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Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Thu 11 Jul 2019, 04:37:56

Plantagenet wrote:In silicon valley young tech workers are now paying $1200 month for a bunk bed in a shared bedroom. Its not for me....but clearly people are capable of living in crowded conditions and functioning at high levels.

But will they breed there?
I doubt it.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby asg70 » Thu 11 Jul 2019, 09:49:29

EnergyUnlimited wrote:
Plantagenet wrote:In silicon valley young tech workers are now paying $1200 month for a bunk bed in a shared bedroom. Its not for me....but clearly people are capable of living in crowded conditions and functioning at high levels.

But will they breed there?
I doubt it.


Yep. See similar situation with the herbivore men in Japan.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby ozcad » Sat 13 Jul 2019, 12:04:13

I agree with pretty much all that has been said, but I would like to add:
In primitive settings (pre-chimpanzee, pre-tribal right up to tribal) the naturally occurring "happy juices" (serotonin, dopamine etc.) were enough to guide humans toward viable work behaviour like hunting, harvesting and sex. They were the carrot juices. The sticks were the "unhappy juices" in response to hunger, thirst, heat, cold, loneliness (stress hormones etc.) which prompted us to get out of the cold wind and be with others.
Once we were able to make alcohol or other artificial happy juices which imitated the natural ones we were able to go straight to "happiness", bypassing the need for viable behaviour. They could feel good for the short term in spite of their totally non-viable lifestyle. They just don't feel the need to work conventionally. Why work when you could ward off hunger with a coca leaf. The straight and narrow path seems optional, even quaint.
The less wise among them would think the practice to be cost-free, but they could only survive in a larger village or town, usually as a parasite on the largess of others.
I think we are heading that way a bit.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sat 13 Jul 2019, 13:09:20

ozcad wrote:.... Why work when you could ward off hunger with a coca leaf. The straight and narrow path seems optional, even quaint.
The less wise among them would think the practice to be cost-free, but they could only survive in a larger village or town, usually as a parasite on the largess of others.
I think we are heading that way a bit.


You are absolutely right.

The number of people taking dope in the USA, Canada and other western countries is expanding rapidly. The opiod crisis is evidence of this, and now we've got legal marijuana everywhere.

Image
It seems like everybody must get stoned.....but why?
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 13 Jul 2019, 14:19:58

Plantagenet wrote:
ozcad wrote:.... Why work when you could ward off hunger with a coca leaf. The straight and narrow path seems optional, even quaint.
The less wise among them would think the practice to be cost-free, but they could only survive in a larger village or town, usually as a parasite on the largess of others.
I think we are heading that way a bit.


You are absolutely right.

The number of people taking dope in the USA, Canada and other western countries is expanding rapidly. The opiod crisis is evidence of this, and now we've got legal marijuana everywhere.

It seems like everybody must get stoned.....but why?


While I agree the abuse of recreational chemicals by bored westerners is somewhat troubling the simple fact of the matter is most societies for most of history didn't care if their members indulged themselves so long as they did not cause a ruckus as a result. The puritanical streak in American politics hearkens back to the early Catholic church in the 500's AD when they sought out and destroyed every musical instrument they could lay hands on, sought out all potion makers and declared them witches deserving of death, and sought to completely destroy those who chose a different than reproductive sexual preference.

The reality is you can not legislate morality, the best you can do is punish actual violence and property damage by people acting against the cultural standards of your society. Why should I (who am a libertarian and have always been one) give a rip if my neighbor comes home from work and indulges in sex acts or recreational chemicals I choose not to indulge in? That is between him and whatever spiritual or moral authority my neighbor believes in, it really is none of my business. Unless they are involving persons too young to make adult decisions for themselves, and that line is pretty fuzzy. For most cultures through most of history marriage came early in the teen years and it came with a semi-adult status. Full adulthood for inheritance purposes and so on came at 21 when it was felt life experience had prepared the younger generation to take on full responsibilities.

Somewhere between 1607 and 1860 American culture adopted an attitude of poking our collective noses into everyone else's private lives and judging them for whatever decisions they made. Queen Victoria was a prime example of this, but there was a large undercurrent that agreed with her or the 'Victorian Age' would have been very different.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby asg70 » Sat 13 Jul 2019, 18:01:18

Libertarianism is in-line with the sort of hyper-individualism that is being practiced these days.

