Official Revolution Watch Thread - Page 2

I love those animations. I think the speaker is a little over the top wrt to effects of ritalin on children. It's not anesthetizing children into drooling idiots but obviously over prescribed.

Makes me glad I send my kid to an open school.

The fatal error was creating price controls in the first place.

Yet absolutely correct. Political control of the economy leads to political problems not economic ones.

Here's the kicker: If you think things are bad, disorganised, etc. in the Western world, wait 'till you check out the developing world.

What we still have in the developing world though is potential for growth and new ways of thinking, etc. whereas in the developed world things are kind of "maxxed out" in several ways.

Now here we have the classic revolution-path: Youth and young adults, educated and qualified but unemployed, stand up against a dictatory system and other parts of society join because of jumped food- and fuel-prices... and also because of the bloody reaction of the police-force and also because of the burning suicide-sacrifice of the unemployed academic that ignited it all, obviously resonating with the feelings of many and underlining the seriousness.

Surprisingly the president of Tunis seems to give in to the protesters, promising to free all imprisoned protesters, calls the forces to stop shooting at them, and promises to do something because of the food-prices and also to create 300,000 jobs for the unemployed (how will he do that?) and also promises to stand-down as president in 2014 and also to form a national unity-government in which parts of the opposition can take part, and promises free press... even sacking the interior minister and saying that he was fooled by advisers around him..

Sounds all too good to be true, but it's surprising to see to what length the president goes to recognize the wishes of the protesters, even if it's just in words right now, so obviously he felt the situation was highly explosive:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12189535

Not only that, now the president gave up and fled the country.

Lack of comments does not mean that people haven't been following what's happening in Tunisia. You raise the question that was posted by the BBC@
Could other Arab countries follow Tunisia's example?

Is Turkey slipping more into a fundamentalist state?

How long have we got?

Its plainly obvious that most developed civilizations are teetering on the edge of collapse. There is not the resources to ever stand a hope in hells chance of paying off the debts, or even balancing them.
The bailouts are just delaying the inevitable.
Can we just print money as a last resort on the scale of the Wiemar Republic? to essentially wipe out all debts and assets - an economic reboot?

How about we stop catering to the top 1%? Get them to realize that if they want a society to actually live in, they need to stop being such greedy motherfuckers. And then we need to get half of America to stop voting against their own interests because they hate gays and fear atheists.

Dont you think though that it goes further than that? - What you state is true, and I agree, but the scale of the problem is so great, there is no way out for anyone regardless of what we do.

Perhaps, its in all our interests, just to keep putting a plaster over the wound for as long as we can, because eventually we are all utterly utterly fucked anyway.

I look forward to the inevitable crash, and I dont think there is a single thing that anyone can do to hedge against it.

I really don't think it has to be that way. But it will require a fundamental shift in how humans treat each other. There are enough resources out there to feed, clothe, and shelter everyone. Greed is what needs to go the way of the dodo. And you're right, that's a rather tall order. Maybe I'm romantically optimistic about our species. Maybe I shouldn't be.

The trouble is, and we see it demonstrated here every day, there are many, many people who cant think in any other terms, than their personal profit...themselves. They will say, do, deceive, of anything for their upside. Humanity is going to be forced to change - even if through utter collapse of the norm.

At the moment, the sociopaths do have the power - through technology. The question is whether there is a critical mass of rabble population to overcome the tech?

My conscience - There is a revolution coming, whether we like it or not.

My intentions are honest and pure - but I think we need to be aware of the fact, that many innocent people are going to die, and the rest of us have our lives turned 180 degrees because of it. Is this right or wrong - for all our sins?

I don't know that Americans in general have to courage to do a revolution anymore. They are too comfortable in their ways and revolution is very messy. Revolution for them is voting differently to see if things get better. If not they complain, and vote again. And nothing much changes. I have been feeling very run down lately due to current event. And I don't believe that I will see anything new happen that will be worth getting excited over. And reading these forums and their spurious arguments that go around and around with no solutions and nothing changing just keeps me shaking my head.

