The De-Trumpification of America -- life after the Trump revolution

[Mumbles]

Honestly, quite a few of those small towns are on the way out regardless - if you're a one company town, and that company says "Well, thanks...bye!" things collapse.

Do I see some massive shift in how DC...

(First, let me stop here. No, I don't.)

...in how DC workers do their work?

Well, it's tough to just move, first of all. A lot of people who love living in or near big cities will inevitably say "no thanks" to moving to a rural area. They love being near cities, or they have a kid with special needs and big cities are best at providing for their education...whatever. Expect a lot of pushback from careerists.

Third - there are already lots of satellite offices for most departments, many of which are considered career dead-ends. People won't take that sort of encouragement as anything other than "Hey, you suck and your career is over, please get out of our faces." unless it's done *very* cautiously.

The biggest possibility won't be getting people to move to small towns from DC - it could be using Dolt 45's wrecking-ball chaotic ignorance as a chance to rebuild those offices as more important instead. But in the end, it's still minor at best.

[JoeMorgue]

The level of remote/offsite/away from HQ/whatever work require to maintain the rural areas will require a major shift in a lot of corporate mentality.

[carlvs]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

The level of remote/offsite/away from HQ/whatever work require to maintain the rural areas will require a major shift in a lot of corporate mentality.

Not to mention a MASSIVE upgrade in high-speed internet availability as well.

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by Mumbles

Well, it's tough to just move, first of all. A lot of people who love living in or near big cities will inevitably say "no thanks" to moving to a rural area. They love being near cities, or they have a kid with special needs and big cities are best at providing for their education...whatever. Expect a lot of pushback from careerists.

I don't imagine we'll get a majority of these people to move, but even 10% would make a difference. And I suspect we'd get more than 10% if we put the offer out there.

And during the pandemic, at least where I work, we're already seeing a shift in people moving out of Ottawa, for reasons like they need to care for older family members, or they decided combining households during isolation was a good idea. Even before the pandemic, we had at least a few people working from home in different cities. So there's already a "market" for this idea.

As I said, I'm one of the people who thought about it. If I'd been offered this chance back when I was looking to buy my current house, there's a good chance I'd have taken it. My current salary would go a lot farther in some of these places. I could have bought a fully-furnished house in some of the small towns near St. John's Newfoundland for $20 000, which would have left a lot of money in my pocket, as compared to the place I ended up buying.

Quote:

Third - there are already lots of satellite offices for most departments, many of which are considered career dead-ends. People won't take that sort of encouragement as anything other than "Hey, you suck and your career is over, please get out of our faces." unless it's done *very* cautiously.

Sure, if you're a go-getter who's looking for promotion, you probably won't take this deal. But I suspect you underestimate the number of people who are like me - I'm at the highest point in my career that I want to go. Getting a promotion now means doing a job I know I would hate, but which also doesn't pay enough extra to be worth hating my job. And that describes a large chunk of the people who are in my job. Let me do the same job in a cheaper location, and there's a good chance I'd take it. I'd have definitely done this 15 years ago. And now that I'm within spitting distance of retiring, there's still a good chance I'd do it, since I'm really starting to think about my retirement options.

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

The level of remote/offsite/away from HQ/whatever work require to maintain the rural areas will require a major shift in a lot of corporate mentality.

That's why I'm saying we have a time-limited opportunity to try this. We're already doing a big part of the experiment due to the pandemic. We have some momentum right now, but it would be easy to lose it.

[Mumbles]

Originally Posted by Horatius

I don't imagine we'll get a majority of these people to move, but even 10% would make a difference. And I suspect we'd get more than 10% if we put the offer out there.

