Boyband or the Highwaymen (country super group), I liked listening to them both.

IN order not to totally derail Javi's castigation of Spain's decrepit economy, here's a lefty American folk song which is applicable to agriculture in Spain (where the rain may or may not stay mainly on the plain resulting in greater or smaller yields):

I really am glad you are familiar with labor songs such as this and that you posted it. But Panopticon's recording sucks! What screwy method was used in the recording studio?

I first heard this song on a Folkways record in 1972.

Here's a performance by the song's author -- Sarah Ogan Gunning. Her voice is not pretty, but it's authentic. Harlan County, Kentucky was where a lot of underground mining was done -- very hard on the workers. Now coal is mostly extracted in open pits -- easier on the workers, far worse for the land (unless the mining companies restore the land -- which tends to reduce their profit margins).



Come all you coal miners wherever you may be
And listen to a story that I'll relate to thee
My name is nothing extra, but the truth to you I'll tell
I am a coal miner's wife, I'm sure l wish you well.
l was born in old Kentucky, in a coal camp born and bred,
I know all about the pinto beans, bulldog gravy and cornbread,
And I know how the coal miners work and slave in the coal mines every day
For a dollar in the company store, for that is all they pay.
Coal mining is the most dangerous work in our land today
With plenty of dirty. slaving work, and very little pay.
Coal miner, won't you wake up, and open your eyes and see
What the dirty capitalist system is doing to you and me.
They take your very life blood, they take our children's lives
They take fathers away from children, and husbands away from wives.
Oh miner, won't you organize wherever you may be
And make this a land of freedom for workers like you and me.
Dear miner, they will slave you 'til you can't work no more
And what'll you get for your living but a dollar in a company store
A tumbled-down shack to live in, snow and rain pours in the top.
You have to pay the company rent, your dying never stops.
I am a coal miner's wife, I'm sure l wish you well.
Let's sink this capitalist system in the darkest pits of hell.

1) We are also a country with a high number of low-skilled workers. Who would manufacture those microchips? — javi2541997

Rural people in Asia weren't born knowing how to manufacture microchips. A lot of the labor on the factory floor isn't immensely complicated. Very high-tech machines do a lot of the work. Spain could buy he high tech machines from the Netherlands, just up the coast a ways, who have a lock on the premier fabrication technology (so I have read).

Pedro Sanchez wanted to build a factory of microchips in Madrid. — javi2541997

There have been various schemes to build big high-tech factories in the industrial midwest of this country. Some have succeeded, many never saw the light of day. It's just damn hard to compete with cheap labor of the sort that Asia has in abundance. (Not that your average Asian likes being cheap labor on behalf of Foxconn, Apple, et al.). Same for Mexico: Lots of cheap labor, which Mexicans would likely prefer to not be.

I guess ecologists would not be happy with that — javi2541997

This is true everywhere. Metal is indispensable--not just for our advanced civilization, such as it is, but civilization at all. Somehow the ecologists and extreme greens suppose that we can maintain civilization without more copper, iron, nickel, zinc, tin, etc. and elements like Lithium · Beryllium · Rubidium · Strontium · Cesium · Barium, uranium · phosphorus · potassium, etc. For instance, computer, TV, and smart phone screens and mini-speakers require elements like yttrium and neodymium. They have to be dug up and refined--all messy processes. Are the anti-mining folk ready to do without their big, bright, screens? Go back to landlines, green computer screens, and black and white TVs (which used a lot of lead)? Probably not.

Mining can be done better and it can be done worse. Generally we can extract and refine metals without wrecking the environment -- it just costs more to be neat and clean.

Spain does have a tourist industry, which means service employees, and sadly they don't get paid a lot. Spain also produces quite a lot of agricultural products--essential to everyone who likes to eat, but the big money is in processing and marketing food, not in growing it. BTW, I have a bottle of Spanish olive oil in the kitchen. So...

Spain also produces ceramics and flamingo dresses. Why do flamingos even need dresses? Spain also harvests cork. Cork used to be used in very nice flooring and walls; now it mostly gets stuffed into bottles.

In 2021, Spain produced roughly 3.8 billion euros worth of mineral products. Spain is an important producer of copper, tungsten, fluorspar, magnesite, and bentonite, among others. In 2021, it ranked as the fourth leading country worldwide in tungsten reserves, and the seventh in fluorspar and magnesite production.

