[evilgenius]

I just read about some person who was upset that their dog died after it was stuffed into an overhead bin on an airplane, in its cage, I guess. I have to ask, what did they expect would happen when they tried to take an animal on a plane? Was it going to get a seat of its own? Were they going to let it roam all about the plane, getting into other people's stuff and licking at their feet and hands? That's cute for about five minutes. I like dogs, but not everyone does. Should people who don't expect such a thing in a confined public space have to endure it simply because the person who brought the dog needed it for emotional support? What makes it so important that someone's emotional state reigns over the terse emotional environment that we have come to expect from our public spaces to date? As much as I've defended political correctness in the past, I have to blame it for this sort of thing.

Isn't it political correctness that seeks to justify behaviors based upon something in a person that is understood to be basic to that person? It began rightly enough. We don't tolerate restaurants that won't serve black people in society anymore. We don't accept the accusations of systemic retardation that even people in academia have raised against minorities. But what about when a youth of color breaks the law and tries to claim it was an act of their culture or their color itself? I don't mean a simple rebellious breaking of the law which is mostly the result of how teenagers test barriers. I mean doing something that deliberately insults or harms either known or unknown others and fobs it off as inherent to their race. They don't care because they have a 'right' to act that way. It isn't like once they've been caught, and schooled, they feel they need to change. Teenage rebellion changes when it meets the right kind of reason. It only has to be shown the arguments for the barrier. If the arguments don't apply to them, at least they will understand why other people still hold it up. Sometimes, they will respect that and sometimes they will labor against it, but society understands that process. It puts the principles at the forefront. Someone's personal interpretation of their own background is a little more cloudy. That's more moment by moment.

Race is just a small part of it. The selfishness with the dog epitomizes something that is not tied to race. The excesses being done in the name of race have come about from a philosophy that is misunderstood, and, therefore, extrapolated onto a person of color's own understanding of what it means for them to come from where they do, not a consensus or a scientific approach. When we say that a reason for honoring a person means that society must bend to it, we don't mean that to be a personal reason subject to that individual's moment by moment emotional state. We mean it to be something much more clearly understood in the public mind, something that is derived from a consensus. Political correctness began as a voice that tried to say that the consensus had to be more honest and fair, not to personalize it. When did it become personal?

If conservatives don't think this applies to them, then consider what it means to have a well regulated militia as opposed to each person exercising justice according to their own interpretation. What would your average person arguing for gun rights at all cost in society do if they could be taken back in time to become part of a militia and the militia told them they couldn't use a certain musket because its caliber was not the standard caliber? They'd come off the rails is what they'd do. They would want to personally interpret something that was supposed to be understood by consensus. They don't either ask if the free for all they are encouraging around the issue of gun rights has any obligation to the consensus of society. They don't ask if their form of interpreting the Second Amendment would protect us from tyranny or serve as such a mangled and obstructed way of coming together that such would easily fall before any tyranny. There isn't any modern understanding of what it means to have a well regulated militia because people are too selfish to endure such a thing. It would require discipline. It might require adherence to a code of conduct or a form of understanding that doesn't just allow for the easy use of guns, mostly told like a storybook work of fiction, to solve problems.

Remember Dick and Jane? They taught generations of kids how to read. Well, they didn't come alone. In those generations influenced by them there were also books and pamphlets that used to extol the virtues of civic life, and civic obedience. When was it that people began to laugh at such things? Why did they? Do you think it could have been ever so slightly out of rebellion? Signal like this to make a turn in this direction on your bike. Look both ways before you cross the street. Use the crosswalk. What is so wrong with that kind of advice? Apparently, everything, for they interfere with a persons 'right' to make those decisions for themselves. That's all fine and good, however, until you come across a person riding a bike and you have no idea by what their hands are doing, or not doing, which way they are going to go. If there is any kind of a close call, be prepared to find out what their raised middle finger means. Those pamphlets were precise and they didn't try to offer advice about things that were too complex. There isn't any room in those pamphlets for advice about how to behave with a brown paper bag outside the front door of a liquor store, for instance. They couldn't massage the egos of those who read them and wanted them to point more gloriously at something much more aloof, so I guess they had to go.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'I') just read about some person who was upset that their dog died after it was stuffed into an overhead bin on an airplane, in its cage, I guess. I have to ask, what did they expect would happen when they tried to take an animal on a plane? Was it going to get a seat of its own? Were they going to let it roam all about the plane, getting into other people's stuff and licking at their feet and hands? That's cute for about five minutes. I like dogs, but not everyone does. Should people who don't expect such a thing in a confined public space have to endure it simply because the person who brought the dog needed it for emotional support?