I'm not sure you'll get even that, mostly due to that first thing I mentioned - the bureaucracy is ponderous. But I *do* agree with it as a goal. Part of the problem is, the more, um, "classified" it is, the more likely it is to be nearby for good, just because people are *way* too eager to keep things classified. The Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and NSA HQ are where they are, and they're there for a reason - and many workers already live kinda far out, as anyone who has hit 95 south from DC near rush hour can tell you. DC itself is pretty much as big as it can get regardless - it's restricted along every physical dimension, even height.

(Seriously, Pentagon traffic is a nightmare.)

There are other places, of course - as well as many contractors who could easily scram for the most part. Department-level should be close to the White House and Congress, of course. Does Amazon need a massive new facility anywhere nearby? Nope - and if they do, then their government-level work should be spun off from their commercial business entirely - for many, *many* reasons, of which this is only one. Please ignore the fact that I support this already, and have for years. Just - sake of argument.

Quote:

As I said, I'm one of the people who thought about it. If I'd been offered this chance back when I was looking to buy my current house, there's a good chance I'd have taken it. My current salary would go a lot farther in some of these places. I could have bought a fully-furnished house in some of the small towns near St. John's Newfoundland for $20 000, which would have left a lot of money in my pocket, as compared to the place I ended up buying.

Sure - and quite a few people will be happy to move when they retire.

Quote:

Sure, if you're a go-getter who's looking for promotion, you probably won't take this deal. But I suspect you underestimate the number of people who are like me - I'm at the highest point in my career that I want to go. Getting a promotion now means doing a job I know I would hate, but which also doesn't pay enough extra to be worth hating my job. And that describes a large chunk of the people who are in my job. Let me do the same job in a cheaper location, and there's a good chance I'd take it. I'd have definitely done this 15 years ago. And now that I'm within spitting distance of retiring, there's still a good chance I'd do it, since I'm really starting to think about my retirement options.

A lot of people are the same. I just think, maybe it'd be better if the federal government leaned on contractors for this, since this is one thing the commercial world will move on faster regardless. I thought of it when I read your reply, it wasn't something I had in mind the entire time. Just a thought that popped up in my head when I thought about my work as a designer - always near a city, but always visiting far-flung subcontractors.

[smartcooky]

Originally Posted by carlvs

Not to mention a MASSIVE upgrade in high-speed internet availability as well.

One word... Starlink. Another word, Project Kuiper.

No massive infrastructure upgrades required - all you need is Dishy McDishface, and you have high-speed, low latency internet anywhere you like. In fact Starlink and Project Kuiper were conceived for exactly that purpose, to bring high speed internet to remote areas without the need for infrastructure.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/co...lternative_is/

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by Mumbles

I'm not sure you'll get even that, mostly due to that first thing I mentioned - the bureaucracy is ponderous. But I *do* agree with it as a goal. Part of the problem is, the more, um, "classified" it is, the more likely it is to be nearby for good, just because people are *way* too eager to keep things classified.

Yeah, sure, places that require security clearances that high probably wouldn't do this, but then, they probably wouldn't be doing work from home either. It's kind of hard to build a SCIF in your spare bedroom after all.

But I'm thinking of people like the US Patent and Trademark Office (that's what my job is in Canada).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...fice#Structure

They've got 8,351 people doing essentially the same job I do. I've got what we call in Canada an "Enhanced reliability" level of clearance, which basically says they trust me with some personal information I need to do my job, and I get to work on some patent applications before they're published. The biggest security issue I have is that I'm not allowed to take my work laptop or cell phone out of the country. I suspect the USPTO is similar.

And that's just one agency. There's lots of others who probably have similar clearance levels, like the Social Security guys, the FDA, the EPA, things like those.

[JoeMorgue]

The other elephant in the room is we all known this is only a stopgap solution.

We just don't have enough jobs to keep everyone busy anymore and we aren't in a place yet culturally or socially where "Just do nothing but somehow get everything you need (and a reasonable amount of what you want)" is a viable lifestyle choice.

"Busywork" will only get us through the next generation or so, at most, and that might naively conservative of an estimate.

