smky80

No system of government really works that well because most people "defect" in the sense of the prisoners dilemma. So instead of working for the public good, the government ultimately becomes a means of exploiting the public good for powerful individuals' advantage.

Pretty much everyone government ultimately devolves into a form of "mafia" -- a relatively tight network of powerful individuals united by some fairly strong bond such as familial/ethnic ties. This network can count on each other to "cooperate" and not "defect", while the public/masses just can't coordinate and cooperate enough to oppose them.

No, the people who tell the Obama administration what to do, told the media to make a circus out of the case.

> so expensive it's cheaper for people to fly out of the country, pay for accommodation and even some spending money

... and even a few years of college tuition or a small mortgage ...

> Don't attribute to malice [what can be attributed to] stupidity.

No, there really are people acting with malice out there. Pretending it is all just the result of stupidity just runs cover for those people.

> You know what killed Occupy? Occupy! No goal, no purpose,

Occupy was subverted from the inside much like the Tea Party. The fact that George Soros was involved is a big clue.

The aim went from something fairly specific, like lets bring Goldman Sachs to justice for starters, the other major investment banks and the Federal Reserve ... to "let's get those one percenters!". Yeah, let's bring the dentists of the world to justice for their role in the housing crisis.

Again, the role the media plays is one of spreading confusion and disorder. You have a large number of low-power people with a shared common interest -- preventing themselves from being "farmed" by a parasitic financial system -- and if they could be coordinated and work together, would suddenly become a powerful mass. The media works to prevent that coordination by spreading confusion as to the aims of the group, or even better getting the masses to fight amongst themselves.

They do not "like" it. It's just that, to be very blunt, most people are basically peasants at heart. They're going to go along with whatever the king says. Twenty years ago, on that side of the line on a map, the people believed in capitalism, while on the other side the people believed in communism. On this side of the line people believed in this god, on that side, they believe in that god.

It has nothing to do with some kind economists' "rational utilization maximization" function and everything to do with basically a "k-nearest neighbours" algorithm on their social graph for assigning beliefs.

And that is precisely why control of the media is so important.

> I tend to see our government (today) as a very mismanaged large corporation.

I don't know, I think the US government seems pretty ruthlessly efficient at toppling Middle Eastern governments, transferring wealth from taxpayers to big banks and large corporations, increasingly centralizing power into the federal government and large corporations, and breaking down families and increasing reliance on the state. And spying on it's own citizens.

I suppose, if you automatically dismissed any such thoughts to the contrary as "ridiculous conspiracy theories", it could look like it is all a problem of mismanagement. Maybe.

I can't help but notice the vast majority of your comments over the time you've been here are basically NSA spying apologism.

Couldn't he just have gotten a paper route or something?

> ... routinely lie, cheat and steal. Because it's effective

It's a prisoners dilemma thing. It works while they are suckers to cheat, but the refutation of that entire way of thinking comes when everybody cheats and everyone suffers.

No that's not what you do. If you have enough time, first you insert some fool like Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich into the movement, and slowly dismantle it from the inside (the Tea Party). If you need something quick, you insert a provocateur into the group that instigates some kind of violence that makes the whole group look stupid.

Southpark will do an episode trashing him.

I would hope feedback from constituents would at least be a consideration in forming policy?

"Figuring things out for yourself is the only freedom anyone really has. Use that freedom. Make up your own mind." -- Captain Ratchak, Starship Troopers.

Not even a summary of the feedback? Or was the staff chief basically running the show policy wise?

Or it's an indication that they (and most mainstream media sources) are not in fact sources of solid journalism.

I have, as a young oblivious backpacker. I chuckled. As far as I remember, the room was basically a broom closet with just enough room for a single bed and the door to swing open. Downstairs was ... interesting. But I enjoyed my mansion :)

> All of this is beyond Osama bin Laden's wildest dreams

Just putting this all in a bit of perspective:

This is some character that, after those two buildings were hit by planes and three buildings collapsed into dust, we were shown a picture of and told he did it. He released a few Tupac-style mixtapes, we fought a few wars to go get this guy and his friends, and then we were told ten years later we finally got him and his body was dumped somewhere in the ocean. But we're still fighting those wars.

Any terror that was in me has been long since replaced with disgust for the populations of Useful Idiots and Defectors that made it all possible.

I did Space Camp a couple years after the movie came out. I'm still mad about getting stuck with being the Public Relations Officer in Ground Control on the shuttle mission at the end.

This x 1000. Seriously, it's like that newspaper photo of the pregnant lady smoking a cigarette while the caption reads "Area woman concerned about the effect of the sound of jackhammers on her baby."

I think it was Dale Carnegie that pointed out if you asked everyone if they themselves were dishonest, you would discover the surprising result that in fact there never has been a dishonest homo sapien in the history of this planet.

The point is that the bullying goes from something fairly local (school), that can be escaped, to spreading around the world. This particular kid could move to Cambodia and some people there will probably recognize him.

I'd recommend instead learning this stuff through Coursera or CFA or actuarial exams instead. Way cheaper and there's no benefit to the classroom for this material.

Having someone actively trying to ruin your life might be a little more uncomfortable than being followed on Spotify? Just a thought.

I don't disagree with your sentiment. I do have practical and moral objections though to policies which couldn't possibly mitigate the issue in question but still involve the societal sacrifices. In the end, cheap clean energy like fusion, thorium fission, solar ("burning" the water/rocks/sunlight) is really the only solution to both peak oil and global warming.

> Global warming is a lot scarier than "peak oil"

Honestly I always figured the global warming hysteria was mainly a cover for pushing "anti-peak oil" policies without having to admit the Emperor is naked. Cutting carbon emissions by 10%, a carbon tax in Australia, etc., doesn't strike me as really being able to put a dent in a catastrophic global warming were it actually occurring, but it does seem a reasonable approach to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the near-term.

> Can someone help me out here?

It's a sham. The voting process is just there to create an illusion of control and provide a circus for the masses; just another means of control by manufacturing consent.

The Republican Party's purpose is just to mobilize a certain segment of the population when a war needs fighting or some banks need bailing out, and as controlled opposition to the Democratic Party's social agenda. The Democratic Party likewise serves as controlled opposition to the Republican agenda: Obama is President, but you still get the wars and Wall Street anyway.

> the fact that the SAT, even when adjusted for economic disparity, is still skewed towards white men,

Did you mean to say asian women?

> the people agree with the corporations

To the extent this is true, it's because the consent is effectively manufactured by the media.

A big part of the trick is, when presenting the choice of Shit Sandwich or Turd Burger at the election, focus on which offering has sesame seeds instead of the fact the primary ingredient of both offerings is shit.