De-urbanization starts with L.A.

A long time ago I blogged about the idea of cities becoming unnecessary, and that being a good thing for conservatives and Republicans.  This "sci-fi" video from Bill Whittle talks about L.A. burning down and despite that not being it's main message it sort of echoes my thoughts on societal changes towards a less urban model (albeit for different reasons):

The five laws of stupidity: more relevant now than ever

This theory has profound implications to today's society.  Watch the video, it has immense relevance, some of which I touch on below the video. 

If you think of Democrats (and establishment Republicans) as the bandits, clueless voters as the helpless and those we regard as useful idiots as the stupid people, with a small proportion of society as the intelligent people, it really starts to make sense. He mentions that the intelligent people drifting into the bandit quadrant as how societies fall apart, that makes a lot of sense too.

The question is, what can be done about it? Can stupid be fixed? Can helpless people be made aware and hopefully moved into the intelligent quadrant?  I think the latter is what we on the right are trying to do by establishing a more pervasive common sense. But is it enough? Are there enough?

The bandits would like to see as many people in both the helpless quadrant as possible because they are easier to victimize and provide profit.  They are constantly feeding the pipeline to helpless.  Inadvertently, they are creating more stupid people which long term hurts even them. Smart bandits should realize this, and perhaps some do. 

Perhaps the best way to deal with the downward spiral of society is to predict bandit behavior. Speaking about the smart bandits for example, if you know they are trying to skew others towards the helpless quadrant, leverage what they are doing. In this way, you can skew the target audience from moving towards helpless to moving more towards intelligent.  Volunteer to assist, as boots on the ground, in a bandit's effort to make people more helpless but take the opportunity to communicate relevant  information to move the recipients more towards informed intelligence.  All of society benefits from more people of intelligence.  Look at the grid in the quadrants of the video; intelligent people benefit others and themselves.

Yes, it's an uphill battle, it always will be, but it's one worth fighting.

 

Canadians taking 2 divergent paths on drugs

More from Canada today - two different provinces are taking two different approaches to dealing with drug addiction.

Over at the libertarian Reason magazine (and others) advocating for legalizing all drugs is positioned as freedom.  But really drug addiction is slavery. No society works where there is unfettered access to the tools for self-destructive behavior.  I've flirted with the idea that legalization makes sense on some level but I cannot get behind it.  In the end it's not only enabling addiction, it's societal Darwinism in the extreme.  The notion that if someone can't handle it, that's their problem.  That's cold.  If society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable, the idea of drug legalization is very telling about those who espouse it.  It's also a recipe for societal decay along the way.  Addiction will grow. Guaranteed.

The one Canadian example of handing out free drugs is really the government as a death merchant.  Thank God, Alberta is taking a more real and humane approach.  Alberta is not likely to solve the problem but it is trying to help people beat their addiction rather than just servicing the problem. That's definitely more noble.

The fallacy of the logic and facts approach

You have to talk to people in terms that they will understand.  I don't mean intellectually understand, I mean in a way that resonates with them.  The problem with conservatives is we believe in facts and we believe in logic. Facts and logic can bring you to the truth, but that in itself is not a universal truth because many people operate illogically.  That's a fact conservatives often overlook.  The logic and facts approach is pure fallacy in many situations.

When talking to a woke liberal, we often forget that facts don't matter to everyone.  What resonates with people are things that affect them emotionally.  Take for example the notion that inflation has recently been at historical highs. Telling someone that fact has far less emotional impact than saying simply "I can't afford eggs anymore."  Implicit in that latter statement are a couple of fundamental notions that all revolve around empathy;

• it is likely they are in the same boat, or a similar one and have similar complaints
• complaining sounds whiney and woke liberals love that (snarky but not untrue)
• they can sympathize and feel bad for you (woke SJWs have to have an underdog to protect)

You have not only started a discussion with something that they can empathize with and also get behind trying to solve.  It's the start of a more pliable conversation instead of a debate.  You have started on what is probably common ground or at least at a place of empathy or sympathy.  The way forward at least exists from that point.  Hammering someone with facts will more have the opposite effect; entrenchment.

We don't do enough as conservatives to understand our audience and with each generation that happens it gets harder and harder to do because each generation has been Overton windowed further away from the fundamental truths of life.  I'm not talking just religion here, I'm talking about even the fundamental basics of common sense (e.g. 2 genders).

We have to understand that we are currently on the losing side of the culture war.  We have not lost but we are losing.  That means we have to work both harder and smarter.  I'm not suggesting I have all the answers as to who.  But I think one of the key notions is that we need better understanding.  We need to understand how to connect, but in order to do that we need to understand the map, the lay of the land as it currently exists.  We cannot change beliefs for the better without having both a starting point and an end point.

Here, as an example of trying to get to that understanding, Ken Ham discusses the state of Gen Z as it pertains to (lack of) religious belief.  It's a specific but excellent example of how to change the direction of society from a massive leftward drift to back on course.

What does it mean for society when 95% of jobs become obsolete?

This sort of future is closer than you think.  When there is less and less need for humans to do jobs, what do we do with ourselves? How do we earn in order to buy food and shelter?

Boxing reflects the decay of society

Boxing is but one example of how society has changed for the worse.  It also shows that all change is not good change.