It's the problem with the Post-Scarcity Utopia concept. You ever notice those stories always start there? Because there is no imaginable transitional period between real life now and that.

[The Great Zaganza]

Looks like the election lead to a de-trumpification of this Forum.
I notice far less Trump Explainers' posts.

[JoeMorgue]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

Looks like the election lead to a de-trumpification of this Forum.
I notice far less Trump Explainers' posts.

Give them time to agree on a narrative.

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

It's the problem with the Post-Scarcity Utopia concept. You ever notice those stories always start there? Because there is no imaginable transitional period between real life now and that.

I've been thinking about that for a loooooooooong time. Back in the mid-90s, I seriously wanted to promote what I called "Technological Socialism", which is what a lot of people are now calling the Post-Scarcity society. But I realized that the transition from here to there would be a difficult one.

Part of the problem I had was that most of the people I talked to about it couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that greed wouldn't really be necessary anymore. They kept insisting that if, say, TVs were free, they'd just run in and grab every TV in the store, and leave none for anyone else. Ignore the fact that this leaves them with dozens of TVs they can't use cluttering up their house, because they can't watch that many all at once. Ignore the fact they this doesn't even give them an exploitable monopoly on TVs, because the TV store is full again the next day, so anyone else who wants a TV can still just go get one. Nope, "I'LL TAKE ALL THE TVS!!!!!", period, stop.

They never quite understood my analogy of the buffet dinner place. They certainly could just walk in and grab the entire tray of chicken fried rice for themselves, but while they're trying to choke down 10 pounds of chicken fried rice, the restaurant just puts out another tray for everyone else. So we already have a good model to show that, in circumstances of ridiculous abundance, over-the-top greediness rarely, if ever, manifests itself.

But greed is so built into our culture that most people can't conceive of not being greedy.

[Mader Levap]

I think only path to such post-scarcity is via technology, like Automate All The Things. Including repairs and maintenance, obviously. That should drag down price of most things to ridiculously low level.

Problem is with transitional period (we are on beginning of it). There will be time when automation is sufficiently high to put out of job a lot of people, yet not enough to impact price significantly.

There are also auxiliary tech needed for that, for example medicinal tech. Medical care costs terrible amount of money, both on personal and country level. Imagine world where treatment for most of things is quick and cheap, you simply don't have anyone disabled for life since you can regenerate nerves, grow out limbs etc. No members of society that aren't at least potentially productive.

Only after fulfilling those (and more) conditions post-scarcity is viable.

Originally Posted by Horatius

But greed is so built into our culture that most people can't conceive of not being greedy.

We live in capitalistic society. Greed is virtue here. Fortunately, technology affects culture profoundly. For example, without cheap, reliable and commonly available contraception sexual revolution simply wouldn't happen.

[StillSleepy]

I'd say improving education is a must, and I don't mean just what's in the curriculum. Right now part of the allure of the right is an esoteric-flavored Streisand effect, where the attempts to remove content causes it to not only gain infamy but also causes people to immediately assume it must be true. We really should, especially with the economy in shambles anyway, consider providing more general education classes/seminars/whathaveyou for the general public (everywhere, not just in Metropolis) on the government's dime.

We should also consider doing things like mailed brochures (yes, I know this is the internet era), such as what was used in the early days of the conservation movement in the US. Though it will likely be dismissed as propaganda (which it is), it will allow us to rock the cradle a bit by providing the forbidden fruit. Also, I suspect they'd be more likely to be read on the sly.

We should absolutely not assume the right is too stupid or too invested to try to understand a subject, nor should we assume that explaining how various subjects are studied and conclusions reached is too complex to be worth explaining. Science history and philosophy are actually far more potent tools for us than the more hand-wave-y "what science has taught/brought us."

We should also look into radio for similar reasons.

