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On 6/21/2022 at 9:53 AM, JonoBlade said:

And that is my point. This crucifixion without evidence thing just does not seem to actually happen, even if in theory it could. It's like the obsession with thinking a welfare state/universal healthcare is somehow evil and "un-American" because, in theory, it can be abused. Sure, it can be abused but the proportion of abuse (compared to the benefits) is tiny - same as voter fraud.

It's pretty unlikely that something you said twenty years ago is actually gonna come back and bite you. Mainly because no one cares since you are not a celebrity. If, on the off chance, you run for office in a few years and someone digs up your anti-Christian messages and love of vile and blackened music then you'll just shrug it off. "Yeah so what!" Not that they know who you are, because you post anonymously.

The justice system may be riddled with injustice, but every person in prison went through a trial where evidence was presented. If the evidence was cooked up, that is an entirely different issue. No one is ever crucified without any evidence. That is my point. 

The internet is self-regulating in the sense that it is so full of shit that it is not reliable as a source of information anymore. I think most people with half a brain understand that and that is enough to keep the wolf from the door. So, you still have not cited a single case of someone having their livelihood destroyed that didn't deserve it - because there was evidence. 

I get that you can't be expected to research this to find an example.....so then don't worry about it. It is not an actual problem. 

I am a massive sceptic too and so my scepticism dictates that the bogeyman of cancel culture isn't an existential threat to humanity.

The only things that matter in a universal sense (and hence the only major issues you should worry about or spend emotional energy on) are:

1. impending collapse of the Earth's ecosystems and its capacity to support life; and

2. metal.

No more, no less.

 

Hey Jon, I've moved us over to the What's On Your Mind? thread if that's alright so as not to shit up the WAYLT thread anymore than we already have with this discussion.

Don't worry I have no plans to run for office. I don't even like going to parties with a bunch of strangers, I couldn't even imagine why anyone would want to be a politician. But if I were to ever run I'm not worried about old skeletons in my closet. I live a pretty mundane and boring life. No one would have to go looking for dirt to dig up anyway, the Satanic blackened filth that I love and my politically incorrect opinions and especially my status as an atheist would all disqualify me as soon as I opened my mouth before I even got started. And of course my NY accent, for some reason people located outside of the NY metro area seem to think these accents tend to make us sound "dumb" or something.

I hate that I've now apparently been branded as some kind of cancel culture boogeyman guy. I'm not that guy. But I am an old school guy, a "Boomer" who comes from an era of free speech and George Carlin and offensive jokes and punk rock and Archie Bunker and Al Bundy when nothing was ever off-limits. We had slogans back then. Do Your Own Thing. Live and Let Live Baby. This new "you'd better watch what you say" climate we live in now just doesn't sit right with me. What happened to sticks and stones will break your bones but names can never hurt you?

I'm not trying to blow it up into an existential threat to mankind, and I realize the vast majority of people both celebrities and common folk alike don't actually get "cancelled" even when they say some pretty stupid shit. And I'll concede that some of the ones who have been "cancelled" probably did have it coming. But not all. Mistakes and misunderstandings do happen. And ya know, there was this old saying or a quote I've heard or read in a book somewhere many years ago, "it's better to let 100 gulity men walk free than to see one innocent man be wrongly convicted." I absolutely believe that, and it's something that has really stuck with me all these years. When something can't be known or proven for absolute certain I generally like to err on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt for that reason. 

Don't know if you've read it but they made me read Orwell's 1984 as a kid in school back in the mid 70's and I took that as a warning from George that if no one does anything to stop it this could be where we're headed. Thought Police. I think Tom Cruise made a movie about a similar subject as well about 20 years ago called Minority Report which was adapted from a sci-fi story by Philip K Dick. Although knowing your feelings about Tom you probably haven't seen it. The idea that we could be persecuted or even prosecuted for just our thoughts not even our actions is a little scary to me Jon. More scary to me than the impending collapse of the Earth's ecosystems, which is itself a wee bit scary too. I can follow yoiu to a point, but I don't think the end of our planet's "capacity to support life" is quite as "impending" as some of the doomsayers seem to think. It's a concern, I see where you're coming from, but it's not as high on my personal list of priorities as it is on yours. But that's really a whole 'nother discussion. 