[Ibon]

It seems that each generation regardless of ideology succeeds in tuning in ever finer detail their needs and wants. That the external environment can deliver in ever more precise ways for ones comforts. This ends up breeding a society that is less tolerant and less resilient and more demanding of their comforts. In breeds indolence, softness, narcissism and a sense of entitlement.

Cultivating internal strength and character is sacrificed for demanding that ones external environment is fine tuned.

This is a normal result of a society that for several generations satiates their desires. This is the purest definition of cultural decadence and as I mentioned it has no party affiliation. It is a result of affluence in part.

The digital age that can enable you to be a kingdom of one on your digital device hasn't helped this trend, it has only aggravated the decadence. Enhanced the decadence. Enabled the decadence to more finely tune its wants and needs.

Are you guys controlling how many hours you spend here and on other sites?
Are you able to acknowledge the theme of this thread and see your own complicity?

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')Are you guys controlling how many hours you spend here and on other sites?
Are you able to acknowledge the theme of this thread and see your own complicity?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')Are you guys controlling how many hours you spend here and on other sites?
Are you able to acknowledge the theme of this thread and see your own complicity?

[Cog]

Think about why people come to your retreat down there Ibon. They want to interact with nature and have some quiet in their life. I'm sure they interact with other people there but not to the extent of the crowded cities they left behind.

The digital world can be as quiet or as raucous as I wish it to be. My time, my rules, my choice. I've earned a little decadence.

[Newfie]

Interesting thoughts here. None of them mine at the moment.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'T')hink about why people come to your retreat down there Ibon. They want to interact with nature and have some quiet in their life. I'm sure they interact with other people there but not to the extent of the crowded cities they left behind.

The digital world can be as quiet or as raucous as I wish it to be. My time, my rules, my choice. I've earned a little decadence.

[Newfie]

Interesting. We move from place to place to see how other people live. But we do enjoy our Western enclaves and convieniences. We retreat from that also, can only take so much, to loud, to invasive. TV, yuck! Back to our mobile floating cave of (relatively) primitive acurtuments.

[evilgenius]

You know what's funny is that what people mostly do is take what is given in their lives and then try to claim that they wanted it all along. Take a look at this Ted Talk, https://www.ted.com/talks/petter_johansson_do_you_really_know_why_you_do_what_you_do, it gets at the point. The video's subject is the appeal of human faces. I think you can see how this applies to religion and politics as well. After all, most people tend to believe and think according to the backgrounds they come from. Few people free themselves. Being free, however, may not mean being separate from, or without adherence to. When you understand it you may squirm a bit, realizing that a culture where individuals get everything they want without reference to society at large can be dangerous. In a world without humility all that it takes for a person to fall afoul is to tell the truth, whatever that is.

In the wake of the Florida bridge collapse, where some engineer called up a state worker's phone and warned about cracks, I've been thinking about AI. You know, the AI that Google used to beat the world's best Go players did so without any of its programmers understanding how it did that. AI as it is developing now is based upon what is termed 'machine learning.' That means that they let the programs learn for themselves, and the programmers often can't follow what that is doing to the program. It becomes very complex. What happens if it develops the equivalent of cracks? Nobody would know! If it's just how to place cat pictures all over the internet, that's one thing. If it's a program designed to manipulate public opinion, that's quite something else. The way that people integrate the trivial world into their lives and then claim ownership leaves them naked before such manipulation. The only protection is an anchoring in a society that moves more slowly. But AI thinks far faster than we do, and it can follow its purpose without resorting to appeals. It's kind of scary.

[Newfie]

Interesting. My Wife was reading an article that described some AI. When the machine relied ally upon it core computing power it learned at one pace. It then they gave it a “hand”, something it could manipulate. Then the learning accelerated. The programmers don’t understand this interaction. But it is real.

Unintended consequences.

I wonder what a true AI robot would consider its “personal space”?

