heywood on 8/2/2023 at 17:11
That was a loaded post demagogue. It hits close to home for me. There's so many directions we could go with this, I feel like James Burke after act 1 of a Connections episode.
We could start with the decline of B&M retail. The big, multi-floor downtown department stores are all gone, the 90s superstore and outlet store craze is over, big box chains have consolidated, and most malls are in decline. Those Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's superstores (same company now, sad story) are among the last remaining 'destination stores' outside of major cities. Some of their stores pull in people from 1-2 hours away. They are kitschy cathedrals of materialism and impulse buying and waste. But you've got toys for dad, sportswear for mom, and kids love the decorations, so families come. I prefer REI, but I will miss those BPS/Cabela's stores when they are gone, because there aren't many places left you can see outdoor gear in the flesh before buying.
The decorations are regional, or even unique to the store. I've been to BPS in NH and Cabela's in PA and MA. None had any pioneer art, just murals of eastern landscapes and wildlife. Murals of pioneers in covered wagons seems surprisingly tone deaf for a store in Oklahoma.
Or we could talk about survivalists and preppers, but they're not blowing their money at Bass Pro Shops on a bunch of outdoor recreation toys. The serious ones are buying land and learning to be off the grid subsistence farmers. You could say they embody the pioneer spirit the most, but they're not driven by the same reasons the pioneers were.
One national trend you just picked up on is that outdoor recreation just keeps getting more popular. The trend has been going for a while, but COVID-19 really accelerated it. Trails, rivers, lakes, state parks, campgrounds, and ski areas are more crowded than ever. I once hiked Fuji-san, and the popular climbs around here are starting to get like that. Traffic jams on the trail are a little more fun than traffic jams on the road, but not that much. It has me dreaming of camping at remote sites only accessible by water, where I can enjoy nature, let my kids explore without bothering anyone, and see the sun go down quietly.
Of course you need some gear for that. With any outdoor hobby, there are some people who enjoy doing it old school, and some people who always want the latest and greatest gear. The latter are often backpackers, who are always looking to squeeze a little more comfort and convenience into their packs. That's why (
https://helinox.com/products/chair-zero?variant=16664192286790) a child sized tiny mesh chair costs $150. But there's plenty of people camping with Walmart brand kit (Ozark Trail). I've gone through my share of it. It's cheap, it's functional, it breaks.
Getting back to the frontier spirit, I think of it in more abstract terms than living off the land. It's the source of the American dream and the reason why we are inherently forward looking. The positive elements of it are behind the country's economic strength, like the expectation that as soon as you are of adult age, you will set out on your own to chase opportunities. It's a source of entrepreneurialism, work ethic, and willingness to take risks. It's why mobility and liberty are values commonly shared across cultures here. It's why we're builders, it's why we're road trippers, it's why we have the national parks and Star Trek and explore the solar system. Unfortunately, it's also behind the manifest destiny theory that excused the destruction of indigenous nations and cultures. It's why we raped the land for 250 years until it started catching up to us, it's why Americans keep moving to open spaces in the mountain west despite the wildfires and lack of water. The frontier spirit has been kept alive for hundreds of years by waves of immigrants who came here because of it, and it's reflected in the Constitution, so I think it's part of the country's DNA for better or worse.
One of the ways it's hurting the country now is the home-is-your-castle kind of thinking. I wish we could get beyond thinking every family must need a detached home, garden, dog, and two cars to be happy, because that's the reason why we have vast suburban sprawl and a large per capita carbon footprint.
This is getting rambling, so I'll save gun culture for a later post.
demagogue on 9/2/2023 at 04:46
I was certainly dramatizing things for effect, but thank you for the thoughtful walk through that anyway. I think the context here is I'm going through I think three layers of culture shock, first just spending an extended time back in the US after a decade by itself, second I think the US, or anyway through the lens of my family, has changed over the last 10 years, and third, even though central and north Oklahoma aren't even that far from where I grew up in North Texas, I feel like the culture here (in OK) is a lot different, and it's my first time spending any time here.