I think Pink Floyd expressed my feelings pretty well 43 years ago: "we don't need no thought control." And then 12 months later right-wing flaming asshole Ronald Reagan was elected over here. Back then of course the lines were clearly drawn, it was those of us on the left rebelling against the bullshit conservative authoritative tyranny of the right. But now 40 years later it almost seems to me these days as if some small fringe faction of the left have gone so far around the bend that they can almost see the extreme fascist right from where they are. I find this quite worrisome too. 

But my original point the other day before we got off on all these side tangents, was about separating art from artist. And more specifically how certain musicians, frequently from the black metal world, can get targeted by the sanctimonious for attempted cancellation for their words and thoughts either real or imagined. Perception seems to count for more than facts in the modern world. I know you think nearly everyone is guilty of everything they've ever been accused of all the time or they wouldn't have been accused in the first place. I think a lot of other people feel that way too. But I do not believe that. Or maybe some are technically "guilty" but the infraction has been blown way out of proportion or there might have been extenuating circumstances. And sometimes they just get the wrong guy. I would guess it's maybe 70/30 or at least 80/20 while many people like you apparently believe it's more like 99/1. I know I'm not gonna change your mind on this because I have no hard numbers or evidence for this claim so I'll leave it at that.

The first time I ever heard the name "Antifa" was over a decade ago when someone brought them up on a metal board I was on, and said that they had protested and actually gotten some black metal shows cancelled. Seemed like a misguided witch hunt for Nazis to me. As an older guy this immediately conjured up thoughts of the PMRC who held those Congressional hearings back in the late 80's. They were a bunch of uptight sanctimonius religious cunts who were all about vilifying the evil and dangerous rock and rap music, which in their minds was basically all of it. They really desparately wanted to ban most of it and if they could have they would have, but in the end they ended up just adding some silly warning labels to albums. And then there was the controversy surrounding your metal gods Judas Priest when they got sued for subliminal messages that time also in the late 80's by some poor kid who had killed himself's family. 

The thing is music's lyrics are not actions. They are essentially someone's thoughts that have been written down and sung out loud the same way a film is someone's thoughts written down and acted out. So once again I just see another example of "them" trying to censor people and persecute them for their thoughts. I don't like being told which artists are safe and approved to listen to. I want to decide for myself. I am dead set against book burning too btw. I am pro free thinking and pro freedom of expression.

I don't think being offended is the worst thing in the world that could ever happen to someone, I actually think it'd be good for most people to be offended every now and then. When you live in a world where people are free to speak their minds (within reason of course) you might not always like what they have to say, but at least you'll always know where they stand. And it might even make you think sometimes. I don't see a downside. Sticks and stones.

Oh and as for your question about who has had their livelihood destroyed that didn't deserve it? Don't have to look too hard to find an example from recent events: Johnny Depp. Nearly anyway. He won the case in the end and I expect his name and reputation will soon be cleared to some extent, but for a few years there there he was definitely cancelled. It has since come out in the recent trial that it was on the basis of exaggerations and outright lies by a narcissist. Pure fiction in some cases. He's just one famous example but I think this kind of thing happens more often than you'd think where not necessarily high profile celebs like JD, but regular people do get falsely accused of things.

Problem is how are we supposed to know when this has happened if we're always so ready and willing to believe the accusers with or without any legit evidence? I think we all assume someone else has seen the evidence. And that's what happens in the internet court of public opinion. The general public's standards for "evidence" are lax. People tend to believe most of what they read or hear and go more on their gut feelings than facts. If someone thinks Marduk are Nazis because they had a German tank on an album cover well then that's just terrible and they need to be punished. Doesn't matter if they're actually Nazis or not. And then whoever doesn't go along with this is a rotten terrible person? How does this make sense? (I'm not even a Marduk fan just using them as an example)

In the real criminal justice system we have in this country conviction rates and winning cases are more important to the state than seeing "justice" done and this opens the door for a lot of bending the rules and bad outcomes. And sometimes they just get the wrong guy. But again, I could go on for 40 more paragraphs about reforming the criminal justice system in this country where at any given time 2.3 million or roughly 700 out of every 100,000 citizens is behind bars. No other country comes close. 1 out of 5 prisoners in the world is incarcerated in the US. And that probably goes a long way to explaining why I have such different ideas about how often we get it wrong than you do over there in the UK or back in NZ where I'm sure they have much lower incarceration rates. But I think instead of opening that can of worms I'll just go make the kid some lunch now. Thanks for the talk Jon-O!

