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| Thread: Should all U.S. forces return home? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 22, 2016 02:15 PM |
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markkur said:
Man versus the Machines and the Machines have won.
oh well, humans have had their day in the sun anyway, and they wasted nearly every minute of it with their politics, and redundant and wasteful expansions.
i was watching the news yesterday, and they were touting a new app that allows you to find exactly what you need while you shop, in-store. they were all happy about it. making shopping any easier than it already is now.
meanwhile, more beneficial contributions to humanity and to the planet, fall into the background. it's all about entertainment with people. i can't really speak though, since i've given up on humanity, all i do is kill time until it's time for me to die. 
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted January 23, 2016 12:20 AM |
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fred79 said:
... meanwhile, more beneficial contributions to humanity and to the planet, fall into the background. it's all about entertainment with people. i can't really speak though, since i've given up on humanity, all i do is kill time until it's time for me to die.
You should write an 'inspirational book" you probably have a huge audience out there. <L>
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 23, 2016 01:52 AM |
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markkur said:
You should write an 'inspirational book" you probably have a huge audience out there. <L>
i don't understand what you mean. was this intended as a poke at me? 
if it's a joke, then i guess i ruined it by wanting you to explain it to me. 
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Svartzorn
Known Hero
Dead struggling with death.
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posted January 23, 2016 02:21 AM |
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Quote:
Should all U.S. forces return home?
Yes.
You're not the sheriff of the world, everyone's pretty tired of your imperialism. Stay in, mind your own business.
And since you're bringing back the troops, mind as well keep your cultural industry at bay as well.
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Death to the world.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 23, 2016 02:42 AM |
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Svartzorn said:
Quote:
Should all U.S. forces return home?
Yes.
You're not the sheriff of the world, everyone's pretty tired of your imperialism. Stay in, mind your own business.
And since you're bringing back the troops, mind as well keep your cultural industry at bay as well.
ok, me and markkur will do that. 
but seriously, that's another thing i hate: american culture spreading around the world. i can't stand the culture here at all, and seeing it overseas like it's snowing POPULAR fills me with rage. consumer culture should be removed like the disease it is. it's wasteful and stupid in the extreme.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 23, 2016 03:02 AM |
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Well, I find the whole objection on consumer culture thing a little hypocrite. Everybody allegedly complains about it but when you look at something like the movie thread for example, the very same people only talk about comic book movies or similar big-budget action films, which are like the perfect embodiment of consumer culture. It is easier than ever to follow the world classics or contemporary international cinema today, thanks to the internet, but only a few of us do that.
The truth is, America doesnt exactly force it's popular culture on anyone, people usually consume it because it's easier to consume.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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fred79
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 23, 2016 03:20 AM |
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/veering off-topic: @ artu: lol. i know i'm a hypocrite already. everyone is, in one way or another.
but when i mention "consumer culture", i'm actually referring to literal consumables. popular media isn't what i hate, but the thinking behind it. it's a culture that doesn't appreciate the way things are. it's a culture that says, "if this isn't the best, i'll throw it away, or exchange it for a better one." technological advancement aside, it's a culture that wastes the whole world's resources(or at least, what cannot be recycled).
consumer culture is also based on fads, which i also despise. fads stem from fashion, and i despise the fashion world as well. it's what made name-brand clothes fashionable, even though most are made by poor people in countries that pay horrible labor and even use slaves for said labor; when no-name brands are made fun of(even though they are cheaper and usually last longer). it's the reasoning behind buying diamonds for a chick, that were mined by slave children. it's the reasoning behind buying a new car and exchanging the old one, when there was nothing wrong with the old one, just that the car was a STATUS symbol to them. it's a culture that says, this living room/bedroom/bathroom set is old, i'm going to replace it and throw out the old one. it's a culture that throws away once-living christmas trees, after a short use.
resources, animals, and people suffer, because of consumer culture. i cannot stand it. i hate it even more, because it is FORCED ON PEOPLE. more and more often, they make the old OBSOLETE; when there is nothing wrong with the old. and where does the old end up? more often than not, in a landfill; helping to pollute the world.
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Svartzorn
Known Hero
Dead struggling with death.
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posted January 25, 2016 02:02 AM |
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fred79 said:
Svartzorn said:
Quote:
Should all U.S. forces return home?