Basically, you have to get your ideas into the morning coffee run and the warehouse gossip as completely as you can. Having neither the need nor the desire to get more modern books on loan from the University library next week is a different story from having material delivered to your doorstep, even if you wind up using it as kindling rather than grapevine material. If you want the answer to speech to be more speech, you first have to get your ideas actually talked about rather than being some nebulous buzzwords on a high-paced text medium.

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by StillSleepy

We should also look into radio for similar reasons.

Basically, you have to get your ideas into the morning coffee run and the warehouse gossip as completely as you can. ..... If you want the answer to speech to be more speech, you first have to get your ideas actually talked about rather than being some nebulous buzzwords on a high-paced text medium.

Your radio idea is something I was also thinking about. Far too many places in the US are only served by right-wing radio services, and this gives them a lock on the local conversations.

We need a new network to compete with that. The problem is, if you just start a "liberal" network, no one will listen to it. So you need to start it as at least slightly or moderately right-leaning, and gradually introduce actual information. Like, after you're established, bring in a "liberal" co-host, who at first is just a punching bag for the "conservative" co-host, but who, over time, starts making more and more sense. Throw out a bunch of challenges; "Oh, that's just libtard nonsense! Go ahead and Google it!", but when the listeners Google it, it turns out to be true.

It'll take years to even begin to make an impact, but hey, what else are we going to do these next few years?

[Lurch]

Originally Posted by Shadowdweller

I assign Trump a little more causality in the present mess, but this essentially what I believe the issue is. Trump and the Tea Party before him have been based upon and enabled by Fox News and a vast number of conservative propaganda organizations masquerading as news while actively and deliberately spewing disinformation. There are regrettably vast swathes of the American public who ONLY use these media for information. Furthermore, the advent of social media and the absence of the fairness doctrine have made it increasingly easy to live in a sociopolitical environment that is devoid of debate or any real critical analysis of political matters; resulting in very considerably increased tribalism and partisanship.

Fox news, for example, is essentially encouraging rebellion / armed resistance against the present vote and vote counts right now, using the narrative that the strongly Democratic trends in the late vote counts raise questions about the votes' validity. Despite the fact that these concerns are very easily explained with a moment's thought or knowledge of recent history. I believe the necessary response to this problem to involve at least two objectives:

1) Someone has to hold these organizations accountable for their ********; and preferably find a way to dismantle or discredit them in the eyes of their target demographics.

2) People need to find a way to engage the Deplorables / Trumpists/ Tea Party partisans in respectful, civilized discussion and debate - on a mass scale. The Lincoln project recently had a pretty good piece on how to go about this. (And, yeah, I'm about the last person to have any patience or skill at this sort of thing).

Ahhhhhh, but is there a clear-cut cause and effect here? Right wing media do well because they have a willing audience. There's at least something of a symbiosis in this ghastly pas de deux, and not just a Svengali-like organ of propaganda holding in thrall a flock of gullible sheep.

[The Great Zaganza]

The Right wing has a Captive Audience - not the same as willing.
There is an argument that with the balkanization of entertainment, politics is the only thing besides the weather we all can talk about.
And just like you have to be on FB if all the people you know are, you have to listen to Limbaugh and Hannity if they are.

[Darat]

Hopefully we will see the silliness with Huawei's mobile phone division can be rectified, their hardware is superb and the market needs them for innovation.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Horatius

They never quite understood my analogy of the buffet dinner place. They certainly could just walk in and grab the entire tray of chicken fried rice for themselves, but while they're trying to choke down 10 pounds of chicken fried rice, the restaurant just puts out another tray for everyone else. So we already have a good model to show that, in circumstances of ridiculous abundance, over-the-top greediness rarely, if ever, manifests itself.

But greed is so built into our culture that most people can't conceive of not being greedy.

I agree with you, in principle, but your analogy isn't well-chosen because over-the-top greediness manifests itself a lot in those circumstances: 11 Reasons You Should Never Go to an All-Inclusive Resort (EatThis, April 22, 2016)
The reason for this, of course, is that not only does all the food and beverages suddenly appear to be free. It's even worse: 'I have paid for all this, so the more I eat, the cheaper it gets.'

