120 replies to this topic

[Brainbox]

rwac, on 29 April 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

niner, on 29 April 2012 - 01:45 PM, said:

A much larger reason there is the total lack of price signals due to the fact that we use insurance to pay for everything, and health care providers are totally opaque about costs.

And this is caused by ... drumroll ... government subsidies for employer based health insurance.

And, tadaa, the next step where insurance companies get the primary lead to (re)introduce market principles in healthcare. It is not that bad provided you learn from (others') mistakes. Involvement of insurance companies can even be an incentive to design an even more effective and efficient healthcare system. With the risk that it will become to efficient, hindering quick development and implementation of new treatments and medicine. But overall, a partly governmental subsidized health care insurance, combined with some regulation and good customer / patient interest organization is not evil at all. Market mechanisms that are based only on individual patient - healthcare provider relationship alone will not sufficiently deal with all the complexity that is involved in healthcare.

Edited by Brainbox, 29 April 2012 - 05:32 PM.

[niner]

rwac, on 29 April 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

niner, on 29 April 2012 - 01:45 PM, said:

A much larger reason there is the total lack of price signals due to the fact that we use insurance to pay for everything, and health care providers are totally opaque about costs.

And this is caused by ... drumroll ... government subsidies for employer based health insurance.

By this you mean the fact that employer-provided health insurance premiums are not considered 'income' for taxation purposes?  You're right, that is a market distortion.  It should be gotten rid of or taxed progressively, as should the mortgage interest deduction.  Unfortunately, none of the politicians who have signed King Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge could vote for removing these subsidies.

rwac, on 29 April 2012 - 04:02 PM, said:

Quote

When I went to college, the tuition was almost entirely subsidized by my state.  Today it isn't significantly subsidized, so the cost to the student is wildly higher.  Yet demand for seats at the UC is higher than ever.  How can this square with the idea that subsidized loans caused the increase?  We've been told for a generation that you'd better get a college education or you'll wind up living under a freeway bridge.  The demand is huge, even though the price signals are staring everyone in the face.  If there were no subsidized loans at all, I suspect that the UC would still be turning students away at the better campuses.  The only change would be the economic strata of the student body, who would skew wealthier.

That might be true for the UC. But there aren't enough wealthier students to fill all the universities out there!
Perhaps we should also make student loans easier discharge in bankruptcy ...

It's probably true for most of the good state schools.  If we removed all subsidy for higher education, then demand would drop some, but is that the kind of brave new world we want, where only the upper crust can afford to get the education they need to be useful in a modern economy?  That sounds like a high speed elevator to third world status.  A down elevator.

Student loans are already considered risky by lenders.  If we let students declare bankruptcy when they have nothing to lose, I think you'd see a lot of it.  The consequence would be a large increase in interest rates for private student loans to compensate lenders for the increased risk.

Education, like healthcare, is something that society needs, and that we seem to be paying too much for at the moment.  Actually things might be changing- today's NY Times has an article about the annual growth of healthcare cost recently being the lowest in fifty years.  The pressures on colleges to hold the line on tuition are huge now, so maybe we're entering a new era?  A lot of this must be due to the recession, but some people think there's more to it than that.  Anyway, there are still big questions about how much of either service, education or healthcare, people should get, how it should be paid for, and how well the providers should be compensated.  I hope whoever ultimately makes those decisions will do it on the basis of facts and rational discussion rather than politics and ideology.

[Mind]

niner, on 29 April 2012 - 01:45 PM, said:

...but is that the kind of brave new world we want, where only the upper crust can afford to get the education they need to be useful in a modern economy?  That sounds like a high speed elevator to third world status.  A down elevator.

Mostly wrong, sorry to say. Thanks to the internet and world wide web, education in nearly any subject is nearly free...for those who have the ambition and discipline to learn. For those that don't, they don't belong at University. They should be in trade school or getting a job where they can gain experience and start saving. The U.S. should take a cue from Europe and test at an earlier age to determine who is suited for University and who is not. Part of the reason we got into the massive student loan bubble is that there is this ridiculous idea that everyone, AND I MEAN EVERYONE, should be crammed through a University program.

