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23 17

A "How did we get here question".

As a member of the "Greatest Generation" just a couple months ago I am wondering how I became a member of the "Dispensable Generation" today.
With folks like Dan Patrick, Texas Lt. Governor, saying maybe elderly people should die so that their kids and grandkids can have the newest shinny object and Jonathan Ashbach asking whether the nation might be better off letting a few hundred thousand people die to prevent an economic depression I have to wonder when life became cheaper than things?
And then there is Michael Saylor, CEO of Micostratery who said he believed in the need to quarantine the 40 million elderly retired, immune-compromised people who no longer need to work or get educated but his 2,000 workers should come to work. If they spread the virus, "In the absolutely worst case, the overall life expectancy would click down by a few weeks. Instead of being 79.6 years to live we would have 79.45 years to live. But the thing about averages is that it takes both the young and old to get to an average.
So how did we get here? Are we not intelligent and civilized. Is the "economy" our God to be served and sacrificed to - our real religion?
More importantly will we learn anything? Are lives, even elderly lives, as important as money?

ArthurK 6 Apr 1
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23 comments

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6

Life has always been cheap. Look at history and how we have treated life. I think there is a line from Braveheart that said it all: "Arrows cost money. [...] The dead cost nothing."

6

This is a reflection of the Trump administration's priorities. Nothing matter more to Trump and the Rs than money and power so everything they do is motivated by these obsessions. Couple that with a total deficit of scruples or integrity to restrain their worst instincts and you have a perfect storm of greed, corruption and amorality.

Sounds like you need to belong to "Out Of The Illusion " and read some articles like "The Senate Has Passed the Largest Corporate Bailout in US History

[truthout."

@FrayedBear So your argument is corporate welfare disproves greed,, corruption and amorality? Better luck next time.

@FrayedBear why don't you just tell us about it?

@Sgt_Spanky I thought i was saying the opposite.

6

If we need a population adjustment maybe we should adjust the population of the 1% in order to release the hoarded cash they've piled up into the economy. The french proved that the population of the aristocracy can be adjusted fairly quickly when tge people are tired enough of their abuses and excesses.

Blocked!

@Techpriest Sounds like you need to belong to "Out Of The Illusion " and read some articles like "The Senate Has Passed the Largest Corporate Bailout in US History

[truthout."

@FrayedBear Tell us how it ends

4

Senicide has been with us for thousands of years and, sadly, is still practiced in some cultures. It is often framed in terms of resources. Granny becomes a burden, so she's carried up the mountain or put on a floating chunk of ice and left to die. As payouts in wrongful death cases show, our lives have long been monetized.

Strangely countries like Japan who behaved in the most brutal way during WW2 still respect and even revere the elderly

And Adolf & his 3rd Reich streamlined individual selfishnes of leaving granny on a block of melting ice by creating Stalags, gas chambers and mass executions.
It is not interesting reading an American similarly advocating the extermination of the perceived "useless".
As for monetising life, insurance companies, lawyers & courts, doctors and snake oil vendors have profited for years.

@FrayedBear Adolf? 3rd Reich? So why does it always have to come down to the favorite topic of internet trolls and shills worldwide--Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany?

So now that you appear to be following me, please do yourself a favor and actually read what I write. You might find it "inteesting" that I don't advocate "exteemination" of anyone. By the way, what happened to your spell checker?

@Moravian Indeed! Modern Japan is the opposite of the mythical practice of ubasute atrributed to ancient Japan. Today they are working to develop robots to interact with their aging seniors, who are too many in number for the current generation of young people to care for.

@p-nullifidian With nearly 25% of the population now over the age of 65 they probably have no other choice.

@Moravian Well, they could import labor, but they are unlikely to ever do this since Japan is 98% ethnically pure, and they wish to keep it that way.

@p-nullifidian very true.

@p-nullifidian I've just been talking to someone who lived through German occupation. He is now 96 and says that he is starting to understand how the Jews, homosexuals, Rom and communists felt having to wear their identifying badges during those years.
Yes there is a problem with the spell checker - its Google's, thank you for the advice.

4

It's all your fault for not owning an oil company.

4

No matter what the prize , it's always , let the other guy be the ones to sacrifice , as long as it doesn't affect me adversely .