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10 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Well that or it could be I was miss reading the signs and it was actually that much for the individual letters, Armi be numbers are big enough that I can read them the fine print I have no hope.

They should be slowly dropping in price now anyway. It was only supposed to be about a 6 week cycle before the prices started coming down and about 10 weeks until the supply chain was replenished. Although I notice that up north there is another bout of heavy rain predicted for this week, so hopefully it doesn't cause more flooding.

 

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On 6/28/2022 at 3:33 AM, Dead1 said:

After the dog did 

Totally regretted the dog last night when it shat on the floor behind me whilst I was playing Playstation!  😤

Yeah that is not good. Apparently if you rub a cat's nose in there shit shortly after it puts them off doing it again. Don't think this would work with a dog. 

Any idea why the dog did it. Is the pooch very young. 

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43 minutes ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

Yeah that is not good. Apparently if you rub a cat's nose in there shit shortly after it puts them off doing it again. Don't think this would work with a dog. 

Any idea why the dog did it. Is the pooch very young. 

11 months old and up to that night perfectly toilet trained.  No idea what happened.  Might have been an attention grab - she's a border collie, extremely jealous and extremely needy, unlike the old husky who didn't care much for human attention a lot of the time.

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45 minutes ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

Yeah that is not good. Apparently if you rub a cat's nose in there shit shortly after it puts them off doing it again. Don't think this would work with a dog. 

Any idea why the dog did it. Is the pooch very young. 

That's an old tip that supposedly works for cats or dogs, but I'd strongly advise against ever actually doing it. Not only is it rather abusive, but it can create situations where your pet will try and hide their accidents in areas you may not see like behind or underneath furniture. Only thing worse than dealing with animal accidents, is not being able to find the animal accident in the first place

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4 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

They should be slowly dropping in price now anyway. It was only supposed to be about a 6 week cycle before the prices started coming down and about 10 weeks until the supply chain was replenished. Although I notice that up north there is another bout of heavy rain predicted for this week, so hopefully it doesn't cause more flooding.

 

I’m cynical when it comes to this sort of thing, if people are prepared to pay that price for them vegetables why would the supermarket bring it back down? Certainly I don’t see a Recent for them to drop the prices back to the pre-supply issues levels. I sure would like to be wrong though.

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I don't think it was a case of people being prepared to pay, I think it was more that they had no choice, just like fuel prices, or gas prices.

Prices might not ever come back down the previous levels, after all things like water, fertiliser and even wages have gone up. But the days of paying $10+ for an iceberg lettuce wont last because they can't. It was demand that drove the prices up to the point where farmers were getting more than $100 a box, but once the cycle turns and the market again has a sustainable level of produce that price has to drop. When the farmer goes back to getting $30 or $40 a box, the supermarkets can't sustain $10+ for a lettuce.

Interestingly enough Aldi have been sourcing locally (Australian) grown iceberg lettuces and selling them for under $10 a piece (in most cases as low as $6 each)for some time. At the same time as Woolies and Coles shelves are bare, or the limited supply they've had were massively overpriced, Aldi has had plenty of stock and not reached the same high prices as the two majors. But it's not only with lettuces either, Aldi's fresh fruit and vegetable stock has been better quality and in most cases cheaper than the two majors through this whole debacle of higher prices which Coles and Woolies say we must endure.

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Yeah that's a common catch cry but Aldi don't cut enough costs to offer their produce, much of which comes from the same places Coles and Woolies stuff, at up to half the price. Coles and Woolies have got the Australian consumer by the balls and wont let go.

Aldi's still goes to the same negotiation table as Coles and Woolies. They still bargain one product against another with suppliers and they still argue prices down as low as they can get them. The difference is while Coles and Woolies are out there seeking glory and begging the consumer to believe they are only passing on costs and not increasing prices for their own bottom line, Aldi are just getting on with business.