[niner]

Mind, on 29 April 2012 - 10:06 PM, said:

niner, on 29 April 2012 - 01:45 PM, said:

...but is that the kind of brave new world we want, where only the upper crust can afford to get the education they need to be useful in a modern economy?  That sounds like a high speed elevator to third world status.  A down elevator.

Mostly wrong, sorry to say. Thanks to the internet and world wide web, education in nearly any subject is nearly free...for those who have the ambition and discipline to learn. For those that don't, they don't belong at University. They should be in trade school or getting a job where they can gain experience and start saving. The U.S. should take a cue from Europe and test at an earlier age to determine who is suited for University and who is not. Part of the reason we got into the massive student loan bubble is that there is this ridiculous idea that everyone, AND I MEAN EVERYONE, should be crammed through a University program.

I agree with this.  I think that the European system has some advantages.  The problem is that at the moment, we don't have much of a technical education system in place.  There are some trade schools, and the community college system does a great job in some areas (along with a great job in academic basics, btw).  I'm not sure what the status of technical education is at the high school level any more.  The technical ed programs that we have still require tuition, so people wind up taking out student loans for these programs too.  They may be more likely to get a job, so they'll be more likely to be able to pay off the loans, but there's still a cost involved.  Web education is a growing force.  In order for it to work, we will need a robust certification program so that people can demonstrate they actually know stuff, and a hirer can trust it.  That's the point of a college degree- it certifies that you've attained the requirements of the program, at least in principle.   There's more to college than just learning though; you meet people and make connections.  You will meet very different people at Yale than you will meet in a trade school, or on the web.  That's the real reason the Ivies cost so damn much; because you might be partying with the future Fed Chairman.

I think you might be missing the main point of the part that you quoted, however.  I'm concerned about the bifurcation of American society into a small wealthy class and a large poor class.  This has been gradually getting worse since some time in the seventies, and it's gotten pretty bad.   A recent survey of the things that differentiate healthy national economies from dysfunctional ones concluded that countries which have systems in place to prevent the concentration of power grow wealthier.  I think we should pay plumbers more and financiers less.  (I just replumbed my entire house by myself, switching from copper to PEX, so I have a lot of respect for the craft of plumbing.  Financiers, having recently laid waste to much of the world's economy,  I hold in somewhat less regard.)

[Brainbox]

Ha, if a plumber does a bad job it can only flood one bathroom at a time. Leverage factor of 1 or less....

But somewhat more seriously, what are the possibilities of education for a teenager in the US who has the ambition and capabilities to become a plumber, car mechanic and the like?

In our country we have an education system that takes care of all education up to an age of 18 (I will need to check the age to be sure) of which the elementary basics are regulated. Also the "distribution" of students towards the different levels of education is aided by doing tests that determine the capabilities of an individual at different age's.

[Mind]

niner, on 30 April 2012 - 11:19 AM, said:

Mind, on 29 April 2012 - 10:06 PM, said:

niner, on 29 April 2012 - 01:45 PM, said:

...but is that the kind of brave new world we want, where only the upper crust can afford to get the education they need to be useful in a modern economy?  That sounds like a high speed elevator to third world status.  A down elevator.

Mostly wrong, sorry to say. Thanks to the internet and world wide web, education in nearly any subject is nearly free...for those who have the ambition and discipline to learn. For those that don't, they don't belong at University. They should be in trade school or getting a job where they can gain experience and start saving. The U.S. should take a cue from Europe and test at an earlier age to determine who is suited for University and who is not. Part of the reason we got into the massive student loan bubble is that there is this ridiculous idea that everyone, AND I MEAN EVERYONE, should be crammed through a University program.