The instinct is as irrational as the one illustrated by your imaginary but not unrealistic TV set example: This is the way that people in a capitalist system think and reason, and any other attitude is unimaginable to them, and to conservatives and libertarians, this is proof positive that anything other than capitalist greed goes against human nature:

Quote:

It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is perfectly true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. This is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. The conditions will be done away with, and human nature will change. The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it.
The Soul of Man under Socialism (O. Wilde, 1891)

[PhantomWolf]

I might be crazy, but you know what... When it comes to reuniting the US and deTrumpidying it, the first and most massive thing that has to happen is that Democrats have to actually sit down and listen to why Trump's supporters voted for him in the first place. And I'm not talking about the strawmen of "they are idiots" or that they are "Deplorable," but rather look at the real reasons, that they finally had a President who claimed to be willing to listen to them and fight for them, that they had a President whose policies were creating jobs in their areas, someone that didn't ignore them and care only about the coastal cities.

Americans need to sit down and have a lot of very uncomfortable conversations with each other and stop creating strawmen opponents to battle, caricaturing the opposition as some sort of evil incarnate. As long as Democrats see Republicans as deployables instead of humans, and the Republicans see Democrats as demons instead of humans, there can't be any resolution.

[Beelzebuddy]

Originally Posted by PhantomWolf

I might be crazy, but you know what... When it comes to reuniting the US and deTrumpidying it, the first and most massive thing that has to happen is that Democrats have to actually sit down and listen to why Trump's supporters voted for him in the first place.

Damn it, no. No, no, no. That is entirely, 100%, completely ass-backwards. It doesn't matter why someone thinks they voted for Trump. To have voted for him in this election, in this campaign, with hundreds of thousands dead at his hand, when he was literally leaving his rally goers out in the cold to freeze to death, no. I do not care what BS they choose to justify their abdication of reason.

Democrats need to sit down and figure out why people in Trump country voted for Biden.

Then they need to message more of that.

[ETA] Sorry to go off on you, I'm just really tired of those stupid diner interviews where it's always supporters of the most extreme right-wing ideology du jour who are invited to spew idiotic rationalization as free GOP market research.

[Horatius]

Originally Posted by dann

I agree with you, in principle, but your analogy isn't well-chosen because over-the-top greediness manifests itself a lot in those circumstances: 11 Reasons You Should Never Go to an All-Inclusive Resort (EatThis, April 22, 2016)
The reason for this, of course, is that not only does all the food and beverages suddenly appear to be free. It's even worse: 'I have paid for all this, so the more I eat, the cheaper it gets.'

The instinct is as irrational as the one illustrated by your imaginary but not unrealistic TV set example: This is the way that people in a capitalist system think and reason, and any other attitude is unimaginable to them, and to conservatives and libertarians, this is proof positive that anything other than capitalist greed goes against human nature:

I never said people at all-you-can-eat restaurants, or all-inclusive resorts, don't or won't eat or drink more than people who are paying a la carte. As the article you link notes, in our current system, that's exactly why people go to these places.

But that's just normal human greed, during a special event.

But you don't see the kind of over-the-top greed that so many people think would occur in a post-scarcity world, do you? No one just cleans out the bar of all the beer, every time they order a drink, because they know there will still be beer there the next time they order a drink, even if it's the 12th drink of the day.

And in a post-scarcity world, such availability of beer won't just happen the one week a year you're on vacation in Aruba. It will be every day, everywhere.

[Mader Levap]

Originally Posted by Horatius

And in a post-scarcity world, such availability of beer won't just happen the one week a year you're on vacation in Aruba. It will be every day, everywhere.

Keep in mind there will be always some resources that are constrained, even in post-scarcity society (in this sense it is slight misnomer since not literally everything is free).

