Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

You have written a lot about how to understand what is happening. Well, it is tough. But a few pages back I recommended an article for the Wash Post:

 

 

https://www.washingt...5f9a_story.html

 

 

 

I will quote parts.

 

 

Setser has kids and, for now, a job. Jennifer Bowers is his fiancee.

 

 

 

 

and

 

 

 

 

These are not people such that I need a social scientist's help to understand them. They are the from my childhood, and it is here that the action will be in the upcoming election. I hope that the Dems can find a way to speak to them. It was once so.

 

Well, for me, I looked at my own views and they did not seem to coincide with the reality that a lot of people (not all stupid) were reaching conclusions that were skewed, if not ridiculous. I figure there must be some kind of valid reason for sane, reasonably intelligent people to act like nutcases when it comes to choice of candidate to support. The "authoritarian personality" type goes a long way to explaining this phenomenon as far as I can tell.

[mike777]

study published last month in Current Biology found that people who suffer from anxiety struggle to differentiate between neutral (or "safe") stimulus and those associated with threats. Essentially, that means that anxious people experience a behavioral phenomenon known as emotional over-generalization, failing to effectively differentiate emotional situations.

 

"We show that in patients with anxiety, emotional experience induces plasticity in brain circuits that lasts after the experience is over," Dr. Rony Paz, a study author and researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said in a press release. "Such plastic changes occur in primary circuits that later mediate the response to new stimuli, resulting in an inability to discriminate between the originally experienced stimulus and a new similar stimulus."

 

In other words, the brains of people with anxiety fail to adapt to changing situations as effectively as people with non-anxious brains. Once their brain determines a "route" of how to react to a stimulus, that is the route that it continues to take, regardless of changing conditions. Paz continued:

 

"Therefore, anxiety patients respond emotionally to such new stimuli as well, resulting in anxiety even in apparently irrelevant new situations. Importantly, they cannot control this, as it is a perceptual inability to discriminate."

 

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How did the study define and measure "people who suffer from anxiety"

 

I mean this could mean everyone at some point in our lives depending on how they define and measure it. I am anxious to know.

[Al_U_Card]

Of all the empires to rise and fall, the US did the best. Created a system to fight the eventual and inevitable decline which explains the length of time required for this latest phase of the decadent period.

To be the generation that made the transition and is now realizing that they are on the outside, looking in, is uncomfortable and unsettling.

China will have its time but their system is likely to make their hegemony somewhat more fleeting.

Le roi est mort, vivre le roi!

[hrothgar]

Of all the empires to rise and fall, the US did the best. Created a system to fight the eventual and inevitable decline which explains the length of time required for this latest phase of the decadent period.

To be the generation that made the transition and is now realizing that they are on the outside, looking in, is uncomfortable and unsettling.

China will have its time but their system is likely to make their hegemony somewhat more fleeting.

Le roi est mort, vivre le roi!

 

Rome lasted for close to 2,000 years.

 

The US has been around for what, 240?

[helene_t]

Rome lasted for close to 2,000 years.

Then you include the survival of Konstantinopel after the fall of Rome.

 

East Samoa might survive for a while after the fall of USA.

[Al_U_Card]

Then you include the survival of Konstantinopel after the fall of Rome.

 

East Samoa might survive for a while after the fall of USA.

Part of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar concerned his efforts to mint a copper coin for use as currency by the common folk...that was the start of the fall of the Roman Empire but nowadays things are moving ever faster...

[Zelandakh]

Rome lasted for close to 2,000 years.

 

The US has been around for what, 240?

The Egyptians didn't do so bad either. Comparing US culture with the of the Maya, there is reason to suggest that it might not even be the "best" of the Americas, let alone the world.

[gwnn]

Could you elaborate on that?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Maya_culture

[Zelandakh]

Could you elaborate on that?

The link you give covers the period 250-1697. You have to judge cultures by the standards of their time. Obviously they were not producing nuclear bombs or Hollywood movies. I think the historical record is silent on whether they were using waterboarding.