I agree with this.  I think that the European system has some advantages.  The problem is that at the moment, we don't have much of a technical education system in place.  There are some trade schools, and the community college system does a great job in some areas (along with a great job in academic basics, btw).  I'm not sure what the status of technical education is at the high school level any more.  The technical ed programs that we have still require tuition, so people wind up taking out student loans for these programs too.  They may be more likely to get a job, so they'll be more likely to be able to pay off the loans, but there's still a cost involved.  Web education is a growing force.  In order for it to work, we will need a robust certification program so that people can demonstrate they actually know stuff, and a hirer can trust it.  That's the point of a college degree- it certifies that you've attained the requirements of the program, at least in principle.   There's more to college than just learning though; you meet people and make connections.  You will meet very different people at Yale than you will meet in a trade school, or on the web.  That's the real reason the Ivies cost so damn much; because you might be partying with the future Fed Chairman.

I think you might be missing the main point of the part that you quoted, however.  I'm concerned about the bifurcation of American society into a small wealthy class and a large poor class.  This has been gradually getting worse since some time in the seventies, and it's gotten pretty bad.   A recent survey of the things that differentiate healthy national economies from dysfunctional ones concluded that countries which have systems in place to prevent the concentration of power grow wealthier.  I think we should pay plumbers more and financiers less.  (I just replumbed my entire house by myself, switching from copper to PEX, so I have a lot of respect for the craft of plumbing.  Financiers, having recently laid waste to much of the world's economy,  I hold in somewhat less regard.)

I get your point about the possible bi-furcation of education and stratification of society, but I see the sky-rocketing cost of University AND the wide availability of so much specialized knowledge on the web as being the great equalizing forces. While rich kids are paying a lot more to get an increasingly sub-par education, the real go-getters (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Giorgio Armani, even entertainers like Madonna and Oprah, etc...) run circles around them.

One of the main points of the "Money as Debt" series is that the wealth inequality is not driven by un-equal education, but by un-equal access to the largesse of fractional reserve banking and central bank inflation. The powerful and politically connected get first access to the newly created money and leverage this against those who pay interest and have labor as their primary asset.

[niner]

Mind, on 30 April 2012 - 09:12 PM, said:

I get your point about the possible bi-furcation of education and stratification of society, but I see the sky-rocketing cost of University AND the wide availability of so much specialized knowledge on the web as being the great equalizing forces. While rich kids are paying a lot more to get an increasingly sub-par education, the real go-getters (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Giorgio Armani, even entertainers like Madonna and Oprah, etc...) run circles around them.

One of the main points of the "Money as Debt" series is that the wealth inequality is not driven by un-equal education, but by un-equal access to the largesse of fractional reserve banking and central bank inflation. The powerful and politically connected get first access to the newly created money and leverage this against those who pay interest and have labor as their primary asset.

Jobs and Gates went to expensive private schools (Reed & Harvard).  Gates went to an exclusive prep school, where he got a lot of exposure to computers at a time when they were rarely found in high schools.  He met Paul Allen there.  He met Steve Balmer at Harvard.  Gates may have been a go-getter, but he looks like a pretty good example of the advantages one gets from exclusive educational institutions.  Even though he eventually dropped out of Harvard, he had already reaped the benefits.   Jobs credits a particular class at Reed as being seminal to his approach to computers.   I couldn't really say that the education at exclusive schools is increasingly sub-par, though it's certainly costing more.  I think the exclusive schools are probably still doing what they've always done; opening doors for people.

The powerful and politically connected getting access to newly created money...  Does this refer to the Discount Window?  Those are short term loans to institutions; it's not like people are just walking off with free money.  This is just part of the modern banking system.  Banking can be a lucrative business, but this isn't what's driving income inequality.  It's being driven mostly by tax policy and globalization.  Our tax code is now wildly stacked against the working man, in favor of the investor, which includes virtually all extremely high income people.

Edited by niner, 01 May 2012 - 11:03 AM.

[Solox123]

Do any of you guys know the agenda of the most powerful people of the world ? one world domination and globalization. Illuminati, Freemasons, etc are kinda too much for me but I do believe people for example bilderberg group that are messing up our world... please reply feelings about this and dont call me a "conspiracy theorist" and crap.!

