Get a Grip

It 1999, the peak of our world’s power – we just what another chance at it.

Of course we are not going to get it – but it is what we want.

Now back to Zermelo’s Axiom of Choice, and my chance at fame…

realitycreator is right.

Just Ask Umbrella Man & His Friend

Excellent post. Maybe it’s because I’m sixty-two not twenty-two that I find this hyped up heat to be pretty silly stuff. Of course, Trump is a moron and much of this could’ve been avoided, but it wasn’t and here we are. The United States will break up much like the Roman world did lo so many years ago. Something will come out the other end. Some things from the past will be dimly remembered. Most of what we think is so important now won’t even make it that far.

I’m taking Ian’s advice. A little volunteer work at my local animal shelter, trying to be a good husband, helping those in the family I can, a good book or film with a glass of wine. . .oh, and enjoying a challenging of Texas Hold ’em poker.

I think a lot of it, for we millenials, is that we’re becoming secular Millenials – the drama is a cry to ‘come quickly, lord Jesus’. living every day of your life knowing the best days are past and it’s all inconceivable hardship ahead is existentially exhausting. better trump &c. send tanks into the streets so we can at least face down something tangible.

I enjoyed reading this text, and I largely agree. Perhaps a bit counter intuitively, the material living conditions (unless they are acutely abject and you suffer pain due to hunger, wounding, disease, grief, loneliness, uncertainty or loss of meaning) are not the best predictor of individual happiness. In a well-calibrated brain, pleasure and pain are not indicators of how well civilization is doing, but of how well you are doing under the circumstances. I think the pain of a Swiss banker that commits suicide due to loneliness and loss of meaning is as real as the happiness of a poor Bangladeshi who had a good meal with family and friends. This creates an interesting tension: should we strive for maximizing the number of surviving children and lived years, or the creation of living conditions that are compatible with the evolutionary makeup of our ancestors (which we largely share)? There is probably no answer to this, and the question is moot, because what happens on the ground is best explained by evolutionary dynamics, in which economic (and not moral) forces are the most decisive ones.

I do agree that civilization has managed to cheat entropy in a big way instead of building something sustainable, and entropy is going to catch up with us, and it is not going to be fun.

Ian, the world is more than US 🙂

You should leave some hope for those of us that are on the outside 🙂 So get a grip, I need you.

@Stephen Miller Band

Many think that umbrella man and his friend understood that particular situation all too well.

…most people are about as well off as they were before Trump.

Uh…

That’s… relative, I suppose.

As always, some are doing fine. Others are not. The number of those who are not tends to grow during periods of Chaos — such as the one we’re in now — but as a rule, those who are doing fine don’t see and don’t care what happens to anybody else when their own survival is at stake.

Chaos is not simply a matter of the Trump Follies. The chaotic situation we and wide swaths of the outer world are in was precipitated long before his ascension. He’s merely accelerating and dramatizing it. Each and every day. There is no greater drama king than the one in the White House at the moment.

People are right to be on edge and wary, for the good which may ultimately come from the current situation is likely to be long in the future, long after our petty lives have been extinguished.

Are the majority of people overdramatizing the current pre-catastrophe? No, I don’t think so. They’re going on with their lives as best they can under the circumstances. For some, things are fine, even getting better. For many others, not so much.

The fact that whatever one’s physical or financial situation, one goes on with one’s life as best one can often annoys activists no end. Why do the masses not rise and do something (about something, whatever it may be)? What is wrong with people? How can they be so complacent?

I would argue they’re not, not at all, but there’s not a lot they can do apart from what they are doing, which in many cases is merely surviving.

Nevertheless, the drama we’re immersed in has its uses.

@ fredcdobbs

How nice to see your handle. 🙂

I think Ian’s main thesis is most of the people doing most of the screaming about Trump right now are doing just fine. They are just losing their need to dominate everyone else, hence the screaming.

@Stephen Miller Band

Actually I was referring to the possibility that Umbrella Man and his “friend” may not have reacted as most people did because they were involved in what happened and thus were not surprised:

http://whowhatwhy.org/2011/12/05/jfk-umbrella-man-more-doubts/

With manufacturing gone, retail’s next on the chopping block. In the near future, those who can afford to eat will order their meals from Amazon and get them delivered to their 3D printer. What could go wrong?

You’ll never need to leave your couch. “Mommy, did people really used to have legs?”

One knows how despised somebody was by the sheer volume of disparaging jokes that are told immediately after he dies:

Roger Ailes gravestone should just read: Here Lies.

Fox News viewers plan to honor the life of Roger Ailes the only way they know how – by blaming Hillary for his death.

No one can deny that Roger Ailes touched a lot of people. Most of them pressed charges.

many of the people who are not fine are not screaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, every five minutes. They are trying to keep their heads above water any way they can.