My advice: keep digging.

Unfortunately, mining is not all that popular with the populace: dust, big holes, noise, toxic waste, etc. Minnesota has lots of big holes and piles of mining waste. It can be a problem. Miners do tend to get paid well, but machinery has long since taken the place of masses of men with picks and shovels.

Has Spain considered more manufacturing? There's a big demand these days for military drones, for instance. They are profitable and the killer drones have a short life, so lots of replacement orders--€€€!

North Korea recently got into the mercenary business, sending soldiers to help the poor Russians out in Ukraine. Maybe your guys would like to do that?--not for the Russians, of course. Canada, Greenland, and Panama will be needing soldiers to defend their territories from the acquisitive Trump administration. Stop by the Denmark embassy and ask what their plans to defend Greenland are.

Hey, Javi, things could be much worse than you think they are!

Spain is the world's 15th largest economy by nominal GDP and the sixth-largest in Europe. Spain is a member of the European Union and the eurozone, as well as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization. In 2023, Spain was the 18th-largest exporter in the world.

Every country has disreputable episodes in its history, bar none. Might as well blame it on those wicked Visigoths!

I very much doubt that it's a good idea to commemorate / celebrate / or ruminate over Franco's existence. Maybe you all should dig him up and burn him at the stake in order to get closure.

This makes me sad: The average income in 1975 Spain was €15K, and now €31K. I don't see a big improvement. We are a country of low wages, as always — javi2541997

A doubling of the average income over 50 years isn't terribly good, unless you compare it to the growth in wages between, say, 500 a.d. and 1400 a.d. when wages didn't grow at all. But working people in many countries have suffered from slowly rising income over the last 50 years. So welcome to our oppression by capitalist scum!

China is probably willing to use military force (aka war) to force Taiwan into union with the PRC.

True, Taiwan produces a large share of advanced chips. (The Netherland produces a large share of the advanced machines which make the advanced chips.). Presumably, the PRC would find the equipment blown to bits and of no use to them.

We could preemptively move Taiwan's industry to Wisconsin -- machines and necessary personnel.

Outside of chips and dips, how much does anyone in the US care about Taiwan? Know anyone from Taiwan?

How committed to Taiwan's defense is the US? Japan? Korea?

I'd prefer to see Taiwan continue on as an independent country.

Right; a group of armed Fascists for Jesus seizing the White House shouldn't have free speech / freedom of religion defense in court. However, they wouldn't need guns to seize the White House if a sympathetic candidate were duly elected to the presidency [How could that POSSIBLY happen?]

British, French, American (et al) activities in the Middle East have triggered reactions among various ethnic and religious groups--not least among them founding the state of Israel. This has been discussed extensively and I don't have anything new to add to the topic.

But I would like to raise a related issue: how do we deal with militant politico-religious groups anywhere, including our own?

How do we deal with American Christian Nationalism? Who is responsible for 'causing' it? Should it be stamped out? Should it be punished? Forbidden? Who has the responsibility for solving the problem of American Christian Nationalism?

I'm not claiming that our far-right extremists are no different than Jihadists. I'm just wondering whether we have enough insight into extreme political and religious behavior to deal with either one effectively.

In my opinion, extreme political / religious behavior, whether Islamic, Christian, Hindu, or what have you is NOT compatible with secular societies (which, of course, can contain actively religious citizens). Recognizing it as incompatible, however, doesn't tell us what to do about it, at home or abroad.

Taking all the feasible steps up the chain of command might well be an exercise in futility. Or not. It depends. Revolutionaries might rather just shoot the chain of command rather than wasting time talking to it.

I understand the appeal of radical action, but many unlikeable institutions (like a despotic governments or corrupt health insurance companies) are generally quite capable of taking care of themselves and arranging for their long-term survival. Revolutionaries will more likely than not be the ones who are shot or locked up in a dungeon.

To successfully destroy United Health Care, Luigi would have needed excellent planning and coordination skills, great leadership talent, and many comrades. Infiltrating the company with subversives would have helped. But decapitating a large company wouldn't be enough. One would have to decapitate the protecting government as well, and be done in such a way that it would leave the rest of the government establishment stunned and inoperative.

It worked fairly well for the Bolsheviks to shoot the Romanov's, thereby decapitating the heart of the Russian government. Decapitating the US government would be much more difficult for even very competent and highly motivated revolutionaries to pull off.

