Designing Toys for Wealthy People while >95% of the Rest of the People Suffer

[LHX]

exciting


Rome built slow and fell fast



"Any Means Necessary" is a lot less climactic than it appears at first

at first - it seems like the kind of thing that you want to yell and raise a flag to

maybe smash somebody in the face or flip a car over


but then after a while you realize that it always has been survival by any means necessary




they say you cant take the street out of the street person
but
you can take the suburban out of the suburbanite

the reason for this is because one is raw and real
the other is developed on a foundation of fake

illusory


run thru the situations in your head:

you give a street person some modest luxury and they cannot get the street mentality out of their head

Mike Tyson couldnt be 'tamed'

the awards shows had to take extra precautions after ODB ran on-stage at the grammys back in '98



but
you pull the rug out from under a suburbanite and watch how quick they learn

a month TOPS

"but its not sanitary" is a consideration that quickly slips out of the decision-making process
"i cant go there because i might get robbed" does not apply to those who dont have anything worth stealing



it isnt really enjoyable to look on as people learn tough lessons

it is a instinct that people have - similar to that feeling they get when they see somebody with a open wound


in order to not react to that kind of thing takes a great deal of training
it can be seen in doctors and the armed forces

these people have been trained to ask questions first and pierce flesh second
EXCEPT
they have also been trained to pierce flesh first under certain blurry circumstances

which means they are always prepared to pierce flesh
scalpels
needles
bullets

killing tools which man has tricked himself into thinking can be used with good intent

used with enthusiasm

while the average person - the untrained person - a child - has an aversion to seeing pierced flesh


far from inflicting it - the instinct is to jump on it

cover it up


to heal wounds


when our own wounds are healed - we seek to heal those of others


far from 'good' or 'bad'

just another example of 'we'



a chain is as strong as its weakest link

we get trained to damage ourselves with a exotic blend of good intent and faulty reasoning


you can be in as good condition as you want
but
the bigger you is in rough shape
and the bigger bigger you is at rest letting it all take place inside






walk with those who happen to be walking in the same direction as you

this occurs naturally and without effort


earthquakes and lava are a means that will be used when necessary

also: hurricanes

[The Littlest Ubermensch]

[AFK]

There is much troof in this one.  If only more suburbanites could have more rugs pulled from beneath them.  Because you are right, they're lives are built upon a foundation of fake, and in most cases, it works as an insulator from the world.  Their world, in many respects, can be much smaller then someone who has less.  Someone who has less needs to do more seeking, while someone with vast means can hole up and stay isolated.  Perhaps if there was more mingling things could move in unision in a 'better' direction. 

[P3nT4gR4m]

Troof is it's all fake the 'real street' shit is just a different brand of fake. One where luxury is seen as irrelevent and it's dog eat dog and toof and nail.

No less bullshit than must-have sofas and antiseptic mouthwash. There's people who live their entire life on each side of the fence and neither are ever proven wrong.

[LHX]

Troof is it's all fake the 'real street' shit is just a different brand of fake. One where luxury is seen as irrelevent and it's dog eat dog and toof and nail.

No less bullshit than must-have sofas and antiseptic mouthwash. There's people who live their entire life on each side of the fence and neither are ever proven wrong.

hunger is fake ITT

[AFK]

Troof is it's all fake the 'real street' shit is just a different brand of fake. One where luxury is seen as irrelevent and it's dog eat dog and toof and nail.

No less bullshit than must-have sofas and antiseptic mouthwash. There's people who live their entire life on each side of the fence and neither are ever proven wrong.

I disagree.  Are you saying a homeless person living on the street is living in "just a different brand of fake?" 

[P3nT4gR4m]

Pretty much sums it up, yeah.

I don't pity the homeless. I've been homeless, hated it, so I gave it up. Funnily enough sneering at and hating the world I wanted, cos it was fake, wasn't the answer. Had to embrace it and make it real.

[LHX]

i recognize that it is possible to see homelessness as a 'choice'
but
that may not be accurate in all cases


plus
sometimes it is the best of all availbale alternatives which brings up a whole shitload of more questions

[AFK]

Yeah, I've seen it where it wasn't a choice.  And I've also seen those who live one step away from homelessness and it wasn't their choice.  Economic drought can be just as devestating as a climatic drought and both are alive and well in the US and other developed nations.  Some may have choices, but there are also some who don't.  Short of eating a shotgun to make it so there is one less mouth to feed. 

[Darth Cupcake]

I saw a very interesting looking book at Barnes and Noble the other day. Called Ghettonation and all about the ghetto-izing and bling culture in America. Once it is in paperback I will probably pick it up, although since I just got a B&N membership that gives me hefty discounts on hardcover, I might pick it up anyways.

http://www.amazon.com/Ghettonation-Journey-Into-Bling-Shameless/dp/0385516436/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-5392353-0770357?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182781922&sr=1-1

There's a link. It might be relevent and interesting re: this discussion.