[niner]

Solox123, on 02 May 2012 - 09:21 AM, said:

Do any of you guys know the agenda of the most powerful people of the world ? one world domination and globalization. Illuminati, Freemasons, etc are kinda too much for me but I do believe people for example bilderberg group that are messing up our world... please reply feelings about this and dont call me a "conspiracy theorist" and crap.!

OK, I won't call you a conspiracy theorist.  Instead, I'll ask a general question, not just to you, but to everyone:

How do you know what is true?

[Solox123]

Thanks for the humble reply. Well .... that's a very good question niner.. idk i heard theres proof of the most powerful people meeting and theres all this evidence throughuot the internet but yeah good question.. have u looked into that area though niner/?

[Mind]

Shengen Treaty on the ropes: http://www.spiegel.d...y-a-828815.html

It is so weird to see nearly all of the same steps to war as in previous centuries. Free trade and free movement of people throughout Europe seemed like a positive step, something that promotes peace and understanding among disparate cultures. After the border controls will come capital controls. Then.....

[Mind]

Despite the continued deterioration of many national economies, things are being held together. I think one of the main factors is that people have food. As long a people have food, it is less likely they will rebel, even if they are becoming less wealthy overall.

People are so well fed that it is becoming a bigger problem (in some aggregate measures) than malnourishment.

Quote

For the first time on a global scale, being overweight has become more of a health problem than lack of nutrition. In 1990, undernutrition was the leading cause of disease burden, measured as the number of years of healthy life an average person could expect to lose as a result of illness or early death. Back then, a high body-mass index, or BMI, was ranked tenth. Now, undernutrition has dropped to eighth place, while BMI has risen to become the sixth leading cause of disease burden.
Too much to eat

"A greater amount of disease burden has occurred because people are fat and have too much to eat, as opposed to having too little to eat," says Alan Lopezat the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, who worked on the study.

Being overweight can hike a person's blood pressure and cause stroke and heart disease; together, these two conditions are responsible for a quarter of all deaths. And the problem isn't limited to the west – the Middle East is one region that is seeing significant increases in BMI.

[cryonicsculture]

Hmmm... because we use a currency that has no physical value, I don't think it's as bad as it looks. China is lacking in demand this year due to a slowing western economy, yet because we in the US have spent tons of money some might think that we're headed to destruction or some such. But China just wastes as much or a little less money than we waste (building empty cities) and because of this and the fact that their RMB is pegged to our currency, and they are such a huge economy, our inflation doesn't get that bad. As it is we are safe from any kind of hyper inflation because China benefits from our debt and become richer for it. I'll stop this explanation and move to global parity so everything will make sense.

The US has been the top dog for at least 100 years. We're not used to not being #1 and I doubt many realize China and India(maybe it was Brazil? either way one of them is pretty damn close) are now #1 and #2 and that the US's economy will soon be more in line with the amount of natural resources and population we have here. So what is global parity? GP is the notion that once western technical advances and accumulated wealth are negligible in comparison to other developing nations, we will be at parity save for whatever country has the most resources or is able to best and most efficiently exploit those resources. It was only ever possible to outpace the economies of China and India because of opium and English Imperialism, both of which have faded into history. Today, total population or capacity to produce and recycle are what will determine the wealth outcome of a developed nation regardless of economic or political differences unless you're a country whose trade is severly restricted or boycotted by the international community and were poor to begin with. In addition to production and recycling, things like suburbanism, transportation infrastructure, and energy habits will be the strongest causes of poverty as energy demand is due to spike (Remember China's gunna keep investing in empty cities and more efficient infrastructure to ensure the highest possible efficiency (historically, this is there way when they aren't opiating it up and it's going to take alot of energy). I suppose in the end our cost of living here in the States will end up higher than elsewhere, where energy use and social status was built on efficiency and continues to be improved. The good news is, we have alot of the fossil resources and may benefit from subsidy.

