ARRRRRRRG!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

THERE'S NO AIR!

I have to GET OUT!

OUT!

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

There's no air out here either.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

There is air here.
It is thick and wet and full of weird shit that will swell your throat shut.
End result: NO AIR.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It occurs to me that current ideas of government fail because they approach human behavior in one of three flawed ways:

1.  They don't account for it in their system (communism, free market, etc), while claiming that it is in fact directly derived from humans.
2.  They say "this is how humans should be, how do we make them change?"
3.  They say "humans are shit, you can't change that, lock them up.  They must be punished for being what they are."

There's another method, of course, there always is.  How about a system in which individuals are encouraged and assisted in reaching their own best potential?  Testing and benchmarks are, of course, counter-productive in this, which is why I think this idea may also be flawed...Americans have to see these things, or they don't believe anything is happening.  Note also that the free market approach doesn't do anything like what I'm suggesting, and neither does authoritarianism.

But there might be a germ of an idea, here.  If humans are allowed to approach their potential, then society as a whole must therefore improve.

I don't know how to do this just yet.  It's just an idea I had while trying to suck vacuum up on this here mountain, so everybody shut up.

[LMNO]

Interesting idea.  Thoughts must be thunk about this.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Maybe if we made sure nobody was malnourished, paid teachers a wage that reflects their importance in society (to attract and keep good teachers, and keep them secure enough to stay focused on the job).  Maybe if we rigorously and methodically attacked the hair-shirt punishment freak puritan ethic thsi country has been cursed with, so we could stop jailing people for ridiculous shit that should AT MOST involve a fine or public hollering-at...A judge should have the power to merely call a dumbshit a dumbshit, publicly.  Sometimes, that's all that's warranted.

Maybe if we stopped minding every other country's business, and started minding our own?  I'm sure we could get by with 4 carrier groups instead of 12 (HELLO!  TOJO IS DEAD!).  I'm almost CERTAIN we could fund a Montresori-style school system for the entire country with the savings.

Yes, yes, I know this is moonshine.  But the problems first have to be IDENTIFIED before you can actually ADDRESS them.  Basic troubleshooting.  Instead of being reactive, maybe we ought to be a little more proactive, or even predictive in our national maintenance.

Here's the big thing:  the current system is an abject failure.  However, one question I always ask revolutionaries is "Which system would you put in place if victorious?"  They ALWAYS answer with an idea that has failed in the past.  "Restore the constitution"...The constitution is what got us in this mess.  "Collectivism"...Yeah, go ask someone in Kamchatka how THAT worked out.

So, if I'm advocating change myself, I think maybe I better have some fucking answers as to what I'd do BEFORE I agitate for that change.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Maybe if we made sure nobody was malnourished, paid teachers a wage that reflects their importance in society (to attract and keep good teachers, and keep them secure enough to stay focused on the job).  Maybe if we rigorously and methodically attacked the hair-shirt punishment freak puritan ethic thsi country has been cursed with, so we could stop jailing people for ridiculous shit that should AT MOST involve a fine or public hollering-at...A judge should have the power to merely call a dumbshit a dumbshit, publicly.  Sometimes, that's all that's warranted.

I'm very much in favor of this. The desire, the need to see someone strung up in response to any bad thing that happens is an extremely toxic element of our culture. We equate punishment with fixing the problems that the ones being punished created (if they are indeed responsible at all). Once the punishment has been doled out, we usually forget the problem itself.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Maybe if we made sure nobody was malnourished, paid teachers a wage that reflects their importance in society (to attract and keep good teachers, and keep them secure enough to stay focused on the job).  Maybe if we rigorously and methodically attacked the hair-shirt punishment freak puritan ethic thsi country has been cursed with, so we could stop jailing people for ridiculous shit that should AT MOST involve a fine or public hollering-at...A judge should have the power to merely call a dumbshit a dumbshit, publicly.  Sometimes, that's all that's warranted.

I'm very much in favor of this. The desire, the need to see someone strung up in response to any bad thing that happens is an extremely toxic element of our culture. We equate punishment with fixing the problems that the ones being punished created (if they are indeed responsible at all). Once the punishment has been doled out, we usually forget the problem itself.

Yes.  We also demand punishment for things that aren't crimes at all, or LOOK like crimes, but then turn out NOT to be crimes after all.  The recent URI incident, and the outrage on its facebook page, is all the example I need give.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I think some wrong lessons were learned in the last century, and I'm not sure how they got learned. Take the two biggest social change movements that happened in the 20th Century (in America) -- Women's Suffrage and Civil Rights. These two movements started as all great movements start out -- from the bottom up, with more and more people becoming sick and goddamn tired of the way things are, and deciding to live in a world where things aren't that way.

