May 17, 2016

Post 29

8 hours ago#29
Wow, good questions! I'll try my best.

1. Your first question purports that societal dismantling is necessary to liberate the people, and, that if it should be dismantled, that it be done peacefully. 

First, let's look at the dismantling bit. Certainly, looking at a society like the United States, there is an overwhelming presence of stagnant infrastructure. One needn't look further than the "Rust Belt" to see that the industrialization that led the country to economic prosperity is shackling us down. While infrastructure is not society per se, it can, and in this case does, reflect the view of the people as it is internalized. Crime, famine, and perpetual un/underemployment of the educated is a sign of dissonance between economic trends and the infrastructure we have present. My god, the health care system is shot; look no further than the mortality rates of infants in this country, which has no place being so high in a first-world development, as proof. The fastest growing places, including in the U.S., grow either in places where there is no infrastructure in place or it has been destroyed beyond salvation, so that new infrastructure is necessary.

When I refer to infrastructure, I refer collectively to physical, economic, educational, and political. Each of these are struggling right now. For new physical infrastructure, you need money; for economic infrastructure you need educated people to set it up; for that you need politicians to allocate funds to municipalities for educational purposes. Or do you? Recent innovations and the advent of the internet has made education exponentially more available. So, I'm not sure about the last point yet, and hopeful that education becomes more fluid and abundant so to set up systems for economic mobility. I wouldn't bring it up if I didn't already see evidence of it. But, I digress...

so, do I think society should be dismantled through peaceful methodology... that's sort of a paradox because one does not "dismantle" society peacefully. Germany and Japan build themselves up into world powers only after being blasted to smithereens. The U.S. did the same after sending off its young men to horrible wars. Change is violent and often comes too late for those who needed it the most. The best we can do is hope that the advances we make spur growth from the next generation. Progress comes slow and even if we were to dismantle the powers that be it would be it would create power vacuums and be perhaps a lateral move, if that, after spending resources toward "dismantling." 

Hillary Clinton says that "You don't change minds, you change laws." My thought would be, "You don't change laws to change minds, you change what people see every day." That means a makeover that requires a lot of physical infrastructure renovation and a renewed look at the educational system. Whether this all can be done with a two-party system, I'm sure I don't know, but it doesn't help that fundy panderers in Congress are preventing any significant measures to speed up the drag that is the overwhelming poverty in the U.S. I think it's changing, though, slowly, and perhaps violently.

People do what people do regardless of the system, so it would be a waste to focus on "dismantling." Peaceful methodology is always ideal. I prefer the idea of "challenging."

2. Working off the previous spiel, barriers should be lowered at a measured pace. The problem is that they're being raised in lurches. Ideally optimization would be the goal but the current model is neither optimal nor widespread. And, a little iconoclasm never hurt, but it's best not to lose the valuable lessons spread by icons. Even pain inflicted by dogma mustn't blind us from history, and the same goes for oppressive regimes and those that contributed to them.

What's critical refusal?

3. Whomever takes on the responsibility. Educators, journalists, writers and philosphers,

May 14, 2016

tanking, healing, DPS ratio in the Milton Bradley board game

Sometimes to get a chance with the woman a guy wants to be with, he's stuck going the friendship route first because that's the only lane she's really got open (to him). Then he has to prove himself to be worth more than just a friend.

Issue is that approach can be a huge waste of his time if the guy started hanging out with her infatuated from the beginning and she ends up never interested. He never wanted to be only friends with her, his goal was a more intimate relationship from the start. The friendship was just a means to that goal. 

There really should be no blame on the woman for this scenario, as it's the man who's accepted the possibility of failure as a potential risk in this pursuit. There was no guarantee that the woman would agree to anything more and the man should never assume so. If the outcome ends with him having wasted his time trying to woo her, that's on him, not her. 

However if the man decides to jump ship after being rejected and is not interested in simply being friends after the fact...that's fair and actually a mature response too. He does not need to "grow up and get over it " so he can continue playing friends with her. Pretending/forcing a friendship that he's not really interested in is only wasting his time and misleading the woman, wasting her time. He could also build growing resentment towards her due to being denied what he really wants, which she may or may not be aware of. Not a healthy situation for either of them to be in. Him deciding to remove himself from the situation instead of lying or badgering her was actually the grow-up thing to do.

I have a similar perspective when the genders are reversed and a woman gets rejected by a man. I tell her to compromise or move on. Out of the women I've known whom went through such a situation, virtually none of them felt an obligation to stick around and play friends for the guy's benefit. 

Which is why I never pressure a man to do so for a woman.