Yes.
You're not the sheriff of the world, everyone's pretty tired of your imperialism. Stay in, mind your own business.
And since you're bringing back the troops, mind as well keep your cultural industry at bay as well.
ok, me and markkur will do that.
but seriously, that's another thing i hate: american culture spreading around the world. i can't stand the culture here at all, and seeing it overseas like it's snowing POPULAR fills me with rage. consumer culture should be removed like the disease it is. it's wasteful and stupid in the extreme.
It's ok to get to know american culture, as it's nice to know any other culture for that matter.
we just want to keep our own as well. And competitive marketing has made that very difficult.
Artu's mixing things.
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Death to the world.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 12, 2016 08:42 AM |
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Edited by artu at 08:42, 12 Feb 2016.
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No, I'm not, competition and U.S. dominance is a fact on global level but locally, nobody's stopping you from learning your own literature, cinema, music or whatever you have in mind. The hypocrisy I'm talking about is very relevant, since most people who complain about America's consumer culture have all the means to invest time in their own culture which is certainly not wiped out off the face of the earth. They choose not to because American products are easier to consume.
Anyway, I didn't resurrect the thread for this, it may be getting a little off-topic but it was here, we talked about this:
artu said:
blizzardboy said:
I think a safe zone would have been a happy medium between telling the refugees to screw off, and large swathes of them abruptly land in a foreign culture & environment. Perhaps some of them could still migrate, especially to central Europe which is desperate for warm bodies, but in less dramatic numbers all at once.
But it's water under the bridge.
Well, the EU is giving Turkey 3 billion Euros to "keep them." So, you can say we are that safe zone in practicality. The culture is not as foreign as Western Europe, espceially in the East and in conservative Anatolian towns. (You wont have to worry about girls with mini-skirts getting harrased in a place such as Konya or Yozgat.)
Of course, this caused especially Germany to go soft on Erdogan and put him back on good graces. Criticism from Europe that he's turning more and more authoritarian got drastically tuned down. The conflict with the Kurds is almost back to its heated days of the 90's. There is martial law in many Eastern cities, people are not allowed to leave their homes. The leftists are constantly protesting inhumane behaviour by the police or the military during this or that operation, children getting shot accidentally etc. Normally, European civil organizations would be all over this, but not a peep as of now.
The 2015 G20 Summit memos are leaked and we now have the bargain on record:
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Svartzorn
Known Hero
Dead struggling with death.
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posted February 12, 2016 02:39 PM |
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Your culture is not only easier to consume, it is a culture of consumption in itself. It's been instrumentalized into a means to padronize everyone else's.
Americans are homo economicus by excellence. Now they want to push it on everybody else.
People are not unwilling to know their own culture. They have just been fragmented by the imperialists, besides not having discovered their own things.
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Death to the world.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 12, 2016 02:52 PM |
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Svartzorn said:
Your culture is not only easier to consume, it is a culture of consumption in itself.
I am not American. I just don't oversimplify everything into "it's all those imperialists' fault." It's quite a popular rhetoric here, too.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted February 12, 2016 04:49 PM |
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Nice find Artu, the last segment is especially interesting for me, the bit where Juncker blames terrorist tendancies on lack of education and exclusion (expands far beyond just terrorism, civil wars and internal strife is also attributed to these two factors, of course it's oversimplifaction of the reasons for terrorist tendancies, but it's a start). This is extremely important in the current attitudes of major conflict resolution organisations such as the UN, who have shifted their focus from merely reacting to attrocities and conflicts to prevention, and in this the focus has been trying to combat poverty and discrimination (humanitarian aid). Especially important in certain regions of Africa where culture discrimination is rampant, as is limited access to education.
The trouble with America is that war is not a last resort to them, nor is it stigmatized like it is here in Europe and Asia. I mean two great organisations emerged after World War Two, the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, (birth of the EU) and the UN both with their mandates to end the 'scourge of war'. No such trend appears in America, even Russia despite having a maniac dictator leading it was tempered in its military ambitions. Only America retained war and intervention as part of its every-day international and domestic policy.
