Quote: (11-13-2014 03:54 AM)Sp5 Wrote:
You guys are salivating for a collapse into chaos or some kind of totalitarianism, to bring back your traditional tribal past. Liberty bothers you.
Projection. Liberty bothers you, not us. True liberty exists only when a man belongs to a nation of like minded individuals, not when he cannot trust anyone because his neighbors are new faces everyday. Liberty does not mean having your backyard open to anyone who shows up for a hot meal and welfare. Liberty does not mean being taxed while miscreants reproduce endlessly.
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Me? I took an oath to support and defend the Bill of Rights several times in the military and elsewhere. My loyalties and preference are with "the worst system of government, except for all the rest," as Churchill said. With all its faults, democracy is preferable to big money oligarchy, absolute monarchs, "aristocracies," and communist and fascist dictatorships. I'm not a crypto-monarchist or crypto-fascist. I'm not in favor of imposing authoritarianism to suppress "excessive personal freedom." I can ride out other people's obnoxious-but-legal behavior without calling for Big Brother to stop it.
Bill of rights? What ever happened to freedom of association? Ordinary Americans can no longer create communities of people they want. They are forced to accommodate others in the name of diversity.
That you believe we live in a democracy must also be considered a joke. There's nothing democratic about any Western government today. It's rule by the rich for the rich and you're deluding yourself if you believe otherwise.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-11...-bottom-90
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From the early 1980s, however, these trends have reversed. The top 0.1% (consisting of 160,000 families worth $73m on average) hold 22% of America’s wealth, just shy of the 1929 peak—and almost the same share as the bottom 90% of the population."
That was as of 2013. By now the wealth of the top 0.1% is not only well above that of the "bottom 90%" but higher than it has ever been.
Are bailouts liberty? Is having terrorists flood over the border and bomb your cities liberty? Is endless war with people you've never met liberty?
Sp5, you, and anyone who defends the current western governments, are the authoritarians. Trying to pass yourselves off as liberty lovers is a joke. You don't know what the word liberty means. You've been too brainwashed by your legal education, since, as I know from personal experience, law school is really just "advanced indoctrination school."
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Maybe there will be a collapse or some large countries will turn into North Korea or Turkmenistan by isolating themselves, of course. I've said nuclear war, new diseases and planetary depletion are threats to survival, not just society.
But as I said, barring disasters like that, the world is going to get more integrated. There will be waves of political disruption like 1848 or 1968, sure. I see rioting in the near future just because of economic changes, the lack of jobs, imbalances caused by money in politics. Politics and society will adjust.
This is a strawman. No one is saying we need to become North Korea.
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Look at what it would take to reverse the trend of global integration: (1) the end of instantaneous satellite and fiber optic communications including the end of the internet, global media, Facebook, Skype, and Tinder, (2) the end of air travel, (3) the end of international trade, (4) the end of the movement of money. How and in what lifetime do you expect this to happen? Sure, in a thousand years anything and everything can happen. Maybe people will stop using iron tools and the wheel, too. But those extreme scenarios are branded as pure science fiction, not based on observable facts from which reasonable trends can be extrapolated.
None of the things you listed mean a god damn thing for liberty. As has been pointed out for about 100 times over a dozen threads on this forum, countries like Japan, China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and every other non-white country in the world will put their citizens interests first over foreigners.
And yet, in spite of being nationalist, these countries still have the internet and global media. They still have air travel and tourism. They still have international trade, and international finance.
Your specious arguments as to why we need mass unlimited immigration or else we'll lose liberty aren't going to fool me, or anyone else with half a brain. Thanks to mass unlimited immigration, we now live in the age of terrorism so bad Americans cannot go to the airport without being treated as a potential criminal. That's liberty? Time to get real.
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The one observable trend you mention is declining IQ scores. Assuming you are correct, and that the trend will not be reversed by what I think are naturally self-correcting social forces (like smarter women deciding not to repeat their mothers', or their childless aunts', experiment with deferring children for career, or tax incentives), it's going to take a long time to manifest any real effects, if ever. Why? Look at the world as it is now. The Philippines has an average IQ of 86, yet still manages to maintain general order and economic growth, and is improving its governance and prosperity. Even Ireland, with a very stable democracy and high per capita GDP, has a lower IQ, in the mid- to lower 90s, than most other European countries and the USA. Iran is down in the 80s, yet still has a nuclear program and a sophisticated economy which is almost totally isolated because of sanctions. It still functions.
The level of denial you exhibit here is outstanding.
The difference between the Philippines, with an IQ of 86, and places like Korea or Japan, with IQ's over 115, is shockingly large.
The differences between Iran, IQ 80, and Israel, IQ's over 115, is as wide as the gulf of Mexico.
The fact is, these low IQ countries would be nothing without the higher IQ ones who've developed everything. Best case scenario in a world of declining IQ scores - things remain as good as they are now. But even in a best case scenario, things aren't going to get any better without high IQs to innovate.
A far more likely scenario is that the dumber masses will be led like sheep to the slaughter for pointless wars that enrich whatever overlords rule over the dumb masses. It's already that way today, and as people get dumber they will be easier and easier to fool. Thus why declining IQ scores won't be an issue is impossible.
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IQ is not as big of a deal as it's made out to be. When I started out in the army, I was a personnel clerk. I had access to all of my soldiers' test scores, which included the AFQT, generally regarded as a percentile score of intelligence, and the GT score, which is an IQ score. I noticed two things: one, there were some guys with humble backgrounds with high scores, and two, scores did not correlate much with observed articulateness, ability to function in the army, and judgment. In those days, we had guys with GT (IQ) scores down into the 70s. I was friends with some of those guys, and they didn't seem impaired in any observable way and functioned well in the army in moderately technical fields. Similarly, there were guys with above-average IQs who were complete idiots with no judgment.
Personal anecdotes mean nothing when describing nations of millions.
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So even if 100 years from now the USA has the average IQ of Iran or the PI, is there going to be a collapse? Nah.
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