For example, there is only so much physical space. Even if building something is ridiculously cheap, you still need physical space to build in. And that's inherently finite quantity. You cannot exactly make planet larger.

[Delvo]

A positiive sign: the right-wing violence that could reasonably have been expected from prior actions isn't happening. Apparently they were bluffing or changed their minds.

[Roger Ramjets]

Originally Posted by dann

This is the way that people in a capitalist system think and reason, and any other attitude is unimaginable to them, and to conservatives and libertarians, this is proof positive that anything other than capitalist greed goes against human nature:

But human nature isn't to be capitalist.

We’re not as selfish as we think we are. Here’s the proof

Quote:

Humans, by contrast, are ultrasocial: possessed of an enhanced capacity for empathy, an unparalleled sensitivity to the needs of others, a unique level of concern about their welfare, and an ability to create moral norms that generalise and enforce these tendencies.

Such traits emerge so early in our lives that they appear to be innate. In other words, it seems that we have evolved to be this way. By the age of 14 months, children begin to help each other, for example by handing over objects another child can’t reach. By the time they are two, they start sharing things they value. By the age of three, they start to protest against other people’s violation of moral norms...

Another problem is that – almost by definition – many of those who dominate public life have a peculiar fixation on fame, money and power. Their extreme self-centredness places them in a small minority, but, because we see them everywhere, we assume that they are representative of humanity...

Misanthropy grants a free pass to the grasping, power-mad minority who tend to dominate our political systems. If only we knew how unusual they are, we might be more inclined to shun them and seek better leaders.

[AnonyMoose]

Originally Posted by Delvo

A positiive sign: the right-wing violence that could reasonably have been expected from prior actions isn't happening. Apparently they were bluffing or changed their minds.

Give it time. They're shopping around for tiki torches as we speak.

[CORed]

Originally Posted by AnonyMoose

Give it time. They're shopping around for tiki torches as we speak.

I certainly hope the trumpanzees don't get violent. Hospital workers are swamped enough with Covid-19. The last thing they need is to have to treat thousands of morons who have shot themselves in the foot.

[Trebuchet]

Originally Posted by Delvo

A positiive sign: the right-wing violence that could reasonably have been expected from prior actions isn't happening. Apparently they were bluffing or changed their minds.

The night isn't over yet. I expect shots to be fired at celebrations tonight, after which the police will charge in and arrest the unarmed celebrants.

ETA: Trump isn't going away. He got about 48% of the popular vote and has insanely fanatical supporters. He'll keep proclaiming himself the true winner of this election until the day he dies and it will be carried on by his spawn and others. At least a significant majority of the Republicans in the US Senate are either true supporters or still afraid of him. Any R who supports Biden in the least will be labeled a RINO and primaried.

[JoeMorgue]

I love how far our standards have fallen.

"Well only one poll worker has been put into protective custody and an angry armed mob only tried to storm one polling location, so that's good" is not a sentence that should compile without errors but it does in this year.

[johnny karate]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

I love how far our standards have fallen.

"Well only one poll worker has been put into protective custody and an angry armed mob only tried to storm one polling location, so that's good" is not a sentence that should compile without errors but it does in this year.

But you have to respect the effort put in to get us here.

Minimizing the violence and lawlessness of the right is hard work.

[The Great Zaganza]

Prediction: Trump, private citizen, will get into legal trouble for inciting violence against elected officials.

[Frank Newgent]

Originally Posted by Delvo

A positiive sign: the right-wing violence that could reasonably have been expected from prior actions isn't happening. Apparently they were bluffing or changed their minds.

They're outnumbered.

[The Great Zaganza]

Originally Posted by Frank Newgent

They're outnumbered.

and outgunned ... in the sense that they will only attack those who have no gun at all.

