Posted by alexandra_k on October 30, 2018, at 19:41:03
In reply to Re: The Witch King of Angmar, posted by beckett2 on October 30, 2018, at 14:58:32
Thanks guys, I didn't know about any of this. It helps make sense of quite a lot... I mean, it's also a kind of con-munications by people who have quite a lot invested in what is con-municated about them, but it is... Affirming, in some way, of how here is this weird blend of being so very far behind / isolated in so many respects, but there also being elements of cutting edge technology...
Apparently we were the first country to have EFTPOS rolled out and people aren't charged bank fees for EFTPOS transactions, typically. The technology means every single purchase (stick of gum, bottle of milk, cup of coffee) appears on your bank statement. Not itemised (but supermarket cards that you need to use for significant price discounts) will have that information).
We fairly much are cashless.
And then the hole in the walls close up. Well, first the bank closes up but leaves the hole in the wall (the ATM). But then the hole in the wall goes away.
And then your login doesn't work...
We're not quite there at that last bit, yet.
Here is a place from which to co-ordinate the end of the world... I suspect we will get bombed, yet. And it will likely be because we're holing up one of these psychopaths. Yeah. They'll have to bomb Wanaka to do it.
It's a country that spawned Rawls...
He's right that there isn't freedom in this country.
I had a friend who wrote a Masters thesis on how there isn't democracy when the people are not educated.
My understanding is that the idea is something along the lines of a society where people vote on the politicians on the basis of their policies with respect ot how the policies serve their (legitimate) ends.
(The ends of the sadist to be sadistic is not a legitimate end).
He wants to say that we aren't free because we are burdened with student debt and because so many of us are on welfare.
I want to say that we aren't free because we are uneducated and because so many of us are on welfare.
Our people aren't learning the things they need to make their way in life. To make a way in life. To contribute meaningfully to life. Welfare... The means to education in this country is what is lacking.
And this is because Universities (the world over) have adopted a corporate model where they see students as cash machines to feed the CEO / chancellor and all their cronies. They don't care whether or not students learn anything or not. They don't care whether or not courses are overcrowded and underfunded. They only care about trying to extract enough money out of them so they can save up for their very own bolt-hole which they will need when the students decide it's time to rise up against them.
He's clearly a smart man. A clever man. But it doesn't look like he is much of a good man.
On the other hand, he's succeeded in bring these issues to our attention.
I have been saying for a while that our start-up company thing is a farce. People aren't free to start-up a company, at all.
In order to start-up a company you need to appply to have a start-up company. That involves your handing over all your information to people who have the money to enact whatever it is that you have been working on.
At that point you are delayed indefinately with paper work and so on...
Meanwhile the people with the money get it done (and profit from it) and you never even get any kinds of shares in the thing at all.
That is the supposed alternative to student debt?
That's no alternative.
You could apply for a job... But most of the job adverts are not for actual jobs. It's just data collection, again.
It's a juvenile strategy.
It's a young male thing, particularly.
It's why animals chase the young males away from the herd. They are forced out and away because they create too much mischief and trouble back home.
The young males band together...
Gain in strength...
Eventually come back and try and take place as elite males there.
All kinds of animals have that social structure.
And some people choose to behave like animals. I mean, why not -- if you can get away with it??
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1101625
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20180816/msgs/1101707.html