Texas gets shit from the rest of the world for being "crazy", but it's a rich state with lots of people coming in from all over, so it's more cosmopolitan than it gets credit for. Like its cities voted Blue in the last I think 3 elections, and I think of where I grew up as the kind of place where, e.g., Explosions in the Sky (the band) could crystallize post-rock as a genre. And the Oklahoma I knew was from my grandparent's perspective, like Will Rogers and Grapes of Wrath-era Oklahoma, very Democrat and pro-labor, which isn't really the case today. I saw a "Let's go Brandon" billboard off the highway a few days ago.
Anyway, I have no doubt I'm mixing fair and unfair observations in my disordered state. It's what's motivated me to write this thing about the Apache wars and talk to Native groups around here while I'm here. Now seems to be the right time for a deep dive into American identity and our moment in history these days.
PigLick on 9/2/2023 at 12:39
Out on the road today I saw a deadhead sticker on a cadillac.
Cipheron on 10/2/2023 at 11:47
Elon Musk fires top twitter engineer because people are losing interest in Elon Musk:
(
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-fired-twitter-employee-over-popularity-decline-report-2023-2)
Quote:
Elon Musk reportedly fired a Twitter engineer on the spot after the worker told him his popularity was sinking on the site
Elon Musk fired a top Twitter engineer who told him he was declining in popularity on the site, according to a recent report from the tech newsletter Platformer.
Musk met with several Twitter engineers on Tuesday to discuss his view count on Twitter, which had been on a downward spiral in recent months, Platformer reported. The billionaire had previously assigned workers to look into whether his reach on the platform had been restricted due to a potential issue with Twitter's algorithm, according to the report.
"This is ridiculous," Musk told the employees, Platformer said, citing multiple sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. "I have more than 100 million followers, and I'm only getting tens of thousands of impressions."
The employees showed Musk internal data and a Google Trends chart that indicated public interest in the billionaire was waning, Platformer reported. Google Trends data shows his popularity peaked at a score of 100 in April — around the time he offered to buy Twitter — and has since dropped to a 9.
When one of the engineers said Musk's popularity might be declining due to a lack of public interest since his Twitter purchase, Musk told the employee he was fired, according to Platformer. The billionaire also told some employees to track how often his tweets are recommended on the site as he was unconvinced by the meeting that his view count had not been impacted by an internal issue, the publication said.
Draxil on 10/2/2023 at 21:02
Quote Posted by hopper
That retort only makes sense if you think defending yourself against police brutality is a legit reason for owning a gun. Which maybe you do, in which case good luck with that.
(It‘s also wrong on the merits, btw.)
No, the post was meant to illustrate the cognitive dissonance of simultaneously believing, as progressives do, that cops and policing in this country are irredeemably marred by white supremacism, corruption, and violence while simultaneously believing that these very same corrupt, violent, and racist officials are the only ones trustworthy enough to own a gun or determine who can own a gun, and should be responsible for our safety and security. It beggars belief.
I
don't think cops are ultimately responsible for my safety, and don't trust them, and think there is a lot wrong with policing in this country--not least of which is the continued militarization of civilian police forces and drawing recruits from military forces who then proceed to tramp around Western Bumfuck, Iowa as if it were Fallujah. Cops should primarily have a service mindset; they can't be pushovers, but too many of my interactions with them, of all races, leads me to believe that aggression is the primary trait being looked for in recruitment. I've slowly walked out the front door of my house with my hands clasped behind my head while having a friggin' SWAT team and half a dozen patrol officers point their weapons at me. I'm white, reasonably affluent, live in one of the wealthiest and safest counties in the US, and was thinking of nothing but Daniel Shaver. It was supposed to be a "safety check" initiated by a well intentioned but very misinformed person--I was a hell of a lot safer before they came. I was cuffed and yelled at for 45 minutes, taken to a mental health facility and interviewed by a social worker, and released 1 hour later without charges, a ride home, a wallet, or cell phone. What I
did get was a very bad opinion of the police in my city and a determination that they will never be my only option for safety or security. I'll call them and comply when they're present, but I'll be damned if I'm going to rely on them.
demagogue on 10/2/2023 at 22:40
I think the mainstream liberal position is, not that police should be completely disarmed, but there should be an arms reduction and definitely a demilitarization. (It's usually branded as less money for police and more money to social services underlying a lot of crime.) They're trying to be rational about it. It's like a guns version of the START treaty. It may be difficult to get guns off the streets, and so with the police, but the way to start is to have a reduction across the board, including among police.