Both Coles and Woolies have increased prices across the store. Woolies have even gone as far as quietly increasing their homebrand products by up to 20% and then running a national campaign telling people they care so much about the cost of living that they promise their homebrand items will not rise until December. Coles will have done similar no doubt. Meanwhile Aldi's prices have fluctuated but the majority of their fresh produce has stayed at or around the same price it was last year.

We as a country can sustain higher prices on produce because Coles and Woolies have told us we can and too many Australia's are too lazy to argue with them. We pretty much all shop at one of the two majors, we pay the prices they ask and we go back for more when we run out. Meanwhile Coles and Woolies cut staff, cut services, make the stores harder to access to encourage services like Click and collect or home delivery where they make even more money for less service, and they do it all while making record profits.

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On 6/27/2022 at 10:48 PM, SurgicalBrute said:

Yeah...I'm not a fan of putting my cats outdoors, especially living right on a main road like I do. It's just asking for trouble. If I lived in a quieter neighborhood I'd probably reconsider it. Honestly Mark, depending on the age, use your best judgement for that situation. If you live in a quiet area, which doesn't get a lot traffic you'd probably be okay...just keep in mind, a cat will roam quite a ways, so it's not just your immediate road you want to think about. There's also other neighbors and how pissy they'll get, and other neighborhood pets and how aggressive they might be.

As for the cat, give her time...They typically bond with one person more than others, but they usually enjoy being around all their people to some degree. Like FA said, some are slow to warm up. One of mine was really high strung when she was younger, scared of both my wife and myself. Wasn't until I took a nap on the couch one day that she finally started relaxing around us...just came up and plopped down next to me and went to sleep. She's been my buddy ever since. It's usually about them feeling confident in their new space. Once they realize its their territory you'll start seeing more personality come out. Hell, even the crazy one I had that basically lived in my bathroom got to a point where she would slip out and come sit with us when we were watching TV.

Thanks for the cat intel to you and F.A. She's starting to warm up to me a bit now. Cat behavior-even all the shit they do with their eyes-pupils dilating, and eyelid changes are fascinating. 

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3 minutes ago, markm said:

Thanks for the cat intel to you and F.A. She's starting to warm up to me a bit now. Cat behavior-even all the shit they do with their eyes-pupils dilating, and eyelid changes are fascinating. 

Glad to hear she's starting to get comfortable.

Yeah..cats are genuinely fun, and sometimes frustratingly irritating, to have in your house. Of my current three, the two youngest are brothers...one of them is laid back, doesn't get into much, easy as all get out to have in the house. The other one gets into everything, knocks shit down to play with it, and can generally make an asshole of himself... but then he'll do something like get his head stuck in a box, or grab a dog toy as big as he is to carry around, and have me laughing my ass off

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13 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Hey Jon, I've moved us over to the What's On Your Mind? thread if that's alright so as not to shit up the WAYLT thread anymore than we already have with this discussion.

I pretty much agree with the sentiment of everything you said. And Surge provided plenty of examples of public opinion being manipulated and going off the rails. Top points to your junior debating team on this topic.

14 hours ago, SurgicalBrute said:

You can call it cancel culture, you can call it consequence culture, but I have to completely disagree with the idea it doesn't actually exist. There's too many incidences like this happening to deny it.

I don't think I ever said that it didn't exist, or certainly didn't mean to. I merely assert that the whole internet court of public opinion thing probably isn't the Orwellian threat to free expression and will lead to a fabled "thought police." 

A couple of comments:

1. I don't think WN/GG is branded as the "cancel culture boogeyman" guy, anymore than I hope I'm not the "cancel culture is absolutely not an issue" guy. Besides, you all know better than to take anything I say seriously. Obviously, I don't get enough protein so my brain doesn't function properly.

2.  "It's better to let 100 guilty men walk free than to see one innocent man be wrongly convicted." That sounds very noble, but is it really practical or even desirable? One must consider the common good. It's like the old thought experiment about the rail trolley heading towards 10 people, but you have the chance to divert it to a side track and only kill two people, i.e. you have to make the ethical call to intentionally sacrifice "the few" to save "the many." I still don't know where I stand on that one and so can't say if I agree 100 guilty men should walk free than just in case one of them is innocent.