So as long as we improve our efficiency to match the rest of the world while the rest of the world believes in the US and continues to match their debt to ours, we should do okay and our debt shouldn't boil down to anything. If the rest of the world, stops believing in us, then there will be problems unless we can move to a hard currency that is backed by a physical resource. In which case resources will play the major role, at least in determining our place in global economics. Our currency is like God, its value is determined by belief. Though I should caution that when I was trying to talk people way down on real estate during the bubble, I was often given the excuse that home value was also based on believing in the value of things, and there were obvious limits to this theory.

My advice is to stay within the fundamentals. Homes are worth only as much as 10-20% than what they can be rented for to pay the mortgage back in an efficient manner (20-30%+ equity) and rental prices are related to what can be afforded in a given economic environment with other essentials. Believing that you will be paid more because the cost of living is raising has an obvious fault. Instead, get paid as much as you can while you can, and assume a decline in the value of things such as homes and even food until such time as the only difference in costs relates to the local efficiency of production or distribution. Eventually when we reach a point close enough to parity and our incomes and cost of livings drop to match, jobs and income will shift to production of goods or resources.

Ideally we will reach a point where machines are doing all of the work and provide for us before that happens. I think in the mean time, perhaps Immortality groups could form something like an investment union (think credit union with investments or maybe a farmer's cooperative, and lets make a credit union too we should form as much a community as possible) which focuses on a diverse portfolio of the most efficient methods of production and resource acquisition and be owned by immortalist members. Think of owning the next robotic factory that produces the next iPad. Most importantly, our efforts, I think, should be to lower the immortalist cost of living ensuring that profits from things we buy get returned to members.

Hmmm... what might we call an immortality credit union or business cooperative? Brainstorm?

Infinite/unlimited Returns? Interest in Infinite Credit Union (I³CU)? Unlimited Returns CU (UR Cr3d17 Un10n)? Un-Aging (Un+Aging) Interest CU (CU of U&AI  AI= A.I., Japanese Ai or Love, and phonetic "I")?

[cryonicsculture]

Mind, on 15 December 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

Despite the continued deterioration of many national economies, things are being held together. I think one of the main factors is that people have food. As long a people have food, it is less likely they will rebel, even if they are becoming less wealthy overall.

People are so well fed that it is becoming a bigger problem (in some aggregate measures) than malnourishment.

Quote

For the first time on a global scale, being overweight has become more of a health problem than lack of nutrition. In 1990, undernutrition was the leading cause of disease burden, measured as the number of years of healthy life an average person could expect to lose as a result of illness or early death. Back then, a high body-mass index, or BMI, was ranked tenth. Now, undernutrition has dropped to eighth place, while BMI has risen to become the sixth leading cause of disease burden.
Too much to eat

"A greater amount of disease burden has occurred because people are fat and have too much to eat, as opposed to having too little to eat," says Alan Lopezat the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, who worked on the study.

Being overweight can hike a person's blood pressure and cause stroke and heart disease; together, these two conditions are responsible for a quarter of all deaths. And the problem isn't limited to the west – the Middle East is one region that is seeing significant increases in BMI.

Personally, I don't think we should ever be exposed to things like cookies, HF corn syrup, and just about any kind of health useless food. Foods should be engineered to make us thrive and we should be sold on the feeling and satisfaction of the feeling of thrive over being full. It's a trained behavior that results from the availability of junk food and generations of accepting obesity and forgetting as a species, how good it feels to be in good shape. I read recently about an endangered species that could only be kept in captivity because the species had forgotten methods of survival due to only surviving in captivity after an engineering mistake had destroyed their only habitat. The same has think has happened to us. We've forgotten, as a species, to teach that being healthy and having a good nutrition/health profile is a feel-good experience that comes with responsibility. I wonder just how many people have never known what it's like. Have we reached a point where unhealthy is inhumanity (incuratus est inhumanitas), as in an act of inhumanity to not teach and promote an optimally healthy life?

[Mind]

I looked into starting a bank for life extensionists and cryonicists. One stumbling block - by design - to protect vested interests, no doubt - is that you need $5,000,000 in start-up capital. Maybe I should just make a platinum coin and declare that it is worth $5 million. Do you think the state regulators would accept that?