The downside of this individualism is that there's little concept of communal or group cohesion. If an individual decides to self-destruct then nobody lifts a finger as long as they don't go postal (even though more and more, they are). Well, one self-destruction is easy to overlook but beyond a certain point the collective health of a society goes to shit.

THIS is the reason why people got their nose in other people's business. Back in the past, again, everyone had to pull their own weight. The puritans were a tiny tight-knit community. One weak link in the chain could have resulted in a failed harvest and everyone dies.

The fact nobody really relies on anyone else minimizes the necessity for people to judge or shame others.

If the doom narrative reaches a point where we again start to need to rely on the people around us pulling their weight you can be damned sure everyone will be meddling in other people's business. It's only natural.

In the meantime, our surplus and technology allows us to get away with indulging in all the classic deadly sins.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby onlooker » Sat 13 Jul 2019, 18:15:19

Well meddling in other peoples business is a form of law & order. Government has proven to be a failed concept. The Libertarians are right. We need less Govt and eventually no Govt. What we do need though is group cohesion which is where the Libetarians are wrong. No man is an island. Communities are communal. One for all and all for one. A guiding shared set of principles. That is the ideal but overpopulation makes this cooperation dynamic go haywire as resources become scarce and competition ensues
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby asg70 » Sat 13 Jul 2019, 18:22:25

onlooker wrote:Government has proven to be a failed concept.


We get the government we deserve.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sat 13 Jul 2019, 19:13:26

Tanada wrote:
While I agree the abuse of recreational chemicals by bored westerners is somewhat troubling the simple fact of the matter is most societies for most of history didn't care if their members indulged themselves so long as they did not cause a ruckus as a result. The puritanical streak in American politics....


You don't have to be a puritan to be concerned about the large increase in the death rate caused by the opiod epidemic. I think people becoming addicted to opioids and then abusing drugs to the point that they kill themselves is something our society is right to be concerned about.

Tanada wrote:The reality is you can not legislate morality, the best you can do is punish actual violence and property damage by people acting against the cultural standards of your society. Why should I (who am a libertarian and have always been one) give a rip if my neighbor comes home from work and indulges in sex acts or recreational chemicals I choose not to indulge in? That is between him and whatever spiritual or moral authority my neighbor believes in, it really is none of my business.


Again, consider the opiod epidemic. Pharmaceutical companies and doctors are operating in such a way as to get hundreds of thousands of Americans hooked on opioids. I don't think its right to see opiod addiction as a choice or an indulgence, when there are large numbers of people who were prescribed these drugs by doctors they trusted and then became addicted. I think our society has every right to legally go after doctors and drug companies who push these drugs on people, and every right restrict access to dangerous drugs like opioids.

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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 14 Jul 2019, 08:23:46

I don’t know if my sampling is normal or not but I have spoken to a fair number of folks who have been prescribed opioids who have felt no need to use them. Some have gladly filled the prescriptions but just not taken the drug, others have felt the prescriptions were “pushed” on them. The sense I get is the medical establishment is actively encouraging opioid use. But that’s just from my personal contacts, probably not representative. Would be interesting to see a larger survey.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 14 Jul 2019, 11:47:27

When things get bad there is a percentage of those in deep denial that might find opiates merciful.

I think they should be made readily available for all of those who do not want to face reality, this need will grow.

And they do consume less as they slowly perish with elevated seratonin levels.

Pretty good way to ease a certain percentage of humanity through the bottle neck IMHO
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Tanada » Sun 14 Jul 2019, 12:28:41

Newfie wrote:I don’t know if my sampling is normal or not but I have spoken to a fair number of folks who have been prescribed opioids who have felt no need to use them. Some have gladly filled the prescriptions but just not taken the drug, others have felt the prescriptions were “pushed” on them. The sense I get is the medical establishment is actively encouraging opioid use. But that’s just from my personal contacts, probably not representative. Would be interesting to see a larger survey.


I think that is all dependent on the state medical licensing agencies. Certainly in Michigan where I used to work Doctors were very reluctant to prescribe strong painkillers whether from HMO influence or not. Here in Ohio the patients on long term pain relief have to jump through hoops every few months to show they still have need of pain relief unless they have demonstrated a permanent disability.

