Month: July 2017

Divide and conquer the unthinking masses

Had a conversation with a friend of mine the other day. A thinker who expresses himself well.  He took one side of an argument and I took the other. I shredded his argument  and the argument of the think tank who’s article he sent me.  Instead of arguing further in reply or capitulating, he stated that we should not discuss these issues because neither of us will change the others mind.

Maybe he was saving face because he couldn’t think of a better argument? Either way this is dangerous. People must be able to argue each and every issue. Because the details of the issue  is what is important. Not identity politics. Media, politicians, universities, pundits of all sorts and elites on both sides will have you believe that you are either this or that. You are not. Every one of us is a complex thinking animal that has beliefs and thoughts on every issue. Whether we like that or not.

Do the work. Think. Argue. Or we will be divided and conquered by this side or that.

We better start caring

This is the follow-up to ‘Nobody cares’.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-07/russians-are-said-to-be-suspects-in-hacks-involving-nuclear-site

Man, we better start caring more. Nobody’s saving us from the mess were getting ourselves into. The way that you get better is to try harder, to care and do the work.

There are a lot of people out there who do care. Scientists, teachers, reporters, cops, healthcare workers, lawyers, house cleaners, babysitters and others. They come in all professions and most professions have both people who do and don’t care. People have to motivate themselves and care. We can’t expect our leaders to motivate us and care, though it’s nice to see when some do.

Look, there are over 7 billion humans on this earth. That’s a lot for a species as physically large as us. You see that many of other large species? As far as I can tell, nothing else is close. What happens when a species overruns the resources that it has? What if we create something stupid that takes away those resources, like a total electrical power failure or some sort of nuclear catastrophe? We go bye-bye. Maybe we take everything else with us. Let’s not be a plague. That’s all I’m saying.

https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/dying-mother-ganges-holy-river-succumbs-to-pollution?utm_campaign=web-app-launch&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=rcom&utm_content=ros

Some of us have it pretty good here. We need to start taking care of what we’ve got or lose it. That means spending less time in front of the TV and more time understanding politics and keeping those idiots in line. That means spending less time at fast food joints and more time keeping our minds sharp and bodies healthy. It means spending less time and effort scraping everything we can from everybody else and instead sharing more. It means spending less time creating problems and more time and money protecting ourselves from them.

Everybody makes choices. Together we’re making them collectively, good or bad.

Anti-establishment

Do you really think that our president is anti-establishment? How many  of the elite do you think are? All of their friends are establishment and they grew up in the establishment and made their money and their power and their fame in the establishment.

So how do they ascribe to themselves the moniker anti-establishment? Are they anti-one side of the establishment or the other? That doesn’t count. Are they like you and me? Are they poor working slobs or at least tired of the BS that happens at the top?

They’re not like you and me. They’re not your friends and they don’t care about you. Wake up.

Most are animals and apex predators trying to scratch out as much as they can for themselves for their effort.  Maybe in that way they are like many of us.  Just better at it. But humans have the ability to think beyond that.  To work together and create something better without killing each other and taking from each other. It’s way past time for us to make the effort to do so.