[cryonicsculture]

Well they seem to want a trillion for theirs... but being something of a silver bullet, I think these coins should be silver. We'd need 20,000 members to contribute $250 or 200 members to contribute $2500. It might take a few years to gather the capital, but it would be worth it to get something like this started and the contributions come with ownership in the CU. Much fewer contributors could be needed considering there appear to be some in our community who have millions they don't know what to do with (cough cough Sarah cough cough) and we are offering an ownership stake. There are also members of Transtime who manage investments for members on ice. Alcor, LEF, RG, and others all need a bank for their businesses and possibly loans for their working capital. So a contribution to the CU would be converted to savings accounts with variable interest rates determined by what we make. We'd be an online only bank and accept ACH/Direct Deposit. We could contract our paperwork to another bank, it's a fairly common service that is offered by some conventional banks or we could outsource to save money and improve returns, or create a PT telecommute job for an immortalist. I would drop my conventional bank for an immortality bank any day (though I'd probably keep a conventional account for free debit withdrawals). If we are hiring a bank to do our paperwork and print our docs and credit cards etc, they will very likely hire temps and we could have a say in the temp candidates and look to provide jobs to resumes with immortalist and anti-aging volunteers.

What other issues might there be?

[Lister]

And here we are! 2013!

It’s funny to read back and see all the impending doom predictions from almost 6 years ago. Lots of stuff has happened but are we any closer to WW3 or even Cold War v2? It’s been over 4 years since Mind responded last...

In some ways WW3 and even CW v2 seems less likely to me today than it did 4 years ago. Our economies are forever merging in the global market.

We could see proxy wars in Israel and the middle easy but North Korea is just too unsupported; all it can do is bark louder. Plus now that it has nukes the only thing it can do would seem to be too big of a step even for a crazy country like that. Japan and China are only really grumbling probably because Japan is too busy having its stuff made in China and China is too busy buying up Japanese made cars and technology.

What do you guys think?

[Mind]

Lister, on 08 February 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

And here we are! 2013!

It’s funny to read back and see all the impending doom predictions from almost 6 years ago. Lots of stuff has happened but are we any closer to WW3 or even Cold War v2? It’s been over 4 years since Mind responded last...

In some ways WW3 and even CW v2 seems less likely to me today than it did 4 years ago. Our economies are forever merging in the global market.

We could see proxy wars in Israel and the middle easy but North Korea is just too unsupported; all it can do is bark louder. Plus now that it has nukes the only thing it can do would seem to be too big of a step even for a crazy country like that. Japan and China are only really grumbling probably because Japan is too busy having its stuff made in China and China is too busy buying up Japanese made cars and technology.

What do you guys think?

4 years?? I just posted 2 months ago.

Keep your fingers crossed, it is usually when people start saying things like "age of abundance" and "housing prices will never decline", when the ship hits the sand.

Overall, the great counter-balancing force is the Internet. Global communication is a good check against psychopaths in power positions.

[Mind]

It is ok that you mock me and make fun of me. I still think conversations/questions like this are important for avoiding big problems down the road.

[Lister]

Gah! I missed a page! I thought the last post was 4 years ago...

While I’m training for my new position I’m living with a guy named Dave who created the website www.ourcourtssuck.com in the late 90’s. Dave is a pretty long winded guy but he makes some valid points as to how fail our system is presently.

It’s my opinion that the system has to completely fail so it can be stripped, reset, and rebuilt on a more solid foundation. Perhaps WW3 will come in my life time...

[A941]

Hm 6 years have passed, and North Korea is still run by an overweight and crazy guy named Kim who threatens to start a war.
That sounds much like "His divine Shadow" from Lexx :-)

I hope nothing happens, and they manage to get rid of those wackos in a peaceful way, because Seoul would be in range of conventional artillery and could really be turned in a "sea of fire".

[mikeinnaples]

The graphene based water filters should at least be able to squash the fears that some people had about war starting over fresh water.