[StillSleepy]

Originally Posted by Horatius

Your radio idea is something I was also thinking about. Far too many places in the US are only served by right-wing radio services, and this gives them a lock on the local conversations.



We need a new network to compete with that. The problem is, if you just start a "liberal" network, no one will listen to it. So you need to start it as at least slightly or moderately right-leaning, and gradually introduce actual information. Like, after you're established, bring in a "liberal" co-host, who at first is just a punching bag for the "conservative" co-host, but who, over time, starts making more and more sense. Throw out a bunch of challenges; "Oh, that's just libtard nonsense! Go ahead and Google it!", but when the listeners Google it, it turns out to be true.



It'll take years to even begin to make an impact, but hey, what else are we going to do these next few years?

I'm not so sure that starting out conservative would actually gain anything since it'll be perceived as the station being ruined rather than creating a come-to-Jesus moment. It's more a matter of girding any support we have out there. Conservatives won't just ignore this sort of station, which is ultimately a boon for such an endeavor, though the worst part would be safety. Another thing I should mention is that a number of radio stations actually carry the news from television networks, e.g. I can grab the 6 o'clock news from my choice of CBS, Fox, or ABC news depending on what radio station I'm tuning into.

What I had in mind would basically be a "liberal" talk station, but more oriented towards things like science history or interviews with researchers to talk about how they actually go about their jobs in the vein of "How It's Made." One of the big hurdles in our current situation is that when we ask questions we often receive the summary but not the roadmap or the schematic, leaving people a.bit lost as to how scientists actually draw their conclusions and also without the understanding that knowledge is often provisional.

General history would be great too, especially respective state history. There are a lot of suckers for state history, but there's a bit of YMMV there too. Even prehistory will work there, people seem to often be unaware of the fossils and artifacts found in their own state.

[carlosy]

Originally Posted by Delvo

They are (presuming Biden wins) in roughly the position that Nazis/Germans were in soon after WWII: defeated, and exposed as essentially suffering a destructive mental illness and thus needing to be kept down, but still human and thus unlikely to snap out of it immediately. How did Germany handle that?

- Trummerfrauen (rubble women). There weren't that many (young and middle aged) males left.

- It took quite some time

- Germans were tired by the war

- They were forced to face themselves by occupying powers

[malbui]

Originally Posted by carlosy

- Trummerfrauen (rubble women). There weren't that many (young and middle aged) males left.

- It took quite some time

- Germans were tired by the war

- They were forced to face themselves by occupying powers

If anybody out there is interested in a literary rather than a purely historical take on those times, I can recommend the collected short stories of Heinrich Böll. He wrote a lot about this period in a subtle, moving and philosophical way.

[Stacyhs]

My sister-in-law's mother was a child in Berlin during the war. She married a US serviceman about 1955 in Berlin. She had such horrible memories of the war and the living conditions afterward in Berlin that she never went back to Germany after moving with her husband to the US and getting her citizenship. She wouldn't even talk about it to my SIL.

[malbui]

My last post on this subject as I fear I'm leading this thread away from its stated topic.

Originally Posted by Stacyhs

My sister-in-law's mother was a child in Berlin during the war. She married a US serviceman about 1955 in Berlin. She had such horrible memories of the war and the living conditions afterward in Berlin that she never went back to Germany after moving with her husband to the US and getting her citizenship. She wouldn't even talk about it to my SIL.

I can well believe that. I read a lot of Trümmerliteratur as a postgrad in Germany and although bits of it veer a little too far into magical realism for my taste, much of it is a stark and brutal depiction of what life was like for returning soldiers and the civilians who had survived the war and were trying to live among the ruins. Very sobering for those of us who grew up with descriptions of Hitler's high command and cartoony "For you Fritz the war is over" narratives of combat.

[Ambrosia]

Originally Posted by dirtywick

Trump got an addional 7M votes, after filling in the hole the defectors left, which could potentially be millions nationwide. I think a more interesting question is who are these people that voted for Trump. How many new voters, first time voters, or Clinton Dems? I think that's an interesting question that nobody has the answer to yet.

