The Testing Chat III: The Time of Great Chatting

[Oxymoron]

Genesis - Land of Confusion

Edit : also,

Genesis - Jesus He Knows Me

[Veef]

that's an amazing hair piece for phil

[Darksi4190]

Reading through the sequestration thread on teo makes me think two things.

1. Aerius is an asshole. Seriously. He's almost gleeful at the prospect of american economic collapse. As if canada wouldn't be affected
2. As much of a dick as he is, aerius is also correct. The sequestration is a band aid at best. Other countries manage to run a balanced budget, so why can't we? In the past ten years the american dollar has become worth less than the australian and canadian dollars. Our currency is now the world's goddamn funny money

[Oxymoron]

Because your politicians would prefer to see the country burn and consider it as a victory as long as they could deny the other party what they want ?

[evilsoup]

isn't the goal of the tea party guys who have taken control of the republicans to shrink the government down to a bare minimum? Collapsing it by fucking the budget might be a 'clever' strategy, and to hell with the collateral damage

I'm probably misunderstanding or simplifying everything, of course

[Manus Dei]

I can honestly say I never heard of them before.

But just to indulge you, I looked them up. Wikipedia tells me Phill Collins was/is a member. Interesting.

Doesn't make me care enough to YouTube 'em though. I did start playing "In The Air Tonight" because I saw Collins' name, however. It's almost Pavlovian.

doo-doom doo-doom doo-doom

how the hell can you know who phil collins is but have never heard of genesis

[Manus Dei]

i mean have you even seen american psycho

[Veef]

hey i'm trying to do cocaine here

[Stofsk]

Aerius is an asshole. Seriously.

Did you just now get the internet or something? Aerius has always been an asshole.

[Manus Dei]

hey i'm trying to do cocaine here

it's hip to be square

[Jung]

Am I the only one who gets irritated by these kinds of argument re: immigration?:

No real American tm wants to do those jobs anymore. I remember during the height of the Great Recession, the farm association offered above minimum wage pay (much more than they pay illegals) to citizens who would be willing to pick produce from the fields. Four people showed up. All of them quit within two weeks.

It's been like this forever. In the 1880s-1890s, native girls refused to do the same jobs (maids, etc.), because it was "beneath them."

Americans have always been spoiled little shits. Part of being a spoiled little shit, sadly, though, is forgetting you're a spoiled little shit.

I mean, I'm not a "bring dem jurbs back to Real Americans!" type, I realize this stuff be complicated with stuff like lower prices benefit consumers too and for poor people those terrible jobs might still be better than whatever they'd be doing if Americans/Europeans were doing them instead but...

Capitalism naturally is a race to the bottom where employers will seek the workers willing to do the most work for least pay
People respond by calling people who aren't willing to do difficult unpleasant labor for low pay "spoiled" and talking as if poor desperate people willing to do difficult unpleasant jobs for low pay are some kind of need of society.

[RyanThunder]

Am I the only one who gets irritated by these kinds of argument re: immigration?:
[...]
Capitalism naturally is a race to the bottom where employers will seek the workers willing to do the most work for least pay
People respond by calling people who aren't willing to do difficult unpleasant labor for low pay "spoiled" and talking as if poor desperate people willing to do difficult unpleasant jobs for low pay are some kind of need of society.

Nope, you are not. Glad somebody else is, too.

[Stofsk]

Somehow people should be happy to jump at the chance of working a menial job that has zero career growth and no prospects because... just because, really. Meanwhile the gap between rich and poor continues to widen and nobody is game enough to point out that in the game of 'who's the biggest spoiled brat' the rich win that category just like how they win everything else.

[Darksi4190]

Because your politicians would prefer to see the country burn and consider it as a victory as long as they could deny the other party what they want ?

That is it isn't it. There's no real political discourse in America anymore. There's a center-right party (the democrats) trying to keep the ship afloat, and a party of dangerous lunatics who would rather see the country burn than let rich people's taxes go up. I just keep wondering where we went wrong. What was the point when we set ourselves down this path, and can it even be reversed anymore?


I used to think that America could still have a bright future ahead of it if people worked hard enough, now I don't think we even have a future anymore.

[Stofsk]

Because your politicians would prefer to see the country burn and consider it as a victory as long as they could deny the other party what they want ?