Protest may not be enough, but it might be all that is possible.

a proposal to construct pigeon-guided missiles — Arcane Sandwich

Very steam punk! Big steam engines driving a missile with a flock of pigeons in the nose cone pecking away.

Walden Two is Skinner's utopian novel / science fiction (depending on how you feel). When I was much younger and encountering Skinner I found behaviorism somewhat repellent. Skinner didn't believe we had free will. I used to think we did. It seems like we do because there are too many behavioral determinants to even begin keeping track of. Now the idea of not having free will seems like a commonplace.

(Nobody has free will except me and thee, and even thee seems a bit influenced by external factors.)

Maybe behaviorism isn't warm and fuzzy, but there is a lot less bullshit in it than Freudianism or Jungianism.

True enough, cognitive neuroscience has much more explanatory power than psychoanalysis does. However, Freud (born in 1856, died in 1939) predates cognitive neuroscience. "Psychology" as an academic field had barely gotten off the ground when Freud was busy cooking up baloney.

I don't know WHO came up with the Copernicus/Darwin/Freud quote, but I don't think it was Sigmund Freud--I'm pretty sure the quote jelled well after Freud's death. It is the case, however, that Freud was quite pessimistic; he didn't think that happiness was in the cards for us. His psychoanalytic theory (such as it is) doesn't lead one towards optimism.

EDIT: You might like knowing that one of the founders of modern propaganda and public relations was Signund Freud's nephew -- Edward Bernays.

I could elaborate, but if I did, I would spoil the good impression I made on you. Besides, it's highly unoriginal. It's just pieces I picked up elsewhere.

Like some insightful person summed up: Copernicus showed that we are not the center of the universe; Darwin revealed that we are descendants of apes; and Freud tells us that we are not even masters of our own houses. If that wasn't enough, biologists keep finding examples of other animals capable of thinking. Our machines might out-maneuver us.

Interesting point about Tolkien: Roughly 80% of the words in the Lord of the Rings trilogy are Anglo-Saxon words that make up the 'core' of English. Around 20% are derived from the French of the Norman conquest. The mostly short, common words in the core make the text easy to read, very accessible, and distinctly flavored.

If one wants to produce a text that will be equally easy to read and as accessible, one can use this set of a few thousand words. Allowing short common words derived from French makes it a little easier to write more complex text.

Of course, Tolkien also utilized the social structures of a folk-tale past, in which were wizards, orcs, elves, demons like Sauron. and witch kings. I've read LOTR maybe 10 times, and read some of his other books (like the Silmarillion). At this point in my life, I probably won't read him again, but he never became tiresome or stale.

I also will not go through the dictionary again looking for common and obscure Anglo-Saxon words. When I did that, the Internet didn't exist yet. Today one can find word lists like that.

Sorry, @Brendan Golledge for distracting from your worthwhile OP.

Men are mortal. — Brendan Golledge

True. Looking down the barrel at my own mortality. And at this point, there seem to be insoluble political problems stacked up like cord wood. I attribute these plentiful insolubles to the facts of our primate heritage: On one hand, we have this big brain which is capable of complex thought. On the other hand the brain also runs a powerful, and generally none too rational emotional operation. Who's running the show -- the prefrontal cortex or the limbic system? Seems like the limbic system is, as often as not, in charge.

Over the last century, the use frequency of "men", "women", "human", and "people" in print has changed quite a bit.

In 1922 the most common collective term was "men" with "people" a close second. "human" and "women" trailed behind in close third and fourth place. In 2022, "people" was far and away the most common collective term, while "human", "men", and "women" trailed in close second, third, and fourth place.

"Men" as the preferred collective term prevailed long after the medieval period--into the 20th century. We can say that today, "people" is the preferred collective term -- much more so than human, men, or women.

This information is from Google N-Gram.

Wars are not Ethical by definition. — Arcane Sandwich

I'm a pacifist and I agree that wars are unethical. Pacifism is an individual position. Nations can not take that view. Nations don't worry about ethics. Nations have interests, and that's what guides them. The leaders of a given nation may be very mistaken about their bests interests, but that's all part of the limits of intelligence.

Ethics are a matter of individual behavior. A politician can be ethical or unethical. National policy is apart from, not ruled by, individual ethics.