[gwnn]

If you judge cultures by their time you are soon going to end up with a (near-) tautology. In other words, all numbers (other than zero) are 1 if they are properly normalized. But even granting all of that, there were other cultures where human sacrifice was frowned upon, and much befoee 1697. I don't know how you can say that the Maya were possibly superior to the US. I do get the feeling that they're impossible to compare although I do not subscribe to it. Could you elaborate on your previous post? For instance what aspect of culture do you mean, etc. Not interested in a heated debate (sorry if I came across like that) but I'd like to know what you meant.

[kenberg]

So Zeus comes down from on high and congratulates you on winning the lottery. The prize? You get to be mapped into any culture that you wish, but you cannot pick the person or the rank. So you can choose to be Mayan, but not a Mayan King. You can choose to be an American, but not Warren Buffett. You take your chances on who. We could jazz it up by letting you pick the era, but you are randomly assigned to a body. Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Midnight in Paris. Peggy Sue Got Married.

Good movies all.

 

Me, I'll go back to the America of my youth, c.1950. Sentimental choice maybe, but I liked it there. If someone prefers the Mayan culture, go ahead.

[PassedOut]

While many of the republicans who pointed out earlier that Donald Trump is dangerously unqualified to be president of the US have now prostrated themselves before him, the real stalwarts like the Bushes, Romney, along with wealthy contributors like the Kochs, have not. One reason: For decades, GOP has used the war on drugs or voter ID laws as cover for race-baiting. Trump just blew their cover

 

As Nixon aide John Ehrlichman explained to Harper’s Dan Baum in 1994, “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be against black, but by getting the public to associate . . . blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing” the drug “we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Now that there is a "heroin epidemic" among white voters, politicians are coming around to the idea that prison is not the solution.

B-)

[gwnn]

So Zeus comes down from on high and congratulates you on winning the lottery. The prize? You get to be mapped into any culture that you wish, but you cannot pick the person or the rank. So you can choose to be Mayan, but not a Mayan King. You can choose to be an American, but not Warren Buffett. You take your chances on who. We could jazz it up by letting you pick the era, but you are randomly assigned to a body. Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Midnight in Paris. Peggy Sue Got Married.

Good movies all.

 

Me, I'll go back to the America of my youth, c.1950. Sentimental choice maybe, but I liked it there. If someone prefers the Mayan culture, go ahead.

the veil of ignorance! beautiful.

 

I don't think I'm a bit Obama-sycophant but I tend to agree with him that today is the most peaceful, best period of human history. I guess we'll see how we fare when we run out of oil/fresh water/the Saudis get a nuke/we all fry together when we fry*.

 

*

 

I like the way Dan Carlin (history amateur podcaster) put it: the worst case scenario today (say ISIS manages to get a nuclear bomb to a major American city and sets it off, killing 100k people and rendering large areas uninhabitable) would have been a best case scenario (out of the bad ones) in the Cold War.

[kenberg]

the veil of ignorance! beautiful.

 

I don't think I'm a bit Obama-sycophant but I tend to agree with him that today is the most peaceful, best period of human history. I guess we'll see how we fare when we run out of oil/fresh water/the Saudis get a nuke/we all fry together when we fry*.

 

*

 

I like the way Dan Carlin (history amateur podcaster) put it: the worst case scenario today (say ISIS manages to get a nuclear bomb to a major American city and sets it off, killing 100k people and rendering large areas uninhabitable) would have been a best case scenario (out of the bad ones) in the Cold War.

 

Well, if I were to look at the downsides of that era, I suppose polio would be a more direct and concrete concern. I was approaching this more in the context of whether I would rather live in the Mayan culture, or the US culture. The US had this danger of atomic warfare, but of course the Mayans had this issue with the Spanish. All true, but the discussion was about superior civilizations rather than threats to survival. Of course "superior civilization" can be defined in a way to make practically anything come out on top, you had said something like this earlier, but one approach is to ask which culture I would rather live in, given that my birth rank in that culture will be randomly assigned.