How the Boomers screwed The West (part 3)

Part 3 in a mostly video analysis of how the Baby Boomers screwed the West. Part 1 here, and Part 2, here.  The purpose of this series is not to denigrate the Baby Boomers but to show what they got wrong, and why they got it wrong in the hope that future generations do not fall into the same trap.  It's like trying to avoid the inevitable but if we can reduce the frequency of the erroneous behaviors that lead to societal faltering, then we can still consider that a win.

To preface, Salon is a liberal organization they come at this with a liberal slant.  The author of the book A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America is also clearly a liberal.  Heck he even looks like Al Franken.  And there is plenty to critique in his book, but Bruce Cannon Gibney also gets a lot right.  He's not a Boomer himself, having been born in 1976.  I myself am also a Gen Xer and I have  a lot of respect for the generation prior to the Boomers, and for many Boomers for that matter.  I just don't want to see their mistakes repeated, even though it may be too late - one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch they say.  It seems to paraphrase Ronald Reagan , we're always one generation away from the extinction of freedom, as well as other important qualities in a society.

It's media week at Nonsensible Shoes

All this week, Nonsensible Shoes will be looking at media and it's impact on society, both positive and negative.  In an era of social media, Mainstream Media, fake news, it's important to understand, or at a minimum, analyze the impact of various media streams on the psyche of a nation and it's resulting goals and values.  Every day this week will feature a different take on media and society.

Later this morning - Social Media and Safe Space
Tomorrow - The ultimate failure of Soviet propaganda

Earlier today I offered some thoughts on Eastern vs. Western philosophy on society and how it relates to happiness. Near the end of it, I mentioned that  in the West we do have the foundation for a successful society (based on the concept of the individual being more important than the collective). Obviously that means within the rule of law.  I thought I should expand a little bit on the foundation piece.

Then I remembered that there was a recent discussion between Bill Whittle and Andrew Klavan that does a lot of the heavy lifting on that.  Here, they discuss the Christian roots of our unique culture and how it enables individuality.

Philosophizing on happiness in the West vs East

A few days ago I wrote about an article in Scientific American, wherein they haphazardly wrote about people having a right to be happy. No, they have a right to pursue happiness. There is no Constitutional guarantee that everyone must be granted happiness. None whatsoever. In any case, the mistake was worth pointing out but it was not central to the rest of the article, which I promised in my commentary that I would circle back to touch on. A few days later than intended, here goes.

Mobile phones and etiquette

A blogging friend Bob J Rants regularly on a number of topics.  I haven't used my blog in that way but I thought I'd borrow his motif for a post.  

Today on the radio, I was listening to the news during my commute and I heard a story about the Top 10 annoying mobile phone habits.  Yes, they were all annoying to varying degrees - texting in a movie theater, taking pictures of your food at a restaurant (nobody cares about your public diarizing of your lunch) and of course using speakerphones in inappropriate locations.  All bad.

But the one that bothers me the most is people getting distracted by text conversations while conversing with live people.  I was guilty of that myself years ago (with blackberry emails, not texts) but I've stopped.  It's rude to not be present in a conversation you are in the middle of having.

It's dismissive of the person you are talking with in live, real time.

Now I may be shouting into a hurricane here.  I know the future involves more electronic communication, not less.  But to me it impersonalizes interpersonal relationships, despite what the advertising tells you.

I'm not suggesting there aren't plenty of useful functionalities associated with text messaging or other electronic communications like SnapChat.  But we are re-socializing the future of our society without thinking about what that means for society as a whole as well as the individuals affected by the change.

In the bigger picture, everything from drone warfare to internet dating sites de-personalizes things and continues to distance people from those they are interacting with. Absent feelings of empathy that come from direct interpersonal connection, emotional development will probably be stunted by comparison to today or decades pasts.  

Perhaps you think it's weird to read a conservative talking about emotion and inter-personal connectivity, but it really shouldn't be. It's probably more weird that I'm writing about this on a blog, rather than in a face to face conversation.

But that gets a little too far down the rabbit hole for me to justify or think about.  Like I said, technology has an important place in society.  I just don't think it should be the place.

Education Matters

I've always argued that education matters, a lot.  Educators shape and influence thinking, future leaders, morals and the future direction of society.  Quality education is a matter of national importance, and what has been lacking for decades, is a balanced education.  For decades educations has been left to those on the let. The liberal bias that academia pretends to be above, is nevertheless, ever-present.

Conservatives do teach but there aren't enough.  We need more conservatives teaching our children at all stages - from early childhood right through college and university. If it doesn't happen we will be leaving the future of America to those who espouse views different from our own.  

Teaching should not be political but it is.  It should be about knowledge, and learning - not revisionism, partisan indoctrination and progressive liberalism and unions being put ahead of students.  But it can't get back to knowledge without some sort of counter-balance to the unfettered liberal teachers being forced to account for their agenda-based teaching.

If you are conservative, and you want to have an influence on the future of the country - why not teach?  There's a great opportunity personally too.  Teaching can be a rewarding profession personally and professionally.

If you are interested, I came across The Career Toolbox is a good resource that explains a lot regarding education careers - from the growth of the education industry, to certifications, to tools of the trade and more.    It really is worth a read if you've ever considered teaching. 

If you are serious about the future of American society and values then education is as powerful a way to make a lasting difference as any other - and that includes voting. Take a look at the opportunity, and if you are serious pursue it.  It's that simple.

Thomas Paine on government vs. society

The difference between society and government, in one paragraph:

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Brilliant.