This difference creates a conflict between a state and its citizens. The good of the country may involve actions that, from an individual perspective, may range from merely wrong all the way to abomination. Our nuclear policy falls into that category. To maintain weapons in sufficient quantity to kill off our species and many others in one short day of nuclear warfare is an abomination. It's worse than wrong.

Generals and politicians, even some citizens, may decide that mutually assured destruction is OK as long as the other side doesn't win. Most citizens, some politicians, and even some generals will consider reject the idea.

The ethics of pacifism will lead some to reject their membership in and obligations to a state. This can lead to a difficult life as an outsider. Some men moved to other countries in the Vietnam war era to effectively reject their native land.

In the case of the October attack by Hamas on Israel, it's difficult to take a pacifist position. The attack was bad and the reprisals (the apparently goal of which is to destroy Gaza) leave nothing to approve. What we have is Iran (Hamas) and the State of Israel pursuing their interests, and damn anybody who gets in the way.

dignified — Arcane Sandwich

And what's 'dignity' got to do with it?

I don't think that persuasiveness has anything to do with their success. — Arcane Sandwich

I'm not talking here about the persuasiveness of argument or logic. The "persuasiveness" of which I speak is the persuasiveness of bombs blowing up one's city, having one's harbors mined--that sort of thing. You are right, though: nations do often resist "gunboats". Their cities can be bombed without leading to capitulation. The Soviet Union lost a lot to the Nazi war machine, but they did not consider giving up the fight.

Not to overlook Japan in WWII: They had accumulated quite a bit of conquered territory before "WWII" proper got under way. Pearl Harbor was one piece of a coordinated attack that day. Thanks to our own conquest of North America, the US was able to mount a war in both the Pacific and in Europe.

Both Japan and Germany recognized their need to acquire the kind of resources that the USSR, United States, and the British Empire controlled--minerals, productive land, productive people, oil... That was the policy behind the war--take it away from those who possessed it and use it for their own purposes. After all, that's what the USSR, British Empire, and the Americans (and others) had done successfully.

On the other hand, most of Europe ended up under German control in WWII, and had Hitler finished off Great Britain and not attacked the USSR, things might have turned out differently.

You are also right about who gets left with the destruction. It took Europe a long time to clean up the 'mess' of WWII; WWI and WWII bombs are still being dug up and disarmed. Bones of dead soldiers still surface in fields. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia still bear the scars of bombing and defoliation chemicals (Agent Orange). There is not much left to Gaza, save rubble.

War, especially as it developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries, is indeed barbaric. But that's people for you: we are never very far from barbarism.

Have we forgotten Clausewitz? War is a mere continuation of policy by other means. (longer quote at end of post)

Russia's invasion of the Ukraine was the result of policy / politics. The same goes for the war in Sudan or Gaza, or any other war you care to name. The facts of policy lead to the facts of war -- how bad a war is going to be; how long, how short, how ghastly, etc.

Given our mixed primate heritage (big bright brain, willingness to kill, etc.) humans are and always have been capable of waging war using whatever means are at hand -- sticks, rocks, bullets, bombs, nuclear devices...

Getting back to policy, though. Sometimes policy can sound quite lunatic: buying Greenland; bringing Canada (kicking and screaming) into the American union of states; Germany acquiring the grain fields of Ukraine and Russia as well as its oil fields. The European powers liked the policy of owning everything as soon as Columbus got back from his first trip. We Americans established the policy of Manifest Destiny early on, which led to a long stretch of wars on various groups.

The goods of the planet are not evenly distributed, and we, greedy bastards that we are, generally take it easy, but we take it (if at all possible) from others who just happen to be sitting on it. Like the residents of Congo who find themselves witting on suddenly desirable cobalt. A world power hasn't stepped in yet to seize it, but local entrepreneurial entities are busy taking it and leaving a mess behind. (Belgium seized a good deal of the riches of the Congo while they had it in their grasp. Cobalt and uranium were of less interest than rubber, at the time.)

Gun Boat diplomacy is not a contradiction in terms. Powerless nations -- Nepal, say -- can try to be a diplomatic intermediary, but the diplomacy of nations with gun boats will be more 'effective'. The US or China can be much more persuasive.

I don't like it, but that's the way it is. I admire the peace policy of Quakers, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, or the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, but they don't sway national policy much.





Clausewitz (1780–1831) We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.