4

Trump and his rich masters talking

Sounds like you need to read some articles like "The Senate Has Passed the Largest Corporate Bailout in US History

[truthout."

@FrayedBear Go ahead and tell us about it save us the bother of reading it

@twill Be ignorant in your own laziness.

3

It's all part of the "I got mine.. Fuck them" ... Multi-Generational attitude. Which happens to sound exactly like the Republican Creed nowadays.

I knew a fellow who was very proud to say exactly that. A devout republican and Christian, or Catholic.
His offspring are much like that, and super fucking religious!

3

You got it. What America really worships is money, not some god.

In Greed we trust.

3

A segment of our country - and religious I might add - obviously feels money is more important than the masses.

2

That capitalism folks, ain't it wonderful when people are a cheap and renewable commodity?

2

Yes Money is our real god that keeps on giving as long as we print more but devalues all that has been printed before. When are we going to start an economy based upon energy use. We know for the next known period of time (in millions of years) approximately how much energy is bound to reach us from the sun. we dare not burn any more fossil fuels . Changing to being paid in energy units will stop anybody earning too much in whatever circumstance as it all has to be shared out equally from the beginning. We can make all the gold into useful things and some glistening ornaments as it is useless just being buried back in the ground. This is all speculation of course, but have you a better idea?

Hi! I never thought of both an energy based economy and monetary system. I like it! I think it would work, but we would have to overcome the part of human nature that tends toward amassing wealth and power.

I think many would find this possible to achieve, given adequate education and mentorship.

@LeeE I have no doubt that Human nature will still try to amass power but if the monetary system is changed world-wide with a completely new back up of units streaming from the sun we have a chance to find out if we really all believe in equality. Please ask the economist though.

2

Religion strikes again..

1

I still stand in awe of the Greatest Generation. Dan Patrick and that California attorney are deplorable individuals. The strength of a society is determined by how well they care for the weakest members. Those 2 do not understand that because they worship the gawd almighty dollar.

CS60 Level 7 Apr 7, 2020
1

for what it's worth:

I've always thought that many folks from the Greatest Generation seemed somewhat to be missing the extent to which bad philosophy (including, but not limited to, the various religions) and bad thinking and such were pervading US society and undermining the work they had done. As part of this, I also think the Education industry ran amock in some ways. Education can be a good thing, but the system as it stands seems to have contributed to a lot of the bad thinking that we see.

kmaz Level 7 Apr 4, 2020
1

We know who our god is. The fact that we trust in him is printed on all of our money. This also reveals his color.

1

How has anybody come to believe that government has their best interest
Isn’t statism just another deceptive religion ?

1

ALL lives are important, far more important than mere money.
The Elder have lived, worked and battled through years and years gaining knowledge as they've gone along,knowledge that IF the younger generations cared to listen to then they too might actually learn something other than what is on a monitor screen in front of them.
No-ones life story is unimportant, no-ones life is unimportant, not even the tramp on the street or the little child in his/her mother's arms.

Millenials seem to have been taught otherwise to create a population of fools. I once told the Australian parliament that only a fool discards his heritage without fully comprehending its use and value.
Of course the seppos want eveything to be the same with a golden arch & KFC on every corner.

1

Welcome to the world of President Death and the Obstructionist republican fascist Death panels!!!

0

If we learn anything it might take a long time to seep into our collective brains!
I believe we got here as a result of decades of greed and bigotry running the GOP, at least from St. Reagan to the present. He brought the Evangelicals close to gov't, and he played by the rules of the Koch boys' long plan. See "Democracy in Chains-The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America," by Nancy MacLean.

0

how's anarchy lookin' now? 😀

0

Are you a bot, or just plain boring?

@p-nullifidian are you an intelligent human or simply stupid as defined by Profesor Cipolla [qz.com] ?

@FrayedBear Oh good, just boring. Didn't want to engage a bot.

@p-nullifidian LMAO -another smart arse unable to reply to reply to a simplequestion. Obviously living in pugnacious ignorance.

@FrayedBear Clearly. I'm just pleased to see you come up with new material! 😉

0

"Where do we go from here question" is the next to ponder.

Sounds like you need to belong to "Out Of The Illusion " and read some articles like "The Senate Has Passed the Largest Corporate Bailout in US History

[truthout."

@FrayedBear Why don't you.....read it again!?

@twill to what purpose?

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