[Mind]

Link to the graphene water filters? Just in the lab right now or commercial product? No doubt water resources will cause some tension, but technological developments in this arena should be able to provide enough for everyone

[mikeinnaples]

Still in the lab I believe. Here is the MIT video for how it can be used for desalinization.

100x the permeability of a traditional filter means higher flow with less power right?


#5 Surprising/Biggest Doscoveries of 2012

Article @ Phys.org

Edited by mikeinnaples, 18 March 2013 - 07:23 PM.

[NeuroGuy]

Lister, on 16 March 2013 - 01:33 AM, said:

Perhaps WW3 will come in my life time...

Sadly, so long as human pride is given an avenue for expression, I would tend to expect a third world war in our life time. That said, I thought I'd share one of my favorite (though bleak) quotes,

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones" - Albert Einstein.

Unfortunately, I disagree with Einstein here; I think the advent of certain technological innovations has made the complete annihilation of the human race a more plausible turnout, a fact evinced by the creation of such organizations as Cambridge University's Center for the Study of Existential Risk. Human nature, when coupled with exponential technological advancement and viewed in juxtaposition to the Fermi paradox, seems to make secular conjecture regarding the future of humanity irrationally optimistic. That conclusion may seem rather stygian, but so it is.

Edited by NeuroGuy, 07 April 2013 - 08:39 PM.

[Brainfogged]

Our wars of these times are a little bit different.

Economical wars are being waged as we speak and most of these warcriminals are left uncharged. Another war has to do with information, I think that the big brother draconian society is an aftereffect of this. Ultimately we all will be monitored and controlled to fit the mold of "freedom" as we all like to put it. But this is all together another discussion.

[Kaid]

syria just got nuked you tell me !

[Brainfogged]

Kaid, on 13 May 2013 - 03:41 AM, said:

syria just got nuked you tell me !

Do you really think that Israel would be stupid enough to pull a nuke this close to them! Jeez! It's all rumours and bs.

Now they are telling Assads been using chemical weapons, these are also lies but enough it's "truth" to step all over U.N and pull a veto on their allied support. What they are basically saying is; "We `believe´ they are using chemical weapons! We must act now and so we will." Then U.N needs to tag along. The Syrian army is equally hypocritical as Assads army and the free army is guilty of ethnic cleansing. The free army consists of different Islamistic groups that support eachother and they are annihilating minorities and civilians, even children. Assad is supported by the Russians, Americans want control over that territory so now wonder they support the "free"- army which is basically against Assad and his support from the Russians. There has been collateral in to Lebanon, Turkey and Israel. They need to stop the war immediately or otherwise the whole middle east is fucked cause then terrorists or rather Islamists from all over the middle east will be joining to fight and it will not be a pretty picture for anyone living there. Basically there is an agenda to keep the war going on from both sides, especially the fundamentalists and American influenses. Assad is just a puppet who wants his power back over his country, other than that, he can't do shit!

[darksanity]

I don't think World War 3 is coming but definitely an economic collapse followed by serious social unrest (maybe civil war in a few countries).

When the social security, health care, food stamps, welfare moneys run-out, what's gonna happen? Massive looting and chaos. When there's no more money (or the money is worthless) to even pay prison guards, what's gonna happen? I'll let you figure that one out.

But I don't think a full-on WORLD WAR will happen again (or at least during my lifetime). The vast majority of people today are much more aware that mutual destruction is in NOBODY's interests compared to 80 years ago when you had no Internet and the TV had 2 channels. The increased global communication enabled by the massive technological progress might just save us from from a total World War, but not from local social unrest (people still gotta eat).

One thing for sure is the Western 'developed world' is going down the shitter. Europe is half-way in, Japan is next, then the US, then the whole fucking world. (except maybe sub saharan Africa where people might not notice anything)

I think there's a serious chance of civil war in the US within the next 20 years.

Edited by darksanity, Today, 07:42 AM.

[Brainfogged]

http://www.channelne...ncy/673484.html