I was merrily reading The Power Broker until Moses started getting really nasty. Caro is a great biographer. You could start on his bio of Lyndon B. Johnson, if you think you'll live long enough.

A shorter book, The Public Burning by Robert Coover, (1976) an account of the events leading up to the execution of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953, might be a nice change of pace. It's historical fiction -- most of the characters are historical; you might even consider The Phantom (communists) and Uncle Sam (jingoism cubed) real. The story is narrated by Richard M. Nixon, who spends quite a bit of time reflecting on his own virtues.

It's quite funny, despite the subject matter. For instance, in the prologue the execution is scheduled to take place in Times Square with a replica of the Sing Sing execution chamber on a stage. Times Square is decorated in red, white, and blue bunting, flags, etc. This is Uncle Sam's doing. Happily the plan is spoiled by The Phantom (presumably). Signage on the stage begins to be corrupted: "AMERICA THE HOPE OF THE WORLD" mysteriously changes into "AMERICA THE JOKE OF THE WORLD" and worse things. Eventually the whole stage collapses into the street in a big wind storm.

It was recommended in a NYT editorial a few days ago. It is weirdly relevant.

I am not familiar with every large gay community in the US, but I am more familiar with Boystown in Chicago than any other outside of my hometown. At one time, Minneapolis had a (smaller) gay ghetto like Chicago's -- and in it one could find gay businesses, service providers, social support, and the like. We also had two gay newspapers. Minneapolis's core city just isn't as big as Chicago's core city.

Boystown is still there; the Minneapolis community is mostly gone. The newspapers folded; the baths, cruising parks, adult bookstores, and the like are gone. Many of the social and religious institutions, like the softball league and other athletic groups, Lutherans Concerned, etc. fizzled out. The bar scene isn't what it used to be, by a long shot.

Gay people, of course, didn't go away. We're still here. And the bad stuff, like young people getting kicked out of their home, still happens. But mainline institutions have changed. Lutheran Social Services has two facilities for homeless youth, for instance. MCC is still in business, but the local mainline churches welcome gay individuals and couples, pretty much across the board.

I witnessed these changes over a 50+ year period, 1971 to the present. I would describe them as 'natural evolution'--not altogether welcome, but a result of internal as well as external changes in society.

One thing I am not very familiar with is how young gay people experience their identity today. I just don't have a lot of contact with young gay people in my old age. Their experience is likely not quite the same as it was in 1965 or 2000. "Gender discourse" has moved to the front of the class. I knew a few men and women transitioning from one gender to the other in the 1970s, but the 'discourse' wasn't as expansive then as it is now. and these pioneers had a steeper climb in some ways than they do now. Most gay men and women pair off in various ways now as they did in 1971, but they have more options now.

And they mostly run into a lot less hostility. It isn't that society is uniformly accepting and supportive; but at least among liberal Minnesotans, outright homo hating is bad form. We have become facts on the ground which even conservative types pretty much have to acknowledge.

... individuals found themselves rejected and ostracized over their behavior, which in many cases they had no control over? A feminine-acting gay male could be the target of bullies, and their partnership with another male not legally recognized. A tight-knit gay community was necessary as long as gays felt unsafe in mainstream society. — Joshs

Gays have been subjected to instances of bullying, beatings, and murder, true enough. In my experience, gays managed to get along in a frequently unfriendly society by keeping a low profile when necessary. I'm not sure how much protection was gained by being a tightly knit community. Whatever tight-knit community existed was more the result of seeking sex, partners and love. Informal institutions -- cruising, bathhouses, bars, adult bookstores, and so forth were the core of at least the gay male community. Later, by the mid 1970s, social institutions became more prominent -- religious, social, or sport groups. Without the cell phone and internet, physical proximity was essential.

Greatly increased tolerance of homosexuality and electronic methods of finding partners has eroded "the gay community" such as it was pretty much out of existence.

In recent decades, media, including movies, series, and magazines, have driven unattainable archetypes of masculinity and femininity. — Benkei

Certainly during the last 5 or 6 decades this has been true, but it seems like the projection of an IDEAL look for men and women has been going on for a long time. Body shape, clothing, and various aspects of personal projection and promotion have been the province of fashion and style for a long time--centuries, not decades.