Right, and of course, the best way to do that is to zealously & blindly support a multi-billionaire and his multi-billionaire friends who have embraced, and do business with, tyrants all around the world thinking Rich F*cks like that are going to work on behalf of The Little People. It makes perfect sense — a winning strategy.

Shut the damn news off if all you can do is react to it rather than analyze it and parse it. Anyone who can barely keep their head above water is an idiot to choose either Team Red or Team Blue to represent their interests. Neither team represents their interests if they have any interests.

Erik Prince, A WAR CRIMINAL, was on Fox News the other night kissing Putin’s ass amidst all this nonsense. He was engaging in illogic by stating that “Lefties” are hypocritical because once upon a time they loved the Soviet Union and now they hate Russia. His statement implies Russia is still the Soviet Union, and he went on to state, or imply, that he supports Russia, or the Soviet Union, now and the “Lefties” don’t.

He’s incapable of thinking, therefore, he, and many others as well, are Walking Contradictions. If you adhere to principles that transcend political ideology, the appropriate position because it’s based in principle is to oppose any tyranny and any tyrant. That includes tyranny abroad and tyranny at home.

Therefore, I oppose Putin and I oppose the Democrats and the Republicans, because all of them are a form of tyranny and they’re all Kleptocrats to varying degrees as Hugh has mentioned on numerous occasions.

Why is it so difficult for otherwise intelligent people to get outside of the left/right binary political blind? I see it everywhere, even amongst the most intelligent of people. They fall into it every time all the time. I also notice that in comments sections everywhere on The Net, there are commenters who’s sole purpose is to keep people entangled in this binary political bind. Why? How can that be constructive in any way? Unless? Unless the Status Quo is your goal and that’s your purpose for posting anything on The Net — to keep people firmly afixed to the Status Quo.

The Status Quo is killing us, People, slowly and surely just as cigarettes do. There should be a Surgeon General’s warning on every pack of Status Quo you smoke telling you it will kill you. In fact, that should be a new brand of cigarette — Status Quo since People like it so much. Erik Prince can be the Status Quo Man versus The Marlboro Man. Instead of rustling cattle in Texas like the cancer-riddled Marlboro Man, there can be commercials with Prince raping young Arab girls in his Wheel Chair in the Middle Eastern desert somewhere in his effort to save Muslim women from the clitoral circumcision. Just as you have to burn the village down to save it, you have to rape Muslim women to save them from being raped & mutilated. That’s the logic of those who are trying to keep their heads above the water when they support Team Red or Team Blue.

Tom, it’s clear to me now this is a collaborative ruse being perpetrated by Putin & Trump to give the appearance of tension so as to mitigate the appearance & fact of collusion. I was partially fooled the first time, but no more. Russia is good with this. Assad, like Pence, is a dupe. Putin owns him, or so he thinks. Trump owns Pence & many others, or so he thinks.

As well, Trump & Putin have collaborated on this because of Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia today. Trump has to pretend to the Saudi’s that there is no collusion as if the Saudi’s don’t know better. The forces that should be attacked in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia’s forces. How come The Donald doesn’t just attack Saudi Arabia, depose the Saudi Royal Family, and take their oil? Isn’t that one of his many Campaign Promises? That he would bomb the f*ck out of them and take their oil? We’re waiting, Donald. But we’re not holding our breath.

@Stirling wrote: …1999, the peak of our world’s power..

I’m reminded of how people living in The Matrix were experiencing a reality that simulated the late 1990s, even though actual time was many years later.

When 9/11 occurred and the USA went nuts, I realized that the only way to survive was to develop deep spiritual roots. A few later knocks from life – e.g. having to re-enter the job market at age 60 – made these roots grow deep (miraculously I re-entered my old field, IT, after a long hiatus, at pretty much my earlier salary, very much an outlier compared to my age cohort).

“Get a grip” depends on where you are in the food chain and how many resources (of all kinds) you can bring to bear. It’s easy for me, much less so for many others.

> “Get a grip” depends on where you are in the food chain and how many resources (of all kinds) you can bring to bear. It’s easy for me, much less so for many others.

I have disadvantages in this regard.

You made that clear and easy to understand.
I like it. Thank You Ian.

You should refrain from condescension.
You don’t do it well.
I was gonna throw some stats at you from my hometown, Johnstown Pennsylvania, but it’s all available at your fingertips.
What’s your advice for Johnstown’s impoverished citizens? Thank god you’re not in Somalia? Recite the pledge of allegiance? Drape themselves in the national ensign?
“Get a grip. And lower the drama.”
Yemen, talk about drama. It’s the worst sort of tone deafness to lecture people how to cope with their suffering, death, unremitting poverty and chronic unemployment.
Hell, in many ways you’re sounding like a 21st century U.S. physician.