 

It is often noted that in the US today the people that are born into, say, the bottom quintile economically have a much tougher time climbing up than was the case in 1950. At any rate, they find it tougher, so I understand and I think it is probably true, to survive in any comfort. This is the sort of choice I was addressing. That and the fact that I have good memories from then.

 

I do think that people worried more about polio than about the Russians. I was not factoring either issue in. Also, if I am to be mapped somewhere I want to take Becky with me or it's a no go. I was not including that either.

 

Actually the whole thing was a not well thought out fantasy.

[awm]

So Zeus comes down from on high and congratulates you on winning the lottery. The prize? You get to be mapped into any culture that you wish, but you cannot pick the person or the rank. So you can choose to be Mayan, but not a Mayan King. You can choose to be an American, but not Warren Buffett. You take your chances on who. We could jazz it up by letting you pick the era, but you are randomly assigned to a body. Here Comes Mr. Jordan. Midnight in Paris. Peggy Sue Got Married.

Good movies all.

 

Me, I'll go back to the America of my youth, c.1950. Sentimental choice maybe, but I liked it there. If someone prefers the Mayan culture, go ahead.

 

I suspect you would not be so happy with this choice if you wound up African-American (pre civil rights) especially in the South!

 

I'd go for one of several European countries (like Norway, Denmark, or Switzerland) in the present day. US or Great Britain is probably better if in the upper half of income distribution though.

[kenberg]

I suspect you would not be so happy with this choice if you wound up African-American (pre civil rights) especially in the South!

 

I'd go for one of several European countries (like Norway, Denmark, or Switzerland) in the present day. US or Great Britain is probably better if in the upper half of income distribution though.

 

Of course this is so. I figure I'll take my chances. I figure it is not great being at the bottom of the heap anywhere. Possibly my fantasy could actually lead to some sort of interesting look. Maybe.

 

I did not grow up poor but I also definitely did not grow up in the upper economic half. Life was pretty good. I lived in the same house throughout my childhood, my mother was at home when I got out of school, neighborhood friends were welcome in the house, the neighborhood was safe, I walked half a block to the pretty decent elementary school and, in the winter, half a block in the other direction to the skating rink. And I had the best comic book collection in the neighborhood. It seems to me this is more than a lot of people at the below median income level can say today.

 

I don't know how to fix it, but it seems something is broken. Which I guess brings this diversion back to the election.

 

PS I am not saying life was idyllic. I could easily list some complaints. But all in all, I think many today can only hope for as much. The country is richer, so I don't get it.

[Al_U_Card]

Exactly where I was, when I was. Anything else would be out of phase with the person I was intended to be.

Vaguely reminiscent of the Sly and the family Stone admonition to "respect yourself". ;)

[mike777]

the veil of ignorance! beautiful.

 

I don't think I'm a bit Obama-sycophant but I tend to agree with him that today is the most peaceful, best period of human history. I guess we'll see how we fare when we run out of oil/fresh water/the Saudis get a nuke/we all fry together when we fry*.

 

*

 

I like the way Dan Carlin (history amateur podcaster) put it: the worst case scenario today (say ISIS manages to get a nuclear bomb to a major American city and sets it off, killing 100k people and rendering large areas uninhabitable) would have been a best case scenario (out of the bad ones) in the Cold War.

 

 

Speaking of running out of fresh water. We are awash in water, as you point out the issue is fresh water. The good news is we know how to turn salt water into fresh water. The bad news is it is very expensive because of of such huge amounts of energy and its cost. However i predict within your lifetime we will be able to lower the cost of such energy to something close to zero which means we can create fresh water at a cost close to zero, which means we can grow food at a cost close to zero.

 

 

There are difficult problems to overcome in harnessing energy from space at very low costs but I am optimistic solutions are close, close within your lifetime.

[Zelandakh]

There are difficult problems to overcome in harnessing energy from space at very low costs but I am optimistic solutions are close, close within your lifetime.

