. And it's nothing new for someone to think otherwise. The 'Flat Earth Society' was founded in 1956 and has continued into the internet age with their scientific heresy. If anything, Photoshop has increased the idea's popularity. However, if you look into the sky, you'll see a round moon, sun, and stars, so a few sketchy pics aren't going to convince me we're the only flat thing in the universe. Flat Earth theories don't even rank as pseudoscience since there's more chance of finding Bigfoot than of finding the edge of the Earth.
And speaking of sketchy, do you know what can kill up to 30% of patients if they don't have medical treatment and that can infect 90% of nearby, unvaccinated people? Measles! What's making a comeback due to anti vaxxers putting their kids and public in danger? Measles! What can survive in the air for two hours after a sneeze? Measles! Not getting vaccinated for measles is almost worth a Darwin award itself before anything else even happens. Not only are you putting yourself and kids at risk because of trumped up nonsense, but the public as well. Although I'd agree that SOME vaccinations are maybe a bit much, but the tried and true ones will save your butt. Besides, military people can get a lot of vaccines depending on deployment and anything majority wrong with vaccines in general would have showed up in that part of the population first. Anti vaxxers have even come to unbalance a video game since...they get taken out so easily. It's Lemming mentality. I'm not saying no one has the right to run into the sea, I'm just saying no one has the right to take others with them.
And not so easy to tackle is gender fluidity. Is it a fad? Is it a political movement? Is it an attempt to curb population growth? Or is it the offspring of the West's hubris? What it isn't, is real. Or at least as most news portrays it. Oh, it's real as in people get surgery and take hormone pills. But it also would curb population growth if a large part of the population were to buy into it due to jacking junk up so much it doesn't work. But it's also heavily connected to Liberal governments and became more popular as they rose in power. And people are reversing surgeries at a rate that makes one surgeon say there's a trend or regret. However, I personally see it all as hubris. As all great nations before us, we started as nothing, we rose, we plateaued...then we got bored, we started thinking we could do whatever we wanted, including spitting in the face of nature and basic economics until more and more propaganda fed people became consumer weary and more aware of the debt ridden economy and multiple prices racking up. And the prices for this particular fancy are great indeed, up to and including removal from the gene pool.
These are just some of the oddest social fads that caught traction in the last decade as it becomes clearer that the 90's and early 2000's were the West's peak, specifically the USA's, and we're coming down from the high. We have a serious arrogance problem that is out of sync with our ability to perform. We lost sight of our old ideals that actually worked. We have no collective goals. We have a bored, entitled population that is putting themselves at the mercy of the government and those that pay taxes. Our military is sprawled across the globe in resource wars. Celebrities want to pretend they have the right to tell people what to do and think...just for attention and a sound bite. Like animals that eat, sleep, and screw, a good portion of the West has regressed to the minimums of eating, sleeping, and screwing. Fewer add work to that. Fewer still add work and secondary goals. This creates a lot of time. You can only watch so much. You can only play so much. You can only buy so much. Eventually, you have to create something to feel of value...and then the focus on weird ideas start because you've not spent any time to develop goals and hobbies. Currently, the East is set to overtake the West in economic terms. This isn't just because those countries are producing more. Not just because they're bringing more of their population into urban living. Not just because they're copying the old things that we did that worked. Not just because they're showing a *gasp* inclination to learn from our mistakes. But also because we're awfully busy wasting time with silly ideas that are better tossed in the hamper and exporting all our work. Like a used car salesman coke addict that wakes up from a month long binge to find $20k in cash and three car titles gone, we need to figure out our next step to get out of the hole we've dug.
Additional reading
Climate Change Denial: Facing a reality too big to believe.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/bl...
More than half of Americans don't think climate change will affect them
https://www.ajc.com/news/science/more...
Psychological Denial and Dams
https://www.jefftk.com/p/psychologica...
Are Flat-Earthers Being Serious?
https://www.livescience.com/24310-fla...
Transmission of Measles
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/tra...
One More Time, With Big Data: Measles Vaccine Doesn’t Cause Autism
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/he...
Which Vaccines Do You Get When You Join the Military?
https://vaxopedia.org/2018/06/24/whic...
Pandemic Video Game Ushers in the Apocalypse by Adding Anti-Vaxxers
https://slate.com/technology/2019/03/...
Political party is closely tied to views on transgender issues
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/...
Transgender Surgery: Regret rates highest in male-to-female reassignment operations
https://www.newsweek.com/transgender-...
People like to think that things always move forward. That progress is always made. That once something is learned it can't be lost. None of those things are true. Things can and do move rapidly in reverse. Progress can be halted. Knowledge can be lost. And sometimes those things are due to intentional actions. Pope Benedict XVI first used the term 'dehellenization' first in a speech called “Faith, Reason, and the University: Memories and Reflections” when speaking of separating Christianity from Greek philosophy. The word has come to refer to the rejection of the use of reason in particular, which has befallen many in history. Currently, it appears the Western world, led by the US, has headed, at least partially, down such a road.
The biggest crack in logic is the first I'll touch on: climate change denial. Sure, Trump doesn't believe climate change. Neither do most the people relying on oil and other products that are implicated in the increase of green house gases. But also, neither do most other US citizens. Why? Well, basically, the problem is bigger than their TVs and cars and they don't understand, just use, those things, so why would they understand climate change? Especially with such common sense wisdom going around as 'it's cold today, so there's no climate change' and thinking that creating carbon emissions by manufacturing signs to wave is going to help anything. Reading between the lines on such things indicates the majority of people fall short of understanding the problem we face. Then there are those that deny to escape responsibility. They'd have to do something other than exist if they sat down and realized that their ocean front home will be worthless in another decade, or less, depending on the hurricanes. Easier to wait until water is lapping at the foundation to try unloading it on a sucker. Meanwhile, I'll side with the 97% of scientists that think we've screwed up, because it's pretty obvious we have, and if nothing else, the level of denial indicates we have because denial goes up in relation to immediate danger, just like the closer someone lives to a dam, the more in denial they are anything could happen to wash them away. I'll continue to prepare a plot of land to be as self sufficient as possible for when reality crashes down and people realize it's not a joke and their children and grandchildren aren't the only ones who have to worry.