America is the number one threat to peace and security in our world today, and no....that does not mean we should nuke it or anything. But Europe and Asia learned its lesson from the horrors of WWII and WWI, the civilian casualties mounted to 43,346,000 people (note civilians), on the other hand the USA lost a mere 2000 people in both World Wars (discounting the merchant navy). This is ingrained in people's minds and reflected in policy and attitudes, so idk how we will resolve to temper America's warmongering in the future.
I'll polish this up a lot later, got an essay to finish.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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Svartzorn
Known Hero
Dead struggling with death.
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posted February 12, 2016 05:07 PM |
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There must be someone else besides the US and globalist organizations pushing globalism on the entire world.
Wait, there isn't.
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Death to the world.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 12, 2016 05:19 PM |
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Edited by artu at 17:39, 12 Feb 2016.
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Tsar said:
the bit where Juncker blames terrorist tendancies on lack of education and exclusion
Thanks, glad it helped your work. That's Erdogan, not Juncker, btw.
Svartzorn said:
There must be someone else besides the US and globalist organizations pushing globalism on the entire world.
Wait, there isn't.
Globalism is inevitable, because the world really is getting smaller. How it will occur is a matter of politics but you can not go back to isolated, closed systems in this age. US culture is everywhere, yes. (But hey, so was the Roman culture, that's why you are a Christian and not a member of some ancient religion from the Southern American continent.) I haven't said it isn't, I said it does not wipe out your own culture and you are free to learn about it as well, even if it isn't as globally as dominant as the US. People who don't take the time to do that, feel more comfortable to use the imperial rhetoric and blame everything on some bogey man. I never had any problem learning and enjoying my own country's literature, music or cinema. What I have learned doesn't relate to outsiders like Star Wars or Mark Twain does, but it is not extinct either.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Svartzorn
Known Hero
Dead struggling with death.
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posted February 12, 2016 05:45 PM |
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Who's the one simplifying things?
The world is getting smaller due to technological reasons, that is completely independent from cultural spheres. In other words, people may have a 7th century culture, but 21st century technology.
American culture is a deal here because it's coming "bundled" with technological innovations. People are given no alternative to embrace new technologies or being welcomed in the global community unless they adopt what's "acceptable" to americans.
You seem to miss the fact that the imposition of a determinate culture accustom people in specific fashions and repels them from being used to what's theirs for they favor what's alien to them.
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Death to the world.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 12, 2016 06:01 PM |
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What was the original post:
artu said:
Well, I find the whole objection on consumer culture thing a little hypocrite. Everybody allegedly complains about it but when you look at something like the movie thread for example, the very same people only talk about comic book movies or similar big-budget action films, which are like the perfect embodiment of consumer culture. It is easier than ever to follow the world classics or contemporary international cinema today, thanks to the internet, but only a few of us do that.
The truth is, America doesnt exactly force it's popular culture on anyone, people usually consume it because it's easier to consume.
So, unless you live in some tribal commune which doesn't have the technology to produce films, record music or publish books, technological superiority has hardly anything to do with what I mention, does it?
The US can be criticized for many things, I also criticize their politics a lot. But people liking their formulaic, easy to consume products, is not their crime. It's just how most people are, they are usually lazy to dig any deeper. Also, Americans certainly don't lack creativity, the formulaic, shallow stuff feeds and trains the sector and every once in a while, they manage to produce actually good stuff on a very professional level because of that. When the sector is bigger, it attracts more talent. Take their TV shows for example, there is enormous amount of crap but meanwhile in the last decade, some of their shows elevated to the level of quality cinema. My favorite TV shows are American, not Turkish, simply because they are written and executed better, not because globalism shoves them in my mouth.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted February 12, 2016 06:21 PM |
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How Artu got elected most boring poster is beyond me. I for one really enjoy reading you man.
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 12, 2016 06:30 PM |
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i enjoy his arguments and debates, as long as he's not debating against me. then, i try and remember why i think he's intelligent. lol.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 12, 2016 06:39 PM |
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Galaad said:
How Artu got elected most boring poster is beyond me. I for one really enjoy reading you man.
Well, I was also elected the wisest, so I guess under this consumerist American age of ours, wisdom bores people.
3 votes, including Herry and Stevie, not exactly a mystery, is it, dear friend. Thanks for the compliment, btw.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted February 12, 2016 06:48 PM |
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wisdom comes at a helluva price, though. unless you're rich, then it doesn't matter.
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