That is it isn't it. There's no real political discourse in America anymore. There's a center-right party (the democrats) trying to keep the ship afloat, and a party of dangerous lunatics who would rather see the country burn than let rich people's taxes go up. I just keep wondering where we went wrong. What was the point when we set ourselves down this path,

It's something that has been happening for decades, probably before you were born.

and can it even be reversed anymore?

Not without some serious shift in people's attitudes and a swing to the left.

So probably not.

I used to think that America could still have a bright future ahead of it if people worked hard enough, now I don't think we even have a future anymore.

The sad thing is, you probably have a brighter future ahead of you than the vast majority of mankind does.

[Losonti Tokash]

People don't understand the difference between sovereign and personal debt and thus you get childish analogies of national affairs to household finances.

America's been through way worse and we'll probably be fine. Some concern is obviously warranted but not apocalyptic pessimism.

[Oxymoron]

That red pill sure does have a bitter taste, doesn't it ?

I'm not an American so I have no idea what exactly you could do to change things, but if the US function the same as Europe, I can tell you how you can achieve something : by starting to act locally and building a network of relations with other associations with similar goals.

[timmy]

Not if you ask George Friedman

Apparently the third world is going to be the planet's most marketable commodity by the end of the 20s and highborn nations will be fighting for the labour pool they represent. Mexico will see the children of first generation migrants to the US returning home. Apparently.

Oh, and WW3 will be fought between American and Chinese hackers.

[RogueIce]

I can honestly say I never heard of them before.

But just to indulge you, I looked them up. Wikipedia tells me Phill Collins was/is a member. Interesting.

Doesn't make me care enough to YouTube 'em though. I did start playing "In The Air Tonight" because I saw Collins' name, however. It's almost Pavlovian.

doo-doom doo-doom doo-doom

how the hell can you know who phil collins is but have never heard of genesis

Pretty easy, actually. Literally all I know him for is "In The Air Tonight" (which was solo) and the fact he sang a bunch of songs for Disney's animated Tarzan movie but never actually listened to any of them.

I'm not really what you could even call a fan of Phil Collins, I just like that one song of his.

i mean have you even seen american psycho

Heard of it but never seen it.

[Darksi4190]

Mexico will see the children of first generation migrants to the US returning home. Apparently.

Wouldn't the children of first generation Mexican immigrants have american families of their own by now?

[Dooey Jo]

man what is up with viennese waiters after dark

during the day they're like "o hai grüss gott auf wiederschauen byebye kisskiss "

and then suddenly the sun goes down and they get all "the fuck are you doing " (trying to pay you i'm so sorry i promise it won't happen again)

and all these wannabe gothic buildings, i think you are trying a bit too hard here vienna. when you're shoving all these barbed spires up my ass from the second i step out of the train station it gets a bit obscene. i went to see the hundertwasser houses one day but i had to pass ten fake gothic churches to get there. in fact i kind of can't wait to never see another flying buttress ever again now. and i'm a guy who enjoys flying buttresses

also what is up with your public transportation; u-bahns from like the '70s or something (you have to pull the doors open yourself on some of them) and trams from the '60s (1860s).

actual humans there seem friendly though

all in all 10/10 city of the year

[timmy]

Steam trams?

Wouldn't the children of first generation Mexican immigrants have american families of their own by now?

I may have confused some terminology up there.

[Jung]

Somehow people should be happy to jump at the chance of working a menial job that has zero career growth and no prospects because... just because, really. Meanwhile the gap between rich and poor continues to widen and nobody is game enough to point out that in the game of 'who's the biggest spoiled brat' the rich win that category just like how they win everything else.

I wonder if it's tied in with our society's dismissive attitude toward manual labor

I mean all else being equal you'd expect a difficult shit job to be relatively high paying, right?

But it's manual labor ergo low status and hence "makes sense" the pay would be shit and the idea of making it a high paying job so Americans would want to do it just doesn't even occur to and is WTF to people

[timmy]

I have an office job and people still look down at me.

[Oxymoron]

It's funny that in a Capitalist society where the idea is ingrained in people from their youngest age that "any labour must be payed and rewarded", the idea that menial & difficult jobs be payed more than just minimum wage is seen as alien. Or more generally the idea that it is normal for anyone to do a job, of any kind, and be payed a shitty salary.

Sounds like there's a contradiction somewhere with the idea of working to earn a living. Like somehow, somewhere on the road people started to think it normal to waste one's health and best years working and not be rewarded fairly for it.