Now to something that is a joke: flat earth. In 240 BC, Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth for the first time. In 1633, Galileo Galilei was charged with heresy, sentenced to imprisonment that was reduced to lifelong house arrest, and all his words were forbidden to be published. All because he defended a heliocentric solar system that contained a round Earth. All total, we've known the Earth was round for about 2250+ years, despite the fact some people have wanted to think otherwise at times. And it's nothing new for someone to think otherwise. The 'Flat Earth Society' was founded in 1956 and has continued into the internet age with their scientific heresy. If anything, Photoshop has increased the idea's popularity. However, if you look into the sky, you'll see a round moon, sun, and stars, so a few sketchy pics aren't going to convince me we're the only flat thing in the universe. Flat Earth theories don't even rank as pseudoscience since there's more chance of finding Bigfoot than of finding the edge of the Earth.
And speaking of sketchy, do you know what can kill up to 30% of patients if they don't have medical treatment and that can infect 90% of nearby, unvaccinated people? Measles! What's making a comeback due to anti vaxxers putting their kids and public in danger? Measles! What can survive in the air for two hours after a sneeze? Measles! Not getting vaccinated for measles is almost worth a Darwin award itself before anything else even happens. Not only are you putting yourself and kids at risk because of trumped up nonsense, but the public as well. Although I'd agree that SOME vaccinations are maybe a bit much, but the tried and true ones will save your butt. Besides, military people can get a lot of vaccines depending on deployment and anything majority wrong with vaccines in general would have showed up in that part of the population first. Anti vaxxers have even come to unbalance a video game since...they get taken out so easily. It's Lemming mentality. I'm not saying no one has the right to run into the sea, I'm just saying no one has the right to take others with them.
And not so easy to tackle is gender fluidity. Is it a fad? Is it a political movement? Is it an attempt to curb population growth? Or is it the offspring of the West's hubris? What it isn't, is real. Or at least as most news portrays it. Oh, it's real as in people get surgery and take hormone pills. But it also would curb population growth if a large part of the population were to buy into it due to jacking junk up so much it doesn't work. But it's also heavily connected to Liberal governments and became more popular as they rose in power. And people are reversing surgeries at a rate that makes one surgeon say there's a trend or regret. However, I personally see it all as hubris. As all great nations before us, we started as nothing, we rose, we plateaued...then we got bored, we started thinking we could do whatever we wanted, including spitting in the face of nature and basic economics until more and more propaganda fed people became consumer weary and more aware of the debt ridden economy and multiple prices racking up. And the prices for this particular fancy are great indeed, up to and including removal from the gene pool.
These are just some of the oddest social fads that caught traction in the last decade as it becomes clearer that the 90's and early 2000's were the West's peak, specifically the USA's, and we're coming down from the high. We have a serious arrogance problem that is out of sync with our ability to perform. We lost sight of our old ideals that actually worked. We have no collective goals. We have a bored, entitled population that is putting themselves at the mercy of the government and those that pay taxes. Our military is sprawled across the globe in resource wars. Celebrities want to pretend they have the right to tell people what to do and think...just for attention and a sound bite. Like animals that eat, sleep, and screw, a good portion of the West has regressed to the minimums of eating, sleeping, and screwing. Fewer add work to that. Fewer still add work and secondary goals. This creates a lot of time. You can only watch so much. You can only play so much. You can only buy so much. Eventually, you have to create something to feel of value...and then the focus on weird ideas start because you've not spent any time to develop goals and hobbies. Currently, the East is set to overtake the West in economic terms. This isn't just because those countries are producing more. Not just because they're bringing more of their population into urban living. Not just because they're copying the old things that we did that worked. Not just because they're showing a *gasp* inclination to learn from our mistakes. But also because we're awfully busy wasting time with silly ideas that are better tossed in the hamper and exporting all our work. Like a used car salesman coke addict that wakes up from a month long binge to find $20k in cash and three car titles gone, we need to figure out our next step to get out of the hole we've dug.
Additional reading
Climate Change Denial: Facing a reality too big to believe.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/bl...
More than half of Americans don't think climate change will affect them
https://www.ajc.com/news/science/more...
Psychological Denial and Dams
https://www.jefftk.com/p/psychologica...
Are Flat-Earthers Being Serious?
https://www.livescience.com/24310-fla...
Transmission of Measles
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/tra...
One More Time, With Big Data: Measles Vaccine Doesn’t Cause Autism
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/he...
Which Vaccines Do You Get When You Join the Military?
https://vaxopedia.org/2018/06/24/whic...
Pandemic Video Game Ushers in the Apocalypse by Adding Anti-Vaxxers
https://slate.com/technology/2019/03/...
Political party is closely tied to views on transgender issues
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/...
Transgender Surgery: Regret rates highest in male-to-female reassignment operations
https://www.newsweek.com/transgender-...
This and That
News and more from Jeremiah Donaldson. Reposted from official blog here: https://www.jeremiahdonaldson.com/blog
...more
- Jeremiah Donaldson's profile
- 72 followers