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'Y')ou know what's funny is that what people mostly do is take what is given in their lives and then try to claim that they wanted it all along. Take a look at this Ted Talk, https://www.ted.com/talks/petter_johansson_do_you_really_know_why_you_do_what_you_do, it gets at the point. The video's subject is the appeal of human faces. I think you can see how this applies to religion and politics as well. After all, most people tend to believe and think according to the backgrounds they come from. Few people free themselves. Being free, however, may not mean being separate from, or without adherence to. When you understand it you may squirm a bit, realizing that a culture where individuals get everything they want without reference to society at large can be dangerous. In a world without humility all that it takes for a person to fall afoul is to tell the truth, whatever that is.

In the wake of the Florida bridge collapse, where some engineer called up a state worker's phone and warned about cracks, I've been thinking about AI. You know, the AI that Google used to beat the world's best Go players did so without any of its programmers understanding how it did that. AI as it is developing now is based upon what is termed 'machine learning.' That means that they let the programs learn for themselves, and the programmers often can't follow what that is doing to the program. It becomes very complex. What happens if it develops the equivalent of cracks? Nobody would know! If it's just how to place cat pictures all over the internet, that's one thing. If it's a program designed to manipulate public opinion, that's quite something else. The way that people integrate the trivial world into their lives and then claim ownership leaves them naked before such manipulation. The only protection is an anchoring in a society that moves more slowly. But AI thinks far faster than we do, and it can follow its purpose without resorting to appeals. It's kind of scary.

[Newfie]

I think we have veered far from EGs core subject. Not unusual.

The digital world probably does effect our personal visions of personal vs private space. Not that the borders were ever very distinct. Humans are a highly social animal and as such we tend to be very attuned to the hives mood.

We have a wee bit of an online hive here I suppose.

Sad though it may be most of my personal interaction takes place here. Sure I meet and talk to other folks. But with rare exception those are transitory interactions. So I guess I’m an outlier.

[KaiserJeep]

Well, you certainly are an outlier when you are out of sight of shore on your boat. As am I when I am rock crawling the granite domes of the Sierras in my Wrangler.

I find that every time I go out, there are fewer and fewer spots that cell service cannot reach. Certainly it did not help when I implemented a high gain cellular antenna and mobile WiFi hotspot in the Jeep. This and the continuing placement of cell towers on various mountain peaks means that you really have to go far to get away from the network. So my compromise is to keep the ringer off and just check for E-Mail every day or two, using an E-Mail account I reserve for that purpose, known only to wife and daughter.

The downside: from time to time I crawl up a peak, and find a cell "tower" that is only about 20' high, with solar PV to power it, and green plastic foliage disguising the tower itself. What a rude shock!

Like Ibon, I can't help myself, I need the network, and it's very definately part of my personal world.

[Newfie]

Obviously I use the network as well. It sometimes I want to just throw the dang thing overboard.

Ibon laments we don’t have a younger more global community. Perhaps this is why. We are largely a group of relatively antisocial FOGs (fat old guys) who tend towards antisocial. Just speaking for how I must appear to the outside world.

[KaiserJeep]

Then there is that other problem, which is age. My main camping buddy, whoom I camped with almost 25 years, died of cancer. Then the other three "sometimes" campers quit going a lot. Two got second wives and second families and are still obsessed with paying college tuition. The third finally admitted to me that he resides in a Senior community and now is not up to the rigorous wilderness camping and fishing we did before.

I still go out by myself. But every time I tell myself how stupid it is to do this alone.

[Newfie]

Which is why I’m fantastically lucky that my Wife is with me, doing it alone is kind of pointless for me. We are not alone in this experience. Yet I know there are other who are completely happy to do it alone. Yet others want to share with 500 of their closest friends, look at bloody cruise ships, yuck! Different strokes

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'I') think we have veered far from EGs core subject. Not unusual. .

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')I still go out by myself. But every time I tell myself how stupid it is to do this alone.

[evilgenius]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'T')hen there is that other problem, which is age. My main camping buddy, whoom I camped with almost 25 years, died of cancer. Then the other three "sometimes" campers quit going a lot. Two got second wives and second families and are still obsessed with paying college tuition. The third finally admitted to me that he resides in a Senior community and now is not up to the rigorous wilderness camping and fishing we did before.

I still go out by myself. But every time I tell myself how stupid it is to do this alone.