Weaponised social media disinformation. The same trick pulled by Cambridge Analytica in 2016, by Dominic Cummings in 2016 over Brexit.

It's invisible to most people because unless you actually get to see the facebook ads yourself you don't know they exist, and facebook and google are *very* good at identifying and targeting very specific demographics with their advertising algorithms.

If you haven't yet watch the film "The Great Hack" which is on Netflix and separate to that there's a fabulous book called "Democracy For Sale" by Peter Geoghegan.

Both the film and the book break down how right wing ideologues have hijacked advertising algorithms to motivate and turn out voters.

I cannot recommend the book highly enough, it's more slanted to UK politics and Brexit than the US but does cover US politics too.


To answer the question in the OP, we need to find ways to limit the spread of ******** "news". Fox News has long been a laughing stock for it's right wing bias but a great many people watch Fox news *and believe everything they say* it's not much of a stretch to tune in to Tucker Carlson, swallow what he says whole and then go to Breitbart or a n other right wing partisan wingnut source and believe everything they tell you as well.

Just look at the word "socialism".

Socialism is a GOOD THING. In America that word has been demonised for a very long period of time, so that it now means something entirely different to most of the US population.

A healthy democracy needs to blend socialism and capitalism. There needs to be govt funded and administered national programs to run things a country needs. Emergency services, infrastructure, healthcare, taxation, welfare, all of these things and others should be govt run. Sure you can blend in private companies to help with some of them, you can get the private sector to help pay for some of them but they benefit all of society.

Capitalism is a GOOD THING. There absolutely must exist the "American Dream" it should be possible for anyone regardless of gender or race or upbringing to make it. You should be able to become a self made millionaire if that's what you want, or a famous celebrity or sports star, if that's what you want, or live a comfortable life in a nice house etc etc.

Traditionally the left and the right political parties argue over how much of the blend is capitalism and how much is socialism. They compromise along the way depending on who got elected and by how large a majority and stuff gets done.

Over the past 20+ years politics has become hyper-partisan. The other side are painted as enemies, people to be fought and opposed at all costs, made out to be extremists. It's all ********, but it's necessary for the disinformation campaigns to have an effect.
People are more motivated by fear, and it's all too easy to blame someone else for your problems and think that by defeating them your problems will be solved. We all collectively need to take responsibility for our own situations. Most of the things that happen in our lives are our own fault. If you want something to change you need to work towards changing it.
That's a lot more effort though than blaming the libs or Trump for whats wrong in the world.

I'd guess a fair number of the people pushing the disinfo campaigns don't actually give a **** about anyone but themselves and are only in it for the money.

They have tapped in to a underused part of human nature and they are leveraging it for all they can get and they are not going to stop voluntarily.

Either we need to fix the system somehow (no I have no idea how to fix the system I can just tell you that it's broken) or we need to unplug ourselves from it en masse and stop using Facebook and Twitter.

How do we de-Trump the country? We find ways to talk with the Trump supporters and understand why they feel the way they do and compromise to improve their lot in life and ours.

It's not rocket science, it's *much* harder than that.

[Mader Levap]

Originally Posted by Ambrosia

Either we need to fix the system somehow (no I have no idea how to fix the system I can just tell you that it's broken) or we need to unplug ourselves from it en masse and stop using Facebook and Twitter.

It will "fix" itself sooner or latter - in sea of blood. I can only hope degenerate Republican ideology - hostile to humanity in general - will share same fate as their spiritual ancestors from first civil war or spiritual brothers from second world war.

Originally Posted by Ambrosia

How do we de-Trump the country? We find ways to talk with the Trump supporters and understand why they feel the way they do and compromise to improve their lot in life and ours.

Would you compromise or work with bunch of kid rapists that want to make USA communist state? Thought so.