I'll readily grant that identity for some people has fractured--and not just around sexual identity. At the same time, most of the adults I know (various ages) seem to have secure, intact, robust identities. The more extreme and artificial one's identity is, the more likely it is to crack. One sees this in very religious individuals whose religion is no longer working for them the way it once did. The fracture can be quite distressing,

it’s a reaction to the insecurity fostered by hyper-individualism and identity fragmentation. — Benkei

I'm not sure I understand what 'hyper-individualism' is -- as it might apply to most people. Of course, there are people who march to a different drummer -- or they march along to some obscure beat originating in their own brain -- and they can be pretty "far out". You have to be tough to be a pioneer in new-gender invention, and some of these people strike me as kind of fragile.

There is quite a bit of blow-back against excessive individualism from the Church and from some political institutions, focusing on what I suppose is a perceived abandonment of collective commitments to others, to 'the community'. The abandonment isn't altogether imaginary.

Individualism which is rooted in a community is a different species than the individualism of the altogether detached person without social connection.

Didn't Gandhi and King endure the violence of the British and the southern cops / mobs respectively?

What about the Dutch, one might ask. They seem like a peaceful, non-imperialistic society. Except, that they fought for their independence from Spain; they did establish imperial operations overseas; I'm not sure whether or not they were internally repressive at various points. It seems like they were unusually tolerant at a time when most kingdoms were not particularly tolerant.

American Indian tribes are fairly often suggested as peaceful and unwarlike. Except they, like humans everywhere, resorted to violence against other tribes when that was the most expedient option.

You know that painting, The Peaceable Kingdom, where the predators and prey are lounging about in each other's close company? As one cynic put it, "The lion and the lamb may lie down together, but the lion will sleep a lot better than the lamb will." Lions stay predators and lambs stay prey. Strong countries tend to be predators, and weak countries tend to be prey.

Humans can display a great deal of solidarity, cooperation, loyalty and trust when either a sufficiently dangerous threat or an irresistible opportunity presents itself. Americans could unite to defend ourselves from the British, or unite to happily seize the northern 60% of Mexico, without later regrets.

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

his is an astute observation that most people don't seem to acknowledge anymore. Nietzsche pointed this out, correctly, that all good things in human history have been the product of bloody and gruesome events. That's not to say we should keep doing it for because of that, but it is worth acknowledging. — Bob Ross

It seems to me that you could just as easily make the case that good things have overwhelmingly involved cooperation, loyalty, trust, and love. It's a selective history. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You are both right. Take the United States: Good soil, geographic advantages, forests, huge mineral deposits, etc. were tremendous advantages, gained through colonialism, enslavement, conquest, dispossession of native people, and military power. Bloody and gruesome, but that's how it was done. On the other hand cooperation, loyalty, trust, and love -- all good things -- were indispensable in the development of the scientific / industrial revolutions, growth of agriculture, trade, industry, and culture which brought about our prosperous present state. .

My preferential option is always for cooperation, loyalty, trust and love. That said, our species lapses into violence all too often, and there are too many cases to need a citation.

Thanks for your thoughtful insight, as always!

My basic political orientation tells me to be against nationalism, western supremacy, and imperialism. Socialists are supposed to see all nations as one, all workers as brothers, etc. etc. On the other hand, nationalism seems like a reasonable vehicle for large-scale organization. I don't see the species as anywhere close to ready to abandon national identity.

As for imperialism, its methods are a proven method of advancement for the imperialistic power -- be it the Romans or the British, Mughal or Dutch, this dynasty or any of the other numerous empires that have arisen and fallen. People dither over colonialism and imperial conquest, but where would much of the world be today if no ambitious group had set out to capture as much territory as possible, and in doing so, gained glory, riches, and power to fuel its cultural development?

Every culture might be equal in the endeavor to meet basic human requirements, but that's a low bar. Some cultures are better than others--Not necessarily better at any given instant, but on average, superior cultures get better over time. Inferior civilizations get worse over time.

I've was lucky enough to be born in a culture which benefitted from a long history of colonialism, imperialism, and western supremacy. Had I been born in a culture which was the recipient of the hob-nailed boot, I'd look at things differently, I suppose.

If a people want to get ahead, nationalism, imperialism, supremacy, dominance, force -- that's how it's done.