Pennsylvania and other states with a severe problem may simply have different medical standards that allow doctors to prescribe painkillers with no or little oversight.

Then you get Politicians talking about the issue in a few states and the Media runs with it like it is a devastating situation everywhere. Remember a decade ago how they wrote about meth-amphetamines? Around here and across the line west in Indiana it became a big deal because enterprising chemists were sneaking onto farms and tapping fertilizer supplies for part of their chemical supply to manufacture the illegal drugs. Farmers for the first time ever had to install heavy locks and take care to avoid theft of something that was commonly left sitting in a big tank with a simple valve a few years earlier.

Once the Opioid 'scare' is done they will move onto some other drug, LSD, PCP, Pot, whatever. Its a kind of perennial media cycle. The last time around the "opioid" crisis was called a Heroin crisis but its essentially the same story just cycled through by the media. Politicians "crack down" and then we move on to the next topic for the next election.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Sun 14 Jul 2019, 14:53:31

My take on the subject is as follows:
To hide rampant, out of hand opioid addiction an official explanation of this worrying development is offered.
The narration is that "drugs are prescribed" despite that even a family dog knows that different synthetic derivatives of fentanyl from China are to blame.
These derivatives are potent to the extreme, so minute amounts are sufficient for a shot.
50 grams of fentanyl has potency of 1kg of heroin.
10 grams of carfentanyl has a potency of 1kg of fentanyl.
So 0.5g of carfentanyl is as potent as 1kg of heroin and DEA is completely defeated in airports etc.
They are entirely powerless to stop drugs coming because in a package of size of AAA batery equivalent of ~4 kg of heroin can be smuggled.
So lets blame a doctor.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby diemos » Sun 14 Jul 2019, 18:52:03

When the soviet union collapsed there were a large number of formerly well off people who drank themselves to death. Unable to adapt to the new realities or take the loss of their former status.

I suspect we're going through the same thing.

When Heath Ledger died there was a lot of speculation about whether his death was accidental or a suicide. My response was that I had no idea ... all I did know was that nobody takes that pharmacy worth of drugs if they're happy with their life.

"Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine." It states definitively: "We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescribed medications."

A vast swath of the population has been deprived of the possibility of meaningful work as manufacturing has been shipped off shore and even menial jobs are done by immigrants. All that's left is the military, the dole or drugs.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby asg70 » Sun 14 Jul 2019, 21:32:41

diemos wrote:A vast swath of the population has been deprived of the possibility of meaningful work as manufacturing has been shipped off shore and even menial jobs are done by immigrants. All that's left is the military, the dole or drugs.


I hate to invoke a meme, but "learn to code".

The other thing is that the types of jobs that were lost weren't necessarily the best either. The film Metropolis portrayed factory work as hellish for a reason.

Image

I think it's not really the job situation as much as a loss of a sense of community and (gasp) spirituality.

You can get through a dreary job if you have people around you that care and if you have something you believe in.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Mon 15 Jul 2019, 16:42:54

diemos wrote:A vast swath of the population has been deprived of the possibility of meaningful work as manufacturing has been shipped off shore and even menial jobs are done by immigrants. All that's left is the military, the dole or drugs.

[/quote]
Yeah, with employment at near 50ish year highs, there just are no jobs, with manufacturing declining. :razz:

It's as though since agribusiness and the technology it uses dominate farming, there are no jobs. Except of course, NOT exactly.

The world changes. Now, as ASG referred to, learning tech in a technical world would be a VERY good idea, vs. claiming there are no choices, and just giving up and requesting the dole.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Newfie » Tue 16 Jul 2019, 06:45:16

The unemployment numbers are highly skewed by removing large segments of the population from consideration. Those who have given up and been incarcerated.

Not everyone can code. Nor would you want them to.

Yes we do have a problem with some jobs being too menial for uppity ISA Citizens. Or maybe they just don’t pay enough? I’ve certainly seen that. And it feeds the immigration crisis we now have.

The truth is many folks don’t have employment. Something like 60% of the population is removed from the identified workforce before age 65.

Just because a job is dirty and difficult does not mean it does not convey meaning to the participant. We talked to some old coal miners and they were very adamant about what their jobs meant to them, the sense of comaradarie and community.

But then you take jobs like DHS at airports, they contribute nothing to the economy and do nothing but piss people off all day.