We have been "about 20 years" away from cheap energy solutions for as long as I can remember, basically my entire lifetime. What makes you think it will be different this generation?

[kenberg]

We have been "about 20 years" away from cheap energy solutions for as long as I can remember, basically my entire lifetime. What makes you think it will be different this generation?

 

There is a flip side to that. In my high school years (1952-1956) there were frequent classroom discussions explaining that we would be running out of oil in 20 years. 20 seems to be a useful number. Close enough to get your attention, far enough away that nobody can give a convincing argument that the speaker is wrong.

 

Something fun, perhaps instructive, would be to dig up forecasts from those years. The local newspaper was the St. Paul Pioneer Press (morning) and St. Paul Dispatch (evening). On Sundays there would be a supplement, often containing either glowing or ominous projections into the future, and yes, usually 20 years off. One I particularly recall: Father and son would, it was said, argue about who would go in to the shop to do the work, the work being to push a button to get the robots moving. Whether this should be put in the glowing or the ominous category isn't completely clear.

[mike777]

We have been "about 20 years" away from cheap energy solutions for as long as I can remember, basically my entire lifetime. What makes you think it will be different this generation?

 

What made you believe we have been 20 years away from a cheap energy solution for as long as you remember?

 

 

As for my comments, a generation is 20 years...I did not say that though your time frame may indeed be true.

 

 

The main reason for my optimism that this will happen within Gwnn's lifetime is the belief in that as new technologies get smaller and cheaper, their growth becomes exponential.

[Zelandakh]

What made you believe we have been 20 years away from a cheap energy solution for as long as you remember?

It is practically a joke amongst physicists. Scientists have been reporting fusion as 20 years away since the 50s, if not earlier. The same number turns up constantly when it comes to other cheap energy sources. Yes, some respected scientists such as Michio Kaku are saying it really is true this time but many others are far more skeptical. A couple of years ago Lockheed Martin were the latest in a long line promising unlimited clean energy in 20 years. You can probably imagine the sound of laughter coming from physics faculties all over the world...

[mike777]

It is practically a joke amongst physicists. Scientists have been reporting fusion as 20 years away since the 50s, if not earlier. The same number turns up constantly when it comes to other cheap energy sources. Yes, some respected scientists such as Michio Kaku are saying it really is true this time but many others are far more skeptical. A couple of years ago Lockheed Martin were the latest in a long line promising unlimited clean energy in 20 years. You can probably imagine the sound of laughter coming from physics faculties all over the world...

 

 

ahh ok...

 

 

The good news is I have been using energy from fusion to grow food in my back yard for years. As i mentioned we even know how to use it to convert fresh water from salt water. The bad news is it is very expensive to use this energy to do this conversion. There are many difficult issues to lower this energy cost and conversion to close to zero so I do not mean to minimize the challenge but I remain optimistic.

[barmar]

Of course this is so. I figure I'll take my chances. I figure it is not great being at the bottom of the heap anywhere. Possibly my fantasy could actually lead to some sort of interesting look. Maybe.

I think I've read that it's still far better to be poor in America than in the median in a third-world country.

PS I am not saying life was idyllic. I could easily list some complaints. But all in all, I think many today can only hope for as much. The country is richer, so I don't get it.

Income inequality. The country is richer, but much more of it is in the hands of the 1%.

[mike777]

ncome inequality. The country is richer, but much more of it is in the hands of the 1%.

 

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Ok what policies do you want to pass to reverse this?

 

If you want to reverse this by what definition and measurement equals success?

 

 

Or do you think this is a nonproblem?

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For example my goals might be:

 

1) more people employed in full time jobs, many more

2) rising wages compared to inflation.

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failure would look like:

 

decrease or tiny increase in full time jobs

decrease or tiny decrease in wages, after inflation

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I note none of this addresses income inequality

or free health care for all

or free college for all

or a wealth tax however you prefer to define wealth

 

 

all of the above are current hot topics for discussion on the political table.