I will post commentary once I've read it, but that probably won't be for a month or so.

[P3nT4gR4m]

i recognize that it is possible to see homelessness as a 'choice'
but
that may not be accurate in all cases


plus
sometimes it is the best of all availbale alternatives which brings up a whole shitload of more questions

Very little is accurate in all cases. I simply don't like the whole "you don't know what it's really like" attitude I see a lot of. "you wouldn't last long in the real world", "the streets are tough" ... all that bollocks.

Everywhere you go is either somewhere you have been put or its somewhere you chose to go. Either way you have options available. Difficulty level of successfully capitalising on an opportunity varies from case to case. Difficulty is subjective anyway.

You don't want to be a homeless person anymore then get a home.

You don't want to be unemployed then get a job.

But hey, that aint the way it works in the real world is it?

[AFK]

You don't want to be a homeless person anymore then get a home.

You don't want to be unemployed then get a job.

But hey, that aint the way it works in the real world is it?

Well, in the US anyway, if you want to rent, you need a job to establish viable income to pay the rent.
If you want to get a job, you are on a severely uphill battle because you have no home address and phone.  Furthermore, if you are homeless in a city, you're going to have to land a pretty amazing job if you're going to be able to afford rent.  If you are in a rural setting, you're going to have to land an amazing job to afford rent AND transportation. 

This is the way it works in the real world. 

[P3nT4gR4m]

Yeah that's pretty much the same way it works here. I had a hell of a time getting my foot on the first rung of the ladder but after that it got much easier.

Lot of lying, cheating and straightforward stealing was necessary. These options may not be well advertised but highly effective nonetheless.

Next I encountered a new 'real world'. You had to pay taxes and utility bills in this one and I was barely earning enough to buy houses and cars and stuff. Needless to say I ignored this advice just as readily as the "no way out the gutter" shit I'd been sold down there.

My whole approach to 'real world' statements comes from an inherent hatred of people trying to box in my situation. If I'm told "you can't do this in the real world" I usly make a point of giving it a go.

Most of the time I manage fine which merely reinforces my refusal to believe the 'real world' pundits.

[Torodung]

Few thoughts here:

Rome did not fall quick.

Near as I can tell, Rome fell long and hard and ass-raped 90% of Europe on its way down. We still have a Roman Catholic Church. The folks at Harvard still have a Latin salutation at every convocation. The national mascot of the U.S. is an eagle.

Roman corpses have been raping our minds and bodies for several millennia. It's like inverted necrophilia.

Second. A truly untrained child will look at an open wound and laugh. He has to know that bleeding is "bad" first. Otherwise, red is really quite pretty.

When I was a child, I saw my next door neighbor fall 20' from a ladder one day and it completely failed to register that the bone protruding from his ankle was a bad thing. I thought he was Wile E. Coyote or something because I didn't know what I was looking at. He smiled at me (or perhaps winced, even in my mind's eye I can't tell the difference) and I laughed.

When his wife ran out and I saw the look on her face, that was when I knew something bad had happened. The 911 call went out 3 minutes later than it had to because I just didn't know.

In my experience, it takes experience with injury to produce an adverse reaction to injury. You have to be hurt to recognize hurt. This is how the folks in the suburbs fail to see the hurt all around them. It just doesn't register.

Beyond that, you are real life, even if you live in the suburbs. Anything you choose to do with that is "real life." There is nothing more real about living on the street than living in a comfortable climate controlled pink house.

The only difference I see is a disconnect in the dialogue of pain. Neither can see each other's hurt.

It's an interesting read, thanks for sharing.

[Darth Cupcake]

In my experience, it takes experience with injury to produce an adverse reaction to injury. You have to be hurt to recognize hurt. This is how the folks in the suburbs fail to see the hurt all around them. It just doesn't register.

Beyond that, you are real life, even if you live in the suburbs. Anything you choose to do with that is "real life." There is nothing more real about living on the street than living in a comfortable climate controlled pink house.

The only difference I see is a disconnect in the dialogue of pain. Neither can see each other's hurt.

It's an interesting read, thanks for sharing.

This is actually a very interesting point.

It is like the "oppression contest" we used to joke about in some of my classes in college. How feminists have a hard time unifying because black feminists say they don't want to unify with priveledged suburban white feminists and singles won't join with married women with kids and dykes won't ally with straight girls and NO ONE will ally with the bi girls, etc, etc, etc. All of them saying "sure, they're suffering--but we're suffering SO MUCH WORSE." Which is, frankly, fucking stupid.

At the end of the day, we're all hurting. Rather than focusing on who has the biggest pain penis, as it were, perhaps we should focus on how to assuage the pain.

However, I still really like the OP. I just think that you've brought up an interesting point as well.