Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

Now, it could be that I'm emotionally volatile right now but this article literally made me cry.

JUST FIGURED OUT WHY THIS MADE ME CRY!

Just got off the phone with my mom and literally could not drag her from talking about the CHINESE (in that Trump way) or how the world's actually getting cooler if you listen to this one group's (funded by oil and gas) findings. The last year and half have turned my mom, who used to be the most progressive boomer I know, into a right wing shit heel.
 
Just got off the phone with my mom and literally could not drag her from talking about the CHINESE (in that Trump way) or how the world's actually getting cooler if you listen to this one group's (funded by oil and gas) findings. The last year and half have turned my mom, who used to be the most progressive boomer I know, into a right wing shit heel.
This is something I always wanted to figure out about why people that start out progressive all of a sudden go conservative when they get older. It seems to be a trend with a lot of people I know.

I ain't a sociologist, so I can't really do any legit study, but I think part of it is unfamiliarity, leading to fear. The progressive ideals they had as kids or young adults are very different then the progressive ideas of today, so they feel lost and scared that the bubble they have become comfortable in will be shattered.

I don't claim to understand why my son loves YouTube stars more then watching movies, or why teens these days say words like "yeeting" or shit. I am not going to understand all the myriad changes of life all the time. I still think memes are weird, and I still would rather post on message boards like here rather then spend five minutes on social media. That's just how I am.

However, I understand that as an aging person the world is going to change, whether I want it to or not, because that is how society has always worked. If it didn't, we would still be in caves beating each other with sticks for the best hunting spots. Change isn't a bad thing, as long as we keep pushing towards a better world, rather then get so scared of change that we revert to an oppressive, broken world, trying to hold onto that status quo.

I mean, hell, my parents lived through the Civil Rights movement and were supporters (even though they leaned fiscal conservative), but now my mother hates BLM and says that "Obama brought back racism." It's not even that I disagree with that last statement, but where she thinks Obama made black people too entitled and rude to white people for "no other reason then being white.", I know that Obama becoming president toppled the "white men in power" dynamic that has been the norm for over 200 years, and that all those racists simmering in the shadows started boiling over all of us like a tide. As for my own parents, I don't think the fact they started watching nothing but Fox News starting in the late 90s was a coincidence either.

We probably ain't going to get out of this till enough people die that we can move forward, but then who knows how much of people our own age will start fighting the next big progressive march. Only time will tell.
 
We probably ain't going to get out of this till enough people die that we can move forward, but then who knows how much of people our own age will start fighting the next big progressive march. Only time will tell.
This isn't a fight we can age out of permanently. For all you know, the Youtube stars your son watches could be Alt-Right douchebags that just also happened to like the some hobbies as your son and they could be teaching him to just like them... and you won't know about until he says something really awful and by then it's basically too late to do anything about it.
 
why people that start out progressive all of a sudden go conservative when they get older. It seems to be a trend with a lot of people I know.
Tldr: is there a link between psychosis and more reverting to parented viewpoints?
I know that some Parkinson's medication can increase the tendency to gamble because one of the side effects is that it lowers the threshold at which the brain will go, "Aha! I see a pattern!" I suspect this medication could also cause an increased likelihood of believing in conspiracy theories. So it seems logical to me that whatever it is that makes a Conservative so conservative, there is a related brain process/chemical that influences that, one which can be boosted/cut. Could this mean there could be drugs to make you more liberal? Or do you have to be liberal to get the drugs? It's almost a chicken-and-egg kind of theory.

--Patrick
 

Remote work lays bare many brutal inefficiencies and problems that executives don’t want to deal with because they reflect poorly on leaders and those they’ve hired. Remote work empowers those who produce and disempowers those who have succeeded by being excellent diplomats and poor workers, along with those who have succeeded by always finding someone to blame for their failures. It removes the ability to seem productive (by sitting at your desk looking stressed or always being on the phone), and also, crucially, may reveal how many bosses and managers simply don’t contribute to the bottom line.
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It's almost like those who most benefit from capitalism are those whom contribute nothing while stealing value from others and saying it's their work that allowed them to succeed.
A while back, I put it thus:
Essentially, unless you are at the very tippy-top of the labor pyramid, your efforts serve to enrich someone else more than they enrich you, which means your relative position does not change. And because our population is so large, and so many people are working (overall quantity, not percentage), those people at the top of their respective pyramids are getting richer faster than ever before
—Patrick
 


Democrats being by and large ghouls again. Rushing to adjourn before any of the squad could bring this to the floor.