3. I think I did see "Minority Report" before the Cruise Moratorium was enacted. It's the same idea as the "shall I go back in time to kill baby Hitler" scenario. Again, I don't know where I stand on that one. Although I think the point of the movie was that the future is not set and/or that such a power can be manipulated/abused. I don't know why it matters to Tom Cruise when Xenu will arrive to save us any day now.

4. I can partially agree that my "capacity to support life" comment is an overstatement. In truth, the planet will still continue to turn and life finds a way. But, in the meantime, a lot of people are in for a rough ride. I believe (backed by evidence) biodiversity loss is the single greatest threat we face. Not if you are a homo. Not if you can legally vacuum a baby out of your twat. Not Putin. Actually, maybe Putin but that's why keeping a functioning nuclear arsenal is essential. Mutually assured destruction. Ho hum. It is what it is.

5. It is weird that in days gone by it was much more obvious who the enemy was: your Reagan era - the Christian right, the corporations, the man. Now the far left are being just as dickish. 

6. Pink Floyd said a lot of things right. Which is ironic in this conversation because Roger Waters has been in danger of being cancelled a few times.

7. The Judas Priest trial was way before the internet. It was very public and it didn't stop me listening to them. Perhaps all this illustrates is that there have always been abuses of the system..... although was it an "abuse?" The family believed that the band had intentionally influenced their son to kill himself. The evidence was assessed and it was found not to be the case - and set a good precedent. Luckily, precedents are never overturned (a topical badoomtch!).

8. No idea where this leaves us. I am a little enlightened and love getting others' perspectives. Job done.

9. Out of interest, what would your and Surge's solution be to this problem of cancel culture? It seems to me that the remedy could only be censorship, a reduction in access to information. A "thought police" if you will.

10. Badoomtch.

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I watch Bill Maher a lot and one of his rants as a guy in his 60's now is the difference between free speech older generations the new crop of kids permanently glued to their phones and social media and even older than "kids" entitled Millennials ...here's a pretty funny recent one....

https://deadline.com/2022/06/bill-maher-real-time-blasts-washington-post-twitte-wars-1235048163/ 

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3 hours ago, markm said:

I watch Bill Maher a lot and one of his rants as a guy in his 60's now is the difference between free speech older generations the new crop of kids permanently glued to their phones and social media and even older than "kids" entitled Millennials ...here's a pretty funny recent one....

I think I only watch Bill Maher when you post a clip, but he seems fairly sensible to me. The best truth comes from comedians. Thanks Mark.

However, it also kind of illustrates that a stupid reaction can flare up, be ridiculed, justice done (I think he said the chick with no sense of humour got fired?) and settle down again. People like him and Ricky Gervais do fine in the world of over sensitive pussies. In fact what would they do for material? It would only be a problem if over sensitive pussies started killing people they were offended by. But they won't. Because they're oversensitive pussies.

EDIT: I pondered something else over lunch.... namely that boomers like Bill Maher, when railing against the bleeding heart liberal youth, seem to conveniently forget that they were also bleeding heart liberal youth once, and then grew out of it to bring the human race to the brink of extinction (via rampant consumerism). Not only that, but the bleeding heart youth of today have been raised by Bill and his friends. So, they must not have been very good parents.

Those who live in glass houses....

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7 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

I don't think I ever said that it didn't exist, or certainly didn't mean to. I merely assert that the whole internet court of public opinion thing probably isn't the Orwellian threat to free expression and will lead to a fabled "thought police."

Apologies...I misunderstood your stance. Regarding what you're saying here, I think it depends on how you define "threat to free expression". I doubt this kind of thing will ever be able to completely smother expression. There will always be people who will go against the grain. The real problem is more insidious in my mind. I think it creates a negative feedback loop in people's minds where they begin to censor themselves, either consciously or unconsciously, just to avoid the hassle. It isn't as overt as online mobbing, but the end result is the same. Creative expression is being limited.

8 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

Out of interest, what would your and Surge's solution be to this problem of cancel culture?

