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OK, it wasn't a sample, and I don't even know how may people I interacted with. Obviously it was NOBODY who left town and stayed away. But the overwhelming majority had never lived anywhere else, and only about one in ten admitted having even tried to live elsewhere.

About the smugness and sense of superiority, that I am certain of.

asg70 wrote:
Wall-E you mean? I would agree with this.
.

yes thanks for the correction.... I wrote Walleye which was a fish I used to catch as a child..... ha ha

Tanada,

Yes and no. I agree with most of your post. However there are a few things folks can do to be prepared when bad luck happens. First get a great a good well rounded education. Like I you location wisely. Stay out of debt, don’t buy into the rat race. Keep a decent supply of provisions. Maybe a few more.

I think in any discussion of a collective bias we should include the bias that Ibon mentioned Narcissism. Specifically in our grandiose view of our technological capabilities and capacity to "progress". Also, I am ceding to the "primate" viewpoint of Kaiser because of how little "evolutionary' progress our species has displayed. Still in the rut of primitive behaviors and instincts

KaiserJeep wrote:OK, it wasn't a sample, and I don't even know how may people I interacted with. Obviously it was NOBODY who left town and stayed away. But the overwhelming majority had never lived anywhere else, and only about one in ten admitted having even tried to live elsewhere.

About the smugness and sense of superiority, that I am certain of.

OK. Thanks for the clarification. All aspects of that sound perfectly reasonable to me, including people wanting to continue living in their small home town, and assuming that the way of life there is superior to elsewhere. My long time girlfriend's family was that way, though they did travel for vacation, shopping, medical care, etc. as needs dictated.

What I've been struck by taking rides in the country in recent years . and driving through various small towns and small cities within an hour or two of my home, is the sameness.

In KY, you can count on lots of churches, a gun store, lots of houses and roads that look pretty much the same in any such town, etc.

Not that there's anything wrong with that -- except the bewildering idea that one's own town is somehow superior enough to justify a sense of smugness.

Of course, we have plenty of the same thing on the other end of the spectrum. Look at the smugness from places like SF and NYC. As though, crowded, dangerous, expensive, highly taxed, messes are somehow universally superior to everywhere else.

Each to their own.

While I agree 100% with KJ that we are predominately biologically hardwired towards reproduction , our survival as a species depends , as at least one condition of survival on a planet with finite physical resources , on us suppressing or controlling our biological urges so that the long term result is a sustainable population , one that still has sufficient resources to leave this planet and spread out over our galaxy , and onward.

Trashing our civilization drastically reduces , in my opinion, our descendants chances at a interstellar future

kiwichick wrote:While I agree 100% with KJ that we are predominately biologically hardwired towards reproduction , our survival as a species depends , as at least one condition of survival on a planet with finite physical resources , on us suppressing or controlling our biological urges so that the long term result is a sustainable population , one that still has sufficient resources to leave this planet and spread out over our galaxy , and onward.

Trashing our civilization drastically reduces , in my opinion, our descendants chances at a interstellar future

Agreed, but it seems that intelligence overcomes base drives VERY slowly -- likely too slowly to prevent lots of tragic results, given the way things are progressing.

I'm not saying humanity has to be 100% destroyed, but rather that FAR more needless destruction and suffering will occur the way things are going than with some sensible curbs, incentives, and planning to allow far more sustainable behavior (like a much lower population and more careful use of resources).

Newfie wrote:Tanada,

Yes and no. I agree with most of your post. However there are a few things folks can do to be prepared when bad luck happens. First get a great a good well rounded education. Like I you location wisely. Stay out of debt, don’t buy into the rat race. Keep a decent supply of provisions. Maybe a few more.

Those are all things sensible people should do with or without climate change forcing lifestyle changes"

Groups always try to harness education as ideological indoctrination. Sometimes it's subtle, but it's there. In public schools in red states they teach creationalism and present AGW as unsettled. In higher education there is an immense left-wing bias which encourages people to be outraged over the trivial. Just as in news, there's no way to remove bias completely.

baha wrote:To me, education means learning how to think for yourself.

Only in an ideal world. I happen to know doomers have a heavy anti-public-education and pro homeschooling bias because they feel the reverse, that education promotes people to become compliant drone consumers ala They Live. Of course, the truth is less overtly conspiratorial than that. Education is driven by the surrounding community and therefore soaks up the biases in the community. When your value system is at odds with the community you're going to feel as though education is a form of brainwashing.

"In higher education there is an immense leftright-wing bias..."

Fixed that for ya!

Just one example: nearly all schools now have economics departments and also business programs. These basically teach capitalist propaganda non-stop.

I know of no school that has, for example, a communist program or an anarchist program that similarly teach propaganda from those perspectives, or just to balance the right-wing capitalist ideologies.

dohboi wrote:"In higher education there is an immense leftright-wing bias..." Fixed that for ya!

Unmitigated bullshit.

Social justice concepts as we know it emanates from academia.

Just because business schools exist doesn't mean colleges are right-wing.

I mean, you call THIS right wing?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harvard-un ... -students/

Or this?

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la ... story.html

I think Dohboi has something of a point. Maybe not “right wing” but surely in step with BAU economics. IMHO most of our primary and much of our secondary education is more about socializing to the. Ken than about passing information or critical thinking skills.

Newfie wrote:Maybe not “right wing” but surely in step with BAU economics.

Not sure what you're hoping to see that isn't there in higher education. Parents do not send their kids to college to be taught to join the Zeitgeist movement. Nevertheless, there's still more than enough anti-establishment foment in academia. I mean, Derrick Jensen wouldn't have a career if colleges wouldn't invite him to come in and advocate eco-terrorism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3cK71X_8AE

The main purpose of higher education is pragmatic--to prepare you for the job market--not so you can become so anti-establishment that your only option is to drop out of society and live in a van down by the river.

The problem is not the Curriculum. The problem is like the rest of the ingrained problems in the US, that big money has coopted the Higher Education Institutions. From the money the Universities depend on for Research, to increasing reliance on lending and philanthrophic funds. https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/corporate-power-3/
And so they have much influence to what is taught.

asg can come up with a list of what he considers left-wing speakers and profs at colleges and I can come up with at least as long a list of rightwing speakers and profs.

Some on the right think that if any institution ever gives space for anyone on the right to say anything, that this is proof that the entire institution is to be condemned as hopelessly 'lefty.'

The world, and academia, is, of course, a bit more...complex than that.