Somehow, when the history books were written (or taught, or both), people got the idea that the hard-fought equality (or progress toward equality, anyway) that was won in those movements was somehow a product of things like the 19th Amendment or the Civil Rights Act. And while yes, those pieces of legislation were -- and are -- crucial to the eventual and continued success of these movements, they are not the springs from which equality flows. They never would have happened if people weren't out there, being all free and shit, without permission.

But now we have this idea that the quickest way from Here to There is via the government and convincing lawmakers to send down enlightenment from Mount Olympus or wherever the fuck we seem to think those overblown lawyers live. But just as you can't legislate morality, you can't legislate liberty, either. You can't pass a law that says "Shit is hereby fixed." That isn't where liberty comes from.

It sounds quaint, and for some reason it seems counter-intuitive, but government follows a popular charge for social progress. Government does not lead those charges. You will never, ever find a government anywhere -- no matter how advanced or progressive you think it is -- that will ever be very good at paving the road to equality so the masses can have a smooth ride all the way to Utopia. Like any road, it gets built first by a ton of people walking that way before there's a fucking road there, breaking their legs, stubbing their toes, and spraining their ankles along the way until finally somebody notices that "hey! Everybody's going this way, let's put a grader on that shit and lay down some pavement."

[P3nT4gR4m]

Here's the big thing:  the current system is an abject failure.  However, one question I always ask revolutionaries is "Which system would you put in place if victorious?"  They ALWAYS answer with an idea that has failed in the past.  "Restore the constitution"...The constitution is what got us in this mess.  "Collectivism"...Yeah, go ask someone in Kamchatka how THAT worked out.

This, this and thrice, THIS!

I have no answer either. My opinion on what to do about it has always been along the same lines as the Hulk - smash. Break the bit that's fucked and see if whatever replaces it turns out to be an improvement.

Of course that was back in my "activist" days, when I was young, dumb and idealistic. When I actually thought it was possible, or even desirable to lead the world to some kind of enlightened utopia. What I do now is look for bits where whatever the hell it is either can't touch me or has no objection to my activity and I try to exist in those places to the exclusion of the shit I don't like.

The rest of it, for the most part, seems to take care of destroying itself and then rebuilding, with a net result that I hope ends up being better than it was but have a rough plan for, in the event that it's not.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think some wrong lessons were learned in the last century, and I'm not sure how they got learned. Take the two biggest social change movements that happened in the 20th Century (in America) -- Women's Suffrage and Civil Rights. These two movements started as all great movements start out -- from the bottom up, with more and more people becoming sick and goddamn tired of the way things are, and deciding to live in a world where things aren't that way.

Somehow, when the history books were written (or taught, or both), people got the idea that the hard-fought equality (or progress toward equality, anyway) that was won in those movements was somehow a product of things like the 19th Amendment or the Civil Rights Act. And while yes, those pieces of legislation were -- and are -- crucial to the eventual and continued success of these movements, they are not the springs from which equality flows. They never would have happened if people weren't out there, being all free and shit, without permission.

But now we have this idea that the quickest way from Here to There is via the government and convincing lawmakers to send down enlightenment from Mount Olympus or wherever the fuck we seem to think those overblown lawyers live. But just as you can't legislate morality, you can't legislate liberty, either. You can't pass a law that says "Shit is hereby fixed." That isn't where liberty comes from.

It sounds quaint, and for some reason it seems counter-intuitive, but government follows a popular charge for social progress. Government does not lead those charges. You will never, ever find a government anywhere -- no matter how advanced or progressive you think it is -- that will ever be very good at paving the road to equality so the masses can have a smooth ride all the way to Utopia. Like any road, it gets built first by a ton of people walking that way before there's a fucking road there, breaking their legs, stubbing their toes, and spraining their ankles along the way until finally somebody notices that "hey! Everybody's going this way, let's put a grader on that shit and lay down some pavement."

The thing is, I have become convinced that our government is no longer capable of even following with the legislation, anymore.  The system is, I have come to realize, irreparably broken.  It was a design failure, at that...The founders accounted for the monkey, but they didn't account for exactly how much monkey there actually IS.  The system worked until the combination of a large population and mass communication gave the steering wheel to the most brain-damaged monkeys.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I think some wrong lessons were learned in the last century, and I'm not sure how they got learned. Take the two biggest social change movements that happened in the 20th Century (in America) -- Women's Suffrage and Civil Rights. These two movements started as all great movements start out -- from the bottom up, with more and more people becoming sick and goddamn tired of the way things are, and deciding to live in a world where things aren't that way.