I have changed quite a bit in the past 10 years. If you knew me back then and compared me to now you would see it. Coming back and posting here I saw that others have changed as well. But the general posting atmosphere has not changed for the better. It is very sour here. No matter how one tries to make it better it always seems to go the same route, devolving into a you're a racist, you're and idiot spitting match. I can see why some have left and I am wondering why I keep coming back. hope may spring eternal, but my patience is running thin. I wonder if Americans patience will do the same and something will actually change. Even if it is uncomfortable.

Sorry for the winding path. It is late and I just finished reading to kill a mockingbird for the first time. Goodnight all. May tomorrow be better.

where did you see this news or read about it?

I think we desperately need to discover life elsewhere. Something so strange, mysterious, and beautiful that it makes our differences seem rather insignificant.

You couldn't be more right. People need to rewatch the Cosmos mini-series by Carl Sagan.

Imagine if we had put a fraction of the cost of going to war into space exploration. What's even worse is there isn't a good economic reason not to go to space. Think about our greatest leaps in technology--fruits of the NASA tree. It's hard to find a piece of technology that wasn't influenced by the space race.

Or back into the pockets of the people from which it has been taken.



Really? How do you know? Is it because of the vast private investment that' been put into this field?



These are largely myths actually.

Of course here comes Captain Bringdown and the Ass Police.

Actually a number of the things that have been attributed to the space program for its genesis was actually developed before, in parallel with or outside of. I wish I could find a link to a few of things I've read about this. I used to believe all that too...but learned otherwise. It's one of those popular and comfortable myths that continues to get perpetuated like The New Deal saved the economy (or WW2 saved the economy)...stuff like that. Heck even the whole "internet was invented by the government" thing is only sorta true. Most of the concepts and ideas and even some of the early protocols were developed privately before one or two of the key visionaries went to work for ARPA/DARPA where they expanded on these already emerging ideas.

Velcro. Teflon. Integrated Circuits.

Three that immediately come to mind as having been claimed to be developed by or for the space program and likely to have not come about with this "investment." But were, in fact, not developed for or with NASA.

What's more there is no way to know that anything that might be attributable to the space program would not have been created without the space program. This is simply an assumption.

doesn't look like there is anything spiritual going on in Tunisia today, unless you count guns and death a spiritual experience. Seems like a revolution can only happen with death and pain, as they always have.

how much do you want this revolution? Will it be woth it?

It very well may be, to the next generation. This generation will likely pay a high price for the hope of something better. Assuming they are changing to something that is worthwhile.

Revolution always comes with violence, in the case of Tunisia it is the old president's guard that is formenting the violence. As has been reported lately, it seems like the fleeing president Ali has prepared his followers with money and weapons and instructed them to provoke a civil war before he escaped and is even directing the violence right now from the outside, in order to prepare his return as the saviour of the nation. Currently the tunisian army tries to capture or kill that president's guard, in a few days/weeks they will probably be defeated.

The much bigger question is: Will Tunisia's new government use the opportunity to install a real democracy with press freedom, freedom to assemble, to candidate... or will they go the tried and known route and fall back to the dictatorship?

As to the developed/free world, I don't see any revolutions coming (at least not violent ones through the street), there is no need, freedom is already there to elect different parties or to even found new ones, revolution can happen at the ballot-box, if that doesn't happen, it just means too many people are too comfortable with the status quo.

Besides those wishing for revolution don't have an alternative society/economy-model that could replace the "Adam Smith"-model (with a bit Keynesiamism thrown in) of generating wealth.

Communism hasn't worked, the islamistic sharia-non-interest-model is feared rather than desired, so what should the new paradigma look like?

What should motivate one to leave the bed early and to do hard/dirty work, to study or ... besides money or the expectation of future money?