Comments on: What makes a civilised society?

By: podrock

podrock — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 05:49:06 +0000

It’s a sad situation.

By: RobVG

RobVG — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 05:40:11 +0000

Fair enough. It just happened to be on the news. n/t

By: podrock

podrock — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 05:01:51 +0000

I read it. I admit to being snarky.

But:

That China is not transparent has been true for what, several thousand years? That they don’t fancy dissent? Granted.

Also, I don’t want that to happen here.

By: RobVG

RobVG — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 02:53:19 +0000

read://https_www.csmonitor.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.csmonitor.com%2FUSA%2FEducation%2F2021%2F1130%2FCivil-debate-about-education-Two-opponents-offer-a-blueprint

By: podrock

podrock — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 21:26:20 +0000

Strike that. The press is the enemy of autocrats. That’s why they get killed or imprisoned.

By: RL

RL — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 19:42:36 +0000

I am sure no one that thought freedom of the press was important would have voted for him, right?

By: podrock

podrock — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 04:16:26 +0000

Turn over the presidential records from the election to the inauguration to the media. I’ll even subscribe!

And some taxes, too. Let’s crowdsource ‘em.

Congressional stock trades in real time!

By: RobVG

RobVG — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 01:57:13 +0000

With the news blackout in China about the female tennis player who made allegations of sexual misconduct against a communist party member, I’d say freedom of the press is right up there.

By: podrock

podrock — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 23:21:22 +0000

Me, I go back and forth through many emotions. Dark cynicism, optimistic futurism, abject apathy. I look back at history and see darker times than this and how we came through. I look at my own ancestors and what they went through – and not that long ago. Yes, we face some new challenges they could not imagine. Technology, climate change… But my ancestors starved during the potato blight, boarded “coffin” ships, traversed the ocean to find themselves at the dark and dangerous face of a coal seam. Others who sorted coal from shale when they had not even reached puberty. I have not that distant relatives who somehow survived Soviet Gulags.

My days pass better when I think there is nothing we cannot solve. Maybe that is foolish. So be it. Let’s work towards it; set our sights on the bright star.

Of course tomorrow I may be in a darker mood.

By: RL

RL — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 22:42:09 +0000

In general I am a pretty optimistic guy- but on the future of humanity I simply see no path ahead that ends well… I would desperately like to be shown wrong- and I am open to arguments that might be made against my pessimism- but right now I do not see any path forward that does not involve global fascism followed by death on an unimaginable scale… and with every passing year that fate seems several years closer.