Somehow, when the history books were written (or taught, or both), people got the idea that the hard-fought equality (or progress toward equality, anyway) that was won in those movements was somehow a product of things like the 19th Amendment or the Civil Rights Act. And while yes, those pieces of legislation were -- and are -- crucial to the eventual and continued success of these movements, they are not the springs from which equality flows. They never would have happened if people weren't out there, being all free and shit, without permission.

But now we have this idea that the quickest way from Here to There is via the government and convincing lawmakers to send down enlightenment from Mount Olympus or wherever the fuck we seem to think those overblown lawyers live. But just as you can't legislate morality, you can't legislate liberty, either. You can't pass a law that says "Shit is hereby fixed." That isn't where liberty comes from.

It sounds quaint, and for some reason it seems counter-intuitive, but government follows a popular charge for social progress. Government does not lead those charges. You will never, ever find a government anywhere -- no matter how advanced or progressive you think it is -- that will ever be very good at paving the road to equality so the masses can have a smooth ride all the way to Utopia. Like any road, it gets built first by a ton of people walking that way before there's a fucking road there, breaking their legs, stubbing their toes, and spraining their ankles along the way until finally somebody notices that "hey! Everybody's going this way, let's put a grader on that shit and lay down some pavement."

The thing is, I have become convinced that our government is no longer capable of even following with the legislation, anymore.  The system is, I have come to realize, irreparably broken.  It was a design failure, at that...The founders accounted for the monkey, but they didn't account for exactly how much monkey there actually IS.  The system worked until the combination of a large population and mass communication gave the steering wheel to the most brain-damaged monkeys.

I don't think there's any such thing as a system that isn't irreparably broken. Personally I advocate popular, widespread disregard of the government -- at least, the Federal government. Not the dissolution of that government, just a general apathy about it and what it has to say. That won't fix anything, but I think people should go ahead and live their lives however they please, and if Uncle Sam gets too worked up about it, well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. But they can't lock us all up, unless we walk into the prisons of our own volition. And failing to be free in spite of the consequences, we might as well string barbed wire across both borders and all the beaches anyway.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Honest to fuck question:

Is the human race becoming collectively smarter or dumber?

Given that the sum of all knowledge, rapidly becoming universally available is a factor in all of this, like I'm getting that the smart primates these days are capable of a much higher level of smart than their predecessors in a way that's not inversely prevalent in the ones dragging the averages down the way - they aint capable of any greater feats of dumb, beyond population growth.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Honest to fuck question:

Is the human race becoming collectively smarter or dumber?

Given that the sum of all knowledge, rapidly becoming universally available is a factor in all of this, like I'm getting that the smart primates these days are capable of a much higher level of smart than their predecessors in a way that's not inversely prevalent in the ones dragging the averages down the way - they aint capable of any greater feats of dumb, beyond population growth.

I think the answer depends on the value you use for "smarter" and "dumber." Compared to what might have been the general definitions of those terms 200 years ago, I think humanity is becoming collectively smarter. But in relation to what is increasingly available as known potential, we are losing ground and becoming collectively dumber.

200 years ago, I might have been impressed with the idea of "Separate but Equal," for example, from the point of view of someone working to eradicate slavery. But is what we have now, with defacto and euphemized institutional racism, any farther away from Jim Crow than Jim Crow was from outright slavery? I don't believe so. And I think that principal applies to a lot of areas, not just social justice but science too. We are moving at a pretty fast pace toward advancement, but for everything we learn, we see the potential to learn three times as much. So the disparity between what we have achieved and what we know we could achieve is outpacing our ability to achieve it.

If that makes any sense.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Honest to fuck question:

Is the human race becoming collectively smarter or dumber?

Given that the sum of all knowledge, rapidly becoming universally available is a factor in all of this, like I'm getting that the smart primates these days are capable of a much higher level of smart than their predecessors in a way that's not inversely prevalent in the ones dragging the averages down the way - they aint capable of any greater feats of dumb, beyond population growth.

Collectively dumber, and collectively more civilized.  The two are linked.

Primitive societies, after all, select for intelligence.

Urbanized societies select for disease resistance.

Therefore, with less selection for intelligence, genetic load is created, as dumb people are allowed to survive and propagate.

There is no ethical means to escape this dilemma.