Why do you think we have so many “hair stylist” and the like? It gives folks something to do where they can interact in a pleasant way and make people feel good. It doesn’t pay much but it fulfills a human need. It’s only contribution to the economy is that it circulates money, which is then taxed and the elite skim off a bit for the products. It also helps keep the workers mentally healthy.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Ibon » Tue 16 Jul 2019, 09:16:36

Newfie wrote:
Yes we do have a problem with some jobs being too menial for uppity ISA Citizens. Or maybe they just don’t pay enough? I’ve certainly seen that. And it feeds the immigration crisis we now have.


You have to separate the fear mongering from what is really the crisis. Just talked to an old friend in the Ag sector who told me immigration is a crisis for farmers because of the lack of immigrant labor. We discussed this before but there really is a disconnect between the stoking of fear on one side and the actual needs of immigrant labor on the other.

Assuming you had a guest worker program to make the current illegals legal, there would be a huge demand for their labor. I look at this from the perspective of our own operation in Panama. For $ 400 a month you have a super motivated worker willing to do hard physical labor working 6 days a week.

Forget the politics a moment. It would not be abusive labor practice to cover the room and board of a guest worker and only pay them say $ 500 a month. Many would be happy with this wage in the US as they would have their living expenses covered and would send between $ 300- $400 a month as remittances to their families down in Honduras or where ever.

You simply wont find a US citizen willing to work for those wages or do the menial work at any wage actually.

There is a demand. There is a supply. Why do we complicate this issue?

Back to politics, the political left would cry slave labor if you would pay those wages. The political right would stoke the fear with racism. But the simple truth is that there is a demand and there is a supply.

Frankly, this whole issue is pure hysteria and not rational.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby Cog » Tue 16 Jul 2019, 10:48:00

You have no country without border enforcement. You have a mob.
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Re: Are We Running the Mouse Utopia Experiment?

Unread postby tire » Tue 16 Jul 2019, 10:48:42

Ibon wrote:
You have to separate the fear mongering from what is really the crisis. Just talked to an old friend in the Ag sector who told me immigration is a crisis for farmers because of the lack of immigrant labor.

That's a crisis of payment, not labor. Pay decent wages and you get your workers.
Why should an american take a cheap job if he can in many cases get almost as much with the help of social programs?

We discussed this before but there really is a disconnect between the stoking of fear on one side and the actual needs of immigrant labor on the other.

The fear of out of control immigration goes well beyond a few farm workers. It touches sensitive topics, such as loss of identity, rapid cultural change and values, loss of control. It can disenfranchise communities and marginalize weaker natives. Would you enjoy sending one of your kids into a 90% muslim school in an immigrant community in europe?


Assuming you had a guest worker program to make the current illegals legal, there would be a huge demand for their labor. I look at this from the perspective of our own operation in Panama. For $ 400 a month you have a super motivated worker willing to do hard physical labor working 6 days a week.

In Panama $400 is a lot of money. In the US it's not. In the US there's law regarding minimum payment. And for good reason. How does making an illegal farm worker legal changes anything? It's importing labor and depresses wages. Practically any farm from California to Maine uses illegal workers already. How does making them legal change anything, with the exception of giving them more RIGHTS which then increases cost, opening a door for cheaper illegals once again.


You simply wont find a US citizen willing to work for those wages or do the menial work at any wage actually.

No. And why should they? Plenty of social programs make it possible to sneeze at menial work at minimum wage. Or do you think South american workers take menial low paying jobs out of their good heart? They take them because that's the best they can do in their given circumstances.

There is a demand. There is a supply. Why do we complicate this issue?

Pay decent wages and you won't have a worker problem.

Back to politics, the political left would cry slave labor if you would pay those wages. The political right would stoke the fear with racism. But the simple truth is that there is a demand and there is a supply.

There is ALWAYS demand for any labor if the price is kept artificially low. And it's kept artificially low by importing illegals unskilled workers with hardly any rights.

Frankly, this whole issue is pure hysteria and not rational.

No. This is a matter of much more than a few farm workers. Heck, maybe there are even people who are opposed to have their small town turn into a Mexican town? Maybe they enjoy living a life embedded in their traditional culture? How should I now? Anybody opposing mass immigration is an evil racist, right?
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