As a child I wasn't sure that goblins (fiends from hell) didn't exist. I feared that monsters were lurking in the unlit coal bin in the barn when it was my turn to fill up buckets of coal to bring to the house. Eventually, (around age 50--just joking) I stopped fearing monsters. However: our brains are prone to fears of neo-monsters in adulthood. As adults, we can suppress or dissolve these fears--most of the time. When we can't suppress or dissolve, we might start seeing monsters in the sky -- drones, flying saucers, human-abducting aliens, communists doing subversion, white supremacists plotting coups, (oh wait, that one might be true) the whole weird garbage heap.

Our irrational fears may be underscored by sensible fears. I fear the widespread use of drones for package delivery because they will be annoying, intrusive, and unavoidable. People have similar fears about infrastructure projects -- freeways, big airports, super-tall billionaire residential towers, etc. There is clearly a lot more sky traffic over New Jersey than there is over me, and I don't envy them.

There is also the power of suggestion. If actual alien abductions had been witnessed 10 times, but had never been mentioned to anyone at any time, rumors of these weird events would not have propagated.

A hungry bear will just eat her alive. Nothing to worry about.

One of the things I find annoying about the drone business in New Jersey is the dismissal of observations reported by ordinary people. I live relatively close to a large airport in a metropolitan area. There's also a military air base operation. I've never had difficulty identifying what was overhead from sound alone -- prop planes, jets, and helicopters of various sizes make different kinds of noises, and they move in distinctive ways. In the day time one can see them, too, of course.

True enough, a large passenger plane taking off at night can seem like it is hovering at certain points in its flight, but this is a very short-lived phenomena. Within a minute or two the impression of hovering ceases aas the plane picks up speed and climbs. By the time a plane is overhead it is unmistakably a plane--not a bird, not Superman, not a drone.

My guess is that people in New Jersey have some idea about what they are seeing that is reasonably accurate. Helicopters make distinctive noise, and if they are hovering, it's a pain in the neck to listen to them. My understanding is that drones don't make helicopter-type sounds; instead it's a whine. How far away one can hear a large drone whining, don't know.

I have no idea whether the Koreans or Iranians or Australians might be hiding a nuclear bomb or two, smuggled into the country. It's not a far-fetched idea. What better way to stage a decapitation event as part of a war?

Perhaps Santa Claus is testing out drones as a humane alternative to forcing reindeer to fly thousands and thousands of miles in one night. Or maybe Santa is looking for gains in delivery efficiency. This business of landing on roofs, slithering down a narrow dirty (and possibly hot) chimney (if there even is one) with a bag has to be a nightmare of wasted time and motion. If they capture a drone, it is likely to be "manned" by elves. Or, maybe Santa needs more data about who's been bad or good, and the old Christmas surveillance methods just aren't sufficient any more.

Back in the 1970s, one Saturday on University of Minnesota Radio, I heard speeches at a conference on extraterrestrial life. Ashley Montague, an anthropologist, asked the question "What would we do if we encountered a superior civilization?" Well, he said, we would wipe them out as soon as possible -- as we had done already on our own planet, as people have encountered superior civilizations -- or at least successful, happy civilizations that were 'different' than us.

So, I either read -- or heard on YouTube -- a proposal that the drones over New York and New Jersey were probably US military drones looking for nuclear radiation emissions. Why?

The story said there have been a couple of radiation spikes detected previously in the NY / NJ area which were not explained. This source said that there are fears that North Korea might over time smuggle the various parts for a complete atomic bomb into the country, then assemble it and use it at their convenience.

Of course, WE don't know where THEY put the bomb parts (or bomb) so scanning is covering a large area, looking for abnormal radiation emissions. (I don't know how much radiation a nuclear core would emit, just sitting there on someone's coffee table.).

This scenario is the sort of thing the government would be secretive about, lest people fear the worse and suddenly act on their fears in mass panic. If I thought there was a surreptitious nuclear bomb in my neighborhood, I'd be worried.

This seems like a far more plausible scenario than aliens from a long ways away. Earthlings have always been able to out-alienate everybody else in the galaxy.

EDIT:

I DIDN'T READ THIS ON REDDIT, BUT SOMEBODY ELSE...

https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1heg8ot/could_the_drones_be_looking_for_a_suspected_nuke/

I don't believe there are aliens flying around, and I don't spend time thinking about it. I prefer to get my fix of aliens visiting earth (or earthlings being the aliens on some other planet) from well crafted science fiction. Reading takes time, and not everybody has the leisure. Plus, a lot of sci-fi stories are disappointing duds.