Coming from a law background, I myself am always thinking in institutional terms. Institutions are as good or bad as their structure (education, recruitment, training, procedures, incentives, culture, etc.). So if you have a bad institution, those are the things that you focus on. I'm both pessimistic, because the status quo of those things have deep roots, but not fatalist; they're things you can and should improve.
Anarchic Fox on 11/2/2023 at 17:48
Draxil, your comments about progressives demonstrate your lack of thoughtful interactions with them. If you had ever genuinely conversed with progressives, you would not make such silly remarks.
For example, I'm a progressive who wants the second amendment to remain in place. I think the amendment's scope covers self-defense and hunting, and nothing else, and thus does not include assault rifles. I also want police armament to be every bit as restricted (in type, not quantity) as civilian armament, both to weaken the US police state, but also for the practical reason that police armament often finds its way into civilian hands via surplus stores.
Tocky on 12/2/2023 at 01:48
Eh. He is always saying what progressives think according to some uninformed Fox news perspective. I would settle for a strict enforcement of clip size. We plug shotguns to keep the number of doves killed down but we can't extend the same to our kids. But all this has been said before to no effect.
Police are necessary. Gratuitous violence and killing not so much.
Draxil on 12/2/2023 at 07:39
Quote Posted by Tocky
Eh. He is always saying what progressives think according to some uninformed Fox news perspective. I would settle for a strict enforcement of clip size. We plug shotguns to keep the number of doves killed down but we can't extend the same to our kids. But all this has been said before to no effect.
Police are necessary. Gratuitous violence and killing not so much.
Oh, fuck off. If your intent is to kill, you're going to kill. (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHG-ibZaKM) Jerry Miculeck can shoot 6 rounds, reload, and put 6 more rounds in a target in under 3 seconds. You can ban high capacity magazines till you're blue in the face--3D printing and the sheer number of high-cap mags in existence have rendered it pointless, as has been covered in past threads. Biden has called for the ban of 9mm's, which "blow the lungs out of the body", semiautomatic firearms (hint: that's practically all guns), and.. god knows. He's a fucking dumbass. You know it. I know it. His recommendation of
Quote:
If you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrelled shotgun, have the shells, a 12-gauge shotgun, and I promise you, as I told my wife -- we live in an area that's wooded and somewhat secluded -- I said "Jill, if there's ever a problem just walk out on the balcony here, walk out, put that double-barrelled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house." I promise you, whoever's coming in is not -- you don't need an AR-15. It's harder to aim, it's harder to use, and in fact you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself. Buy a shotgun. Buy a shotgun.
is actually felonious and patently-fucking-stupid. I mean, grade-A fucking stupid. Recap: firearm=lethal force. That means: no warning shots, not wounding shots, no "fire it off the balcony" shots, no "fire it through a door that you don't know whose behind" shots. The man is a grade-A fucking moron.
Draxil on 12/2/2023 at 07:52
What is an "assault rifle", Fox? Define it. Is it defined by function (which includes 10's or 100's of millions of rifles) or by feature that doesn't improve function (barrel shroud, pistol grip, collapsing stock, etc.). Regardless, an insignificant amount of gun related crime is committed with "assault rifles", because quelle surprise, hiding a 36+ inch rifle on your body isn't exactly easy. Look it up. If progressives were serious about reducing gun crime, they'd target handguns. They're not, and they don't. If they were serious about reducing gun crime, they'd press for enforcement of straw purchases and felonious gun purchases (ala Hunter Biden). They're not, and they don't. If they were serious, they'd stop cashless bail and plea deals for felonious possession of firearms. They're not, and they don't.