Honestly? I don't know if we can ever actually stop it, it's been around long before social media existed, but I do believe we could curtail large portions of it if businesses and other organizations would stop indulging it. The reason cancel culture works is that it uses morality as a weapon, and plays on most peoples desire to at least appear to be good and upstanding members of society. Public organizations are the same way, they don't want embarrassment or damage to their reputation, so they give in, they apologize, and they rarely go to bat for the person being cancelled, because it's easier. The only way cancel culture improves is if people will stop giving it power, but I don't think that can happen until we as a society can move away from the idea that the offended party is automatically right, even when their not, simply because they're offended.

 

10 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

It is weird that in days gone by it was much more obvious who the enemy was: your Reagan era - the Christian right, the corporations, the man. Now the far left are being just as dickish. 

I think the part of the enemy being more obvious is a result of where the attacks were coming from. For example, Tipper Gore and the PMRC were a bunch of straight laced outsiders attacking metal culture...In video games you had Jack Thompson, some boomer aged attorney, saying gaming caused kids to be violent in real life. These days, the attacks on subcultures all seem to come from within the subculture itself...or at least people who claim to be part of the subcultures. That's why, in at least some corners of any given subculture, you'll see calls for a return to gatekeeping hoping to keep people out

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23 hours ago, SurgicalBrute said:

That's an old tip that supposedly works for cats or dogs, but I'd strongly advise against ever actually doing it. Not only is it rather abusive, but it can create situations where your pet will try and hide their accidents in areas you may not see like behind or underneath furniture. Only thing worse than dealing with animal accidents, is not being able to find the animal accident in the first place

My mum's has used the nose in poo for a cat. My mum's also a fan of if a cat's shitting on your lawn to blast them with water pistol like a super soaker. My mum believes in those methods 100%. If I had a cat I'd definitely think about those methods if they were shitting not in the ash box although I'd want to reward good behaviour with treats and hope that would solve issue. Something on lines of getting a biscuit for every poo in ash box. Phasing it out once it was a habit for them

Re dogs pooing in the house. We've normally taken the dog to the poo and talked at length with looking at them and the poo. After that point our dog has never wanted to repeat the incident. It sounds crazy and should not work but it's worked for us. 

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49 minutes ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

My mum's has used the nose in poo for a cat. My mum's also a fan of if a cat's shitting on your lawn to blast them with water pistol like a super soaker. My mum believes in those methods 100%. If I had a cat I'd definitely think about those methods if they were shitting not in the ash box although I'd want to reward good behaviour with treats and hope that would solve issue. Something on lines of getting a biscuit for every poo in ash box. Phasing it out once it was a habit for them

Re dogs pooing in the house. We've normally taken the dog to the poo and talked at length with looking at them and the poo. After that point our dog has never wanted to repeat the incident. It sounds crazy and should not work but it's worked for us. 

I've generally found with cats, that if they're going the bathroom anywhere besides in their box it's either because they're unhappy about something (because they can be spiteful little shits when they want to be) or it's a medical issue and it's time to haul ass to the vet. Despite the stereotype, I wouldn't say cats are necessarily "clean" creatures, they're actually little dirtballs...but by instinct they do want to bury their shit just to hide it from bigger predators so when given the choice they tend to prefer their box.

With dogs, I think it comes down to four things...I'm a puppy and don't know any better. My tummy hurt because I just ate an entire box of cheese danish when you weren't looking (true story). I had to go really bad and no one was around to let me out. I'm 100 years old in people years and had an accident while I was sleeping

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13 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

I think I only watch Bill Maher when you post a clip, but he seems fairly sensible to me. The best truth comes from comedians. Thanks Mark.

However, it also kind of illustrates that a stupid reaction can flare up, be ridiculed, justice done (I think he said the chick with no sense of humour got fired?) and settle down again. People like him and Ricky Gervais do fine in the world of over sensitive pussies. In fact what would they do for material? It would only be a problem if over sensitive pussies started killing people they were offended by. But they won't. Because they're oversensitive pussies.