It's shocking how fucking hostile your country is towards poor people.

You wonder how the Republicans are going to win next election. It's shit like this that most affects minorities who are told to just vote for the lesser of two evils.
 
Sinema feels like one of those people that only wanted to get in so she could get that sweet, sweet bribery contribution money and then accepts bonuses to fuck over actual bills. At least Manchin seems like he has values he wants to uphold (or at least just does not want to be kicked out of WV), but Sinema feels like as much a grifter as the average Republican.
 
I know it won't happen, but we really need to get money out of politics. If all you got was a decent salary, then the people running would only be the people that want the job. Instead, you get the people that run only because they know once they get in, a lobbyist is going to slide them a ten million dollar check to make sure they go on vacation during an important vote.
 
Instead, you get the people that run only because they know once they get in, a lobbyist is going to slide them a ten million dollar check to make sure they go on vacation during an important vote.
I think this is quite preposterous. I mean, I guess it depends on what you're trying to get through and where, but ten million for a simple absentee vote? Most politicians are not so greedy, I'm sure they can be made to see the merits of your point of view for a lot less.
 
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I know it won't happen, but we really need to get money out of politics. If all you got was a decent salary, then the people running would only be the people that want the job. Instead, you get the people that run only because they know once they get in, a lobbyist is going to slide them a ten million dollar check to make sure they go on vacation during an important vote.
About... 20 years ago? Something like that? They more than tripled the pay of most politicians in Belgium... To "prevent fraud and corruption" and "attract more capable leaders, who would otherwise make too much more in the private sector".
Oddly, the quality of civil service and political decision makers doesn't seem to have improved much.
 
About... 20 years ago? Something like that? They more than tripled the pay of most politicians in Belgium... To "prevent fraud and corruption" and "attract more capable leaders, who would otherwise make too much more in the private sector".
Oddly, the quality of civil service and political decision makers doesn't seem to have improved much.
Also from approximately 20 years ago:
It is difficult to overstate the extent to which most managers and the people who advise them believe in the redemptive power of rewards. [...] a growing collection of evidence supports an opposing view. [...] The findings suggest that the failure of any given incentive program is due less to a glitch in that program than to the inadequacy of the psychological assumptions that ground all such plans.
[...]
Research suggests that, by and large, rewards succeed at securing one thing only: temporary compliance. When it comes to producing lasting change in attitudes and behavior, however, rewards, like punishment, are strikingly ineffective. Once the rewards run out, people revert to their old behaviors.
--Patrick
 
The big issues with incentive plans are that...

- most employees aren't being adequately compensated for their work
- the existence of incentive plans show that employers could be paying them more
- Thus, incentive plans build resentment by showing the working pool at large that none of their current efforts are being rewarded correctly and that their efforts aren't appreciated
 
Drop in the bucket. Apparently like 44 billion dollars has been given to states for rent relief and only 2 billion has been given out. The other 42? WHO KNOWS?
 
Nah man, the gubermint is just using the eviction of thousands of people as an excuse to push their vaccine agenda down out throats...

They should just use dogs and six foot cattle prods instead...
 
Same is happening here. The reason the housing market is so crazy right now is because they are being bought by hedge funds.
 
I constantly get shady offers to buy my house cash that would leave me tens of thousands in debt and without a house. It's tiresome.
 
I'm landlord for a small appartement in Brussels and I'm seriously considering selling it.
I bought it for €80k, and similar apps are now going for around €230k. That would pretty much pay off my house. Price rises have been insane.
 
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