Outliving the US: the comments

[nancylebov]

The other day, I asked whether people expected to outlive the US, and got some very interesting replies.

The most noticeable similarity was that no one expected anything good to come of an end to the US, which probably supports the idea that the US is very stable.

tahkhleet posted a substantial core dump about politics and the state of the culture. I'm feeling rather swamped. This is unfair. Overloading people is *my* job.

Still, I'm going to pick out some bits. However, I recommend reading the whole thing.

Is Obama genuinely that awful? I'm disappointed that he isn't prosecuting those responsible for torture (and NPR did a bit about how he used the word torture before he was elected, but has dropped it since then). Is he letting *everything* important slide?

I'd have thought he's at least smart enough to take a lesson from what Katrina did to Bush's reputation.

Two "do my homework" questions:

Are his foreign policy advisors really all hawks?

How did he handle things when he was a community organizer? Did he get useful work done?
Slightly different angle about the financial elite: One of my friends believes that credentialism is part of the problem. The most likely way to get one of those very well-paid jobs is to be totally focused on the exhausting work of getting the right degrees. Aside from tahkhleet's point that only someone who's got bad values will be willing to do the work, getting the credentials means being totally focused on incentives rather than paying attention to the larger system.

Back to my pov: Having a system which makes room for competence is a very subtle problem. If people are totally shielded from consequences, whoever is good at social climbing will get the rewards, and the quality of work goes to hell. If there is too much effort to make sure the right thing is done, people game the measurement system, and the work goes to heck.

Genocide: I've been wondering for a while whether I'll see a nation commit auto-genocide (over 75% of population killed). It just seems as though people go nuts that way occasionally, and people are much more dependent on infrastructure than they used to be. Still, I don't know that the elites are dreaming of wiping a lot of the rest of us out, though worries about overpopulation can be read that way.

For purposes of this discussion, it isn't necessary that the elites would actually benefit from genocide, just whether enough of them strongly believe they would.

Comments

I didn't say that either.

[tahkhleet.livejournal.com]

I don't care about his ideology. I care about him promising to _help the people in distress_ by the rapacious crimes of the elites. That would not necessarily require overthrowing the established order. Just merely housing, clothing and feeding them (about 10 million of them, say it takes $10,000 a head, that's $100 billion. zomg. How impossible that he could find the money for that.) He could let everyone else do everything EXACTLY as they were. We're in a crisis. He said he cared. His inaction is inexcusable.

Re: I didn't say that either.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

OK, I started a lengthy response to this, and decided not to waste my time.

Nancy, I'm sorry. This is your page and your friends and I'm trying to be polite. But the level of ignorance and arrogance need to produce a comment as utterly dumb-ass as the one above is making my frickin' brain hurt. Good God! Is Obama a king, that he will trot on down to the Treasury and have them print up some of them twenties so he and his designated agents can hand them out on street corners like bloody reality show hosts?

God knows I can respect folks like fatlefty, who actually understand this shit who want to see Obama run out on a rail for embracing the Chicago School and the Goldman Sachs gang. I may disagree, but at least that's something feasible and in Obama's control. The idea that Obama doesn't really care because he doesn't fly over the country in his Santa sleigh bringing jobs and Happy Meals to all the poor little children -- it just leaves me speechless.

If the basis for concern about the Obama Administration is takhleet, then you can safely treat her as an outlier.

Wow. That's an offensive statement.

[tahkhleet.livejournal.com]

First, it wouldn't be inflation. You notice below that I said inflation is dumb. In Canada, we do exactly what I'm describing. We judge that it is UNACCEPTABLE for innocent people to live in absolute destitution for reasons beyond their control. That's how WE coped with the Depression. You didn't, because Hoover was a hidebound conservative and Roosevelt was a faux populist.

Second, Obama can't just "order this" by fiat. But he IS the architect of the budget he _can_ propose legislation...and if he couldn't sell this to the country when you have several million people who are homeless or fast heading for that situation, he is a total amateur. To crush the phobia of "socialism" he could just define the program as automatically ending when the employment rate is above a certain percentage by a certain metric. If he were still having problems just trot out all the Bible verses about caring for the poor. I mean crap, do you people TRULY still _believe_ that poverty in a _depression_ is the fault of the "lazy poor"?

Third,to just out and out insult me _after_ putting words into my mouth is EXTREMELY rude.

....fly over the country in his Santa Sleigh...

[tahkhleet.livejournal.com]

...like FDR did with the CWA program?

http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/422902.html

It is at the very least a PLAUSIBLE possibility. Not some fantasy like you accuse me of.