You've heard of Fermi's Paradox? "If intelligent life is plentiful in the universe, then where is everybody? We should have been visited."

In my universe, beings who have spent light years getting here would not spend decades playing hide and seek games. They would fly over, land on the ground or hover over it, and it would be crystal clear to everyone that THEY were here. Then they would come out of their ships and demand tribute in the form of kitchen and laundry appliances which Americans worked very hard to get (according to @Hanover). Chinese and French appliances are of no interest to them.

In order to make us understand how serious they were, they would probably blow Manhattan to smithereens with one shot.

After America had been fleeced of every Maytag, Ikea chair, and Miele dishwasher worth having, with all the loot loaded up, they'd leave and go back to XZV4739b and sell their plunder to eager homeowners there. Will they be back? Depends on fashion trends out there in the various galactic arms.

a final plan to take the hard earned belongings and freedoms from average Americans — Hanover

I just don't understand why aliens from distant planets want my used appliances and furniture. They could at least offer to trade something -- maybe their old orgazmatron couch, or some nice floor covering?

We are all going to die and be dead for eternity. — Jack Cummins

A good reason to stay alive while we can!

What next, after all the striving and attaining? That place you’re in is what existential philosophers call “the existential vacuum”, where the old meanings have dried up, and the activities that once filled your life no longer sustain you.

I like that. Great term--existential vacuum.

I've experienced that a few times -- major goals which took years to reach, then achieved, then "now what?" Or, foundational beliefs play out and new foundational beliefs have to be found and set in place. James Russel Lowell (New England poet, Romantic era) said in a poem that "Time makes ancient good uncouth". But one doesn't want an existential vacuum of values--too much of that going around.

I stumbled when I encountered my first vacuum. I had finished a degree, worked in a peace-corps type program a couple of years, did some more school, then got a job at a college. After 3 or 4 years, the 10 year plan was over. Now what? It took me years to fill the vacuum but I did, several times over.

I've lived with chronic depression for decades (under control, thanks to medicine) but have never felt more than a twinge of suicidal thinking. We must be careful how we talk to ourselves: if a lot of our internal dialogue is about the pointless, meaninglessness of life, suicide as a solution, and so on -- we are -- at the very least -- sowing the seeds of more unhappiness, if not our death.

I think you enjoy shooting down suggestions the way New Jerseyans would like to shoot down all these drones flying around.

For an increasing number of people, the struggling and the striving isn't a matter of too much ambition, but a matter of bare survival. — baker

:up:

it seems like a lot of more people nowadays are simply dissatisfied with work itself — L'éléphant

:up:

Now back to suicide.

Hold on, hold on. Not every baby boomer retired on Golden Pond with ample resources from their financial planning for retirement. Maybe 20% of boomers have comfortable retirements. I was not and am not in that group. I did plenty of struggling to survive low pay, bad jobs, roach infested housing, disability, bad public transit, homophobia and other impediments to the good life. I retired early not because I was well fixed, but because I couldn't stand the thought of looking for yet another job at 62.

Agreed, though; as a group, the post WWII birth cohort were lucky--what with a 25 year growth period, generous government programs, full employment, and so on. If subsequent generations find it difficult to retire (a pattern that prevailed before the 20th century), there are several guilty parties to blame: The administration of the government has not been as good a steward of Social Security and Medicare funds as they could have been. Wealthy people have worked hard to avoid being taxed at a level where entitlement programs could be properly and fully financed. Antigovernment politicians have worked to hobble agencies, like the IRS which gathers in what the government needs; they'd like to do away with social security / medicare / medicaid altogether. Fucking bastards!

Fortunately or unfortunately, people tend to live longer now than when Social Security was set up. Longevity uses up more reserved funds.

I have a great deal of empathy for younger people who are starting out or are at mid career, or heading toward retirement age. Short of major reform (nothing revolutionary is required), millions of old workers are going to have a tough time. 20% of younger people -- those professionally employed at good salaries -- will do fine. The rest, no so much.

BTW, it isn't just Social Security. Many state managed retirement funds are in very bad shape. Generous promises were made to the state employees, but not nearly enough cash was collected to actually fund the promises.

So, spoken like a retired baby boomer or not, I'll stick to my advice to Darkneos.

Interesting fact: prior to the social security expansion act and other social program actions in the mid 1960s, poverty among the elderly was around 35%.