Open Thread - Friday, May 10, 2019
If you aren't just brought up in your tribe but interact with other people either directly or vicariously, through journalism and literature, you see what life is like from other points of view and are less likely to demonize them or dehumanize others and more likely to empathize with them.
- Steven Pinker -
The cacophony of voices demanding acceptance of their reality is irrational. There are few ways to change a person's chosen reality. Perhaps sex, drugs or lucre. Meanwhile, our soulless existence persists.
Social media posters, religious soothsayers, politicians, Internet commenters and the drunks at the end of the bar all have opinions. How does the saying go? Opinions are like assholes, because they often are spouted by assholes?
The greatest progenitor of tribalism known to mankind is Facebook. Yet,
Facebook had six representatives attend Davos, as "thought leaders". Seems the uberwealthy are interested in human herding.
Government corruption is rampant, yet somehow people are manipulated into picking a tribe and fighting someone else's battle. A battle that they have no stake in.
C99 is an open forum. We have a lot of chosen realities represented.
Don't be a fool!
Friday Funk! The cure to soulessness.
Feelin' better?
Have a great weekend. The thread is OPEN.
Comments
Good morning, Tim ~~~
Ah, Facebook. Not a fan - never joined - saw the trouble it was from the get-go. I've always found it interesting that when people ask me if I'm on FB and I say no, they find it necessary to explain they are only on it because (pick your excuse):
1. I can see what my family is up to.
2. My family is scattered all over the world so this is how I keep up with them.
3. I only play the games.
4. I only check it once a week.
5. Whatever......................
A cousin says it's a real time waster and laughs as he scans his pages.
I've so many real-life things I'd rather be doing. 'Nuf said.
Off to Lubbock, TX to spend the weekend with my daughter. I might be driving in rain, but it's only five hours away.
Have a beautiful day and weekend, everyone!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Good morning y'all
I often think about the tribes that lived here before the Europeans destroyed their way of life. When DeSoto came through here one of his men described homes and gardens stretching as far as the eye could see across the Coosa valley. The population then (500 years ago) was higher than today.
E O Wilson suggests we evolved as tribes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggO0Aso-eYk (13 min)
I never joined facebook nor twitter. Controlled media and digital life isn't my cup of tea.
We're off to play a dance on the mountain for the Audubon crowd. Too bad it has been rainy again dampening their many outdoor workshops and activities.
Hope you all have a great weekend!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
"Thought leaders." Creepy little term, isn't it?
Our rights under the Bill of Rights have been disappearing bit by bit, especially First Amendment freedoms of speech and the press and Fourth Amendment freedoms, but all of them, really. Bush, Obama, Trump. Concomitantly perhaps, brainwashing/propagandizing and censorship on steroids have been on the rise.
Did freedom ever really exist for us hoi polloi, or was it always just an illusion? Have we always been "free" to do whatever we wished, as long as the PTB either did not notice or object? BTW, that's a rhetorical question. I don't think any of us knows the answer, much as some of us may be certain that we do. (-:
Meanwhile, how about Bezos?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98qw86DsdZ0]
Seems out of joint, oh, cursed spite, to end a dour post by wishing each of you an enjoyable TGIF and a pleasant weekend. However, I write my posts as sincerely as I wish us all good things.
Well, almost as sincerely. Sometimes I do a better job of keeping the lid on my observations.
Thanks for the tunes Tim
Some Motown funk for you all!
question everything
Hola Tim et al. It is 15:37 here, so 6:37 pacific time, i theen.
Tribes must interbreed, intellectually as well as physically, in order to stay viable. They just get in the way today, we are no longer foragers. Our group success needs to be pan human and realistically pan specific. Off to flamenco in a bit, so everybody have a good one and a great weekend too.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
"They say that travel broadens the mind...
So I went over the falls in a barrel." -T. Dolby
Travel certainly does tend to give one a lot less patience with those who wilfully and proudly refuse to open their eyes. You find yourself saying "what the ACTUAL fuck" a lot more...
Happy Friday, and may your journey through the day and into the weekend be a pleasant one! I think we're gonna do a freezer challenge for dinner, and I was dreaming of an etouffe last night. A plan is coming together.
freedom for the hoi polloi
Actually, I do know the answer. It was always an illusion. And it will always remain an illusion as long as there exist any "PTB" at all.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides