I think it's mostly University & business traffic.

And of course some from the Chinese government.

Very interesting info Aaron Thanks!

Oh and your new avatar is scaring me, could you go back to something a little tamer like the psycho clown?

Thx,

-G

Now that hurts...

All in fun my freind! All in fun! I'd use a real pic of myself as an avatar but there might be heart patients on here.... And the wife says my haircut which has grown out looks like a worn tennis ball...

-G

I think people have pretty similar intelligence, regardless of political leanings. More urban people and coastal people seem to be left leaning and perhaps more intellectual, which blocks their use of heart over intellect to make decisions(aids though against cheap prejudice on the good side). They accept newer ideas quicker but are faddy and in that way very "stupid" and superficial. Country folk are folksy, sly and worldywise. They rely on human contact more than mental BS to get their way(more EQ than IQ). Bush is in this sly sense a genius just like Clinton or LBJ were in their own ways. This is what politics is about. Carter was only stupid in that he could not manipulate as good as Reagan"the master communicator".

Politics swings always from right to left and back again. What is rightwing today might be leftwing tomorrow. Definitions are pretty individual longterm. A strong sense of community could be defined as pure communist on the one hand or conservative survivalism on the other hand. It is what you see in it. What is true however is that absolute power corrupts. This happened to the democrats in congress and then to the idealistic revolutionary republicans afterwards. What counts is honesty and an open heart for the opinions of others. Labels are BS. Take a countryboy to the city or an African to NYC and after a couple generations their kids are not like the old culture anymore. We have to discipline ourselves and be honest about what is happening to ourselves and why over time, not just look at others to find an enemy, otherwise we become like the enemy we hate and use as our mirror image.

Energy Bulletin picked up part of this thread and published it as Chinese now visiting peak oil sites?

I posted the EB article as a news story to the front page.

A user from China posted a comment to the news story. I'm not entirely sure what he meant (there's something of a language barrier), but it sounds like he has translated "Twilight In the Desert" from English into Chinese. I don't think it's been published yet, though. He says there will be a "Chinese version release ceremony" in January 2007.

Isn't Aaron a strikingly handsome devil?

(Aaron, I just earned 5 brownie points, right?)

You live in the US and you believe this?

Maybe you live somewhere else where it is marginally true, but not here in Homer Simpson Land.

Your perception may have something to do with where you live. I live in a predominantly liberal area. Most of the stupid people I meet are liberals. For that matter most of the smart people I meet are liberals. Outside of the workplace, though, most of the people I meet are not in the top ranks of intellect.

One possible conclusion - liberals are mostly stupid.

Well, in fact, I would say that most liberals are not geniuses. I'd just also say most conservatives aren't geniuses, either.

If you are a liberal in an area that is dominated by the authoritarian, religious right, I'd say you have cause to look around and think you are surrounded by people of lesser mental flexibility (at least).

The fact is, if you are in the top 20 percentiles of intelligence, most people are going to appear pretty slow. You're just more likely to notice this in people who have views that diverge from yours.

In my experience, liberals tend to be idealists while conservatives tend to pragmatists. These are very different ways of looking at the world - so different, that it is easy to infer stupidity where there is only a significantly different frame of reference.

Another possible conclusion - people in general are mostly stupid, regardless of political inclination.

I thought that was the point I was making. back at ya.

I'm a 2-year lurker... figured I'd finally join. I'm a Libertarian.

-November-

Dissimulo,

Yeah I think I am trying to say something like that about frame of reference. People learn and function well in the society where they live if they are intelligent animals from birth. They are well adjusted to their environment, making them intelligent within that context. Bush is a sly, practical, competitive Texas bastard. His father was a Northeastern aristocratic, fine compromising type, so he was well adjusted to his environment and therefore intelligent. In Texas terms Bush Sr. would be termed a weakling. Why , a man in Texas who isn't willing to take out his gun and shoot before thinking could be dead(ok so the times are over except maybe in heavy traffic). Anger is a survival tool. His manliness has to do with how he carries himself confidently and how aggressive and self confident he can be. Bush plays the perfect Texan.

Kerry for example plays the perfect New Englander. Everything is just talk and has no meaning. Anger is a bad thing. It is like in England. Word plays, intellectual BS. Kerry betrays contempt for people more down to earth(soldiering on boys),although animal intelligence of country folks has nothing to do with wittiness.

When people don't fit in socially, they move away or are ostracizedlike a gay teenager from small town in Iowa going to Frisco, etc. or Dan White not fitting in as firefighter macho in a rapidly changing, increasinlgy liberal and gay San Francisco and killing Harvey Milk.

No I don't live in USA anymore but people are similar everywhere. When we talk politics, it is an average of the social norm in a geographic area. USA is almost too big and climatically and geographically and racially varied to fit any sort of norm. If you had proportional representation as in Europe with a 5% hurdle 4 or 5 parties would make a coalition like in Germany. Greens, former communists, Social conservatives(like Repubs), middle left(like US dems), and free marketers. A two party system is just as much a coalition of interests. Democrat and Republican are both big tents of lots of interest groups.

Dems- minorities, unions, city liberals, gays, envrionmentalists, activists of all sorts
Repubs- religous conservative, rural conservatives, business interests

Intelligence is fitting into to the politics of where you live, adjusting to the demands of your cultural and family interests.

I bet 15 years ago when the winds of change were coming from the right, intelligent politics for the average guy meant tearing down the corrupt democrats who held on to their welfare state, high taxation and passive foreign policy. More free market and risk taking was seen as cool. Democrats belonged to the past. Democratic voters were passive, and stupid inflexible intellectuals clinging to an old system. Now the winds of change come from the left. Markets are not the perfect answer. Globalization is unjust. the top 1% is ripping us all off. The revolution begins anew. Repubs are now stupid inflexible neanderthals who can't see the light of a new age.

The smart people are always on the cutting edge. They see the problems in the system which are getting worse now and being ignored. The sheeple have a lower IQ or just other interests than politics or no access to information. They vote according to the averages of what they can figure out from family, friends, MSM, and usually the same from genertion to generation

Basically the two sides have a pat situation and the political shift is in the middle, independent 30% , in the burbs of our minds, not in the rural or the big city areas where most cultural values are too obvious, too immovable.

"The smart people are always on the cutting edge. They see the problems in the system which are getting worse now and being ignored. The sheeple have a lower IQ or just other interests than politics or no access to information. They vote according to the averages of what they can figure out from family, friends, MSM, and usually the same from genertion to generation" Galacticsurfer

I agree. We are those people. We are people who see the bigger picture. A lot of people who are on this forum are expats, or people who have lived outside of their culture at some time. You can't see your culture from inside of it. You have to get out to be able to understand it. We see the larger picture, and hopefully we will be able to run the right way when it all starts to topple.

There are others who are watching in order to profit from the way things are going. I just aim to break even, or lose just a little.

Let's put it this way. However intelligent we may be, we're not intelligent enough to save ourselves from our stupidity.

As a result, our miserable little civilization is going to collapse in the same way that our imperial occupation of Iraq is collapsing.