EDIT: I pondered something else over lunch.... namely that boomers like Bill Maher, when railing against the bleeding heart liberal youth, seem to conveniently forget that they were also bleeding heart liberal youth once, and then grew out of it to bring the human race to the brink of extinction (via rampant consumerism). Not only that, but the bleeding heart youth of today have been raised by Bill and his friends. So, they must not have been very good parents.

Those who live in glass houses....

Well Bill is quite a notrious bachelor, on the record for being anti-marriage. Says the institution doesn't make sense to him, I guess at least in part because being a rich celebrity he has lots of options for sexual partners with no real need to commit to any one of them. But anyway he doesn't have any kids. Bill is also a notrious pothead, so if he's a rampant consumer of anything it probably weed or munchie related. And you know not for nothing man, but I'm sure you know weed is plant based 🌿 so I'd bet you're a fan, right?

Being a Boomer, even though I think I'm several years younger than Bill I'll say it's been my observation that shitty parenting transcends generations. Plenty of fairly shitty parents out there no matter which era they were born in. Certainly almost everyone I knew as a young man in the 70's had shitty disinterested/distracted parents. Doesn't seem to me like things have changed all that much since then. So I think that kinda cancels out.

I happen to be the parent of a millennial born in 1990 and I think she turned out pretty damn good as a person. Even though she spends a lot of time staring at her phone and she listens to shitty pop music she's never been an entitled little shit. Now me, as I'm sure you might imagine I was a bit of a dumbass when I was a young man, but despite being a long-haired metalhead rebel I was never an entitled little shit either.

Not sure if I'd say the young people of today are generally bleeding hearts, sure, some of them talk the talk, but do they really walk the walk? I'd say rampant consumers and self absorbed social media addicts describes most of them much better. But I suppose as technology marches on and more wealth is created it's inevitable that each generation will probably be just that much more materialistic and entitled than the last. In my country anyway.

To answer your question from earlier about what my solution to CC would be, I think if we could all stop being such oversensitive pussies that might help a lot. If that's not possible well then I guess it's here to stay.

 

If you can tolerate another 7 minute Bill Maher clip, this one is quite relevant to the conversation.

New Rule: OK, Zoomer

 

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Another insight for and positive post from the Tasmanian I see…

Another insight for and positive post from the Tasmanian icy…

 

As for what’s on my mind anger, mostly directed at the stupid dog for chowing down on some nice chocolates I bought for Mum to enjoy when she gets back from having surgery. I guess I’m glad it didn’t make him sick but I’m also furious and confused as to how he managed to find and eat them in the first place considering I left them somewhere he couldn’t possibly reach. 

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Years ago my mate's family had a Jack Russell pup, they thought training was going well until one night after a few hours on the piss, otherwise known as indoor cricket, we came home to find the dog had chewed up it's bed in the lounge. That night the dog's bed got moved out into the unfinished extension of the house. The next Friday after another night of drinking and cricket we came home and found the dog had chewed through half a sack of potatoes. It had been nearly a full 20kg sack and not one potato didn't have a chunk out of it. That was the night that the dog got kicked out of the house completely. If it wasn't for the mate's kids begging the dog wouldn't have even been allowed back inside,even when they were home, but he lost that fight.

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6 hours ago, Dead1 said:

That Bill Maher clip hits the nail on the head.

Humans are just self serving pieces of shit.  Some days I hope some sort of plague destroys us. In fact I think the best hope for intelligent life is AI becoming a thing and then wiping out humanity. 

No, a wipe out is not necessary. Just AI ruling us and limiting consumption. 

All hail, Quorthon!

8 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well Bill is quite a notorious bachelor, on the record for being anti-marriage. Says the institution doesn't make sense to him, I guess at least in part because being a rich celebrity he has lots of options for sexual partners with no real need to commit to any one of them. But anyway he doesn't have any kids. Bill is also a notorious pothead, so if he's a rampant consumer of anything it probably weed or munchie related. And you know not for nothing man, but I'm sure you know weed is plant based 🌿 so I'd bet you're a fan, right?

Great clip. 

I'm not railing against Bill personally. He can dish it out and take it. It is true the best contribution anyone can make is to not have kids. 

Cannabis is indeed a miracle plant, which I guess makes me a fan. But, I don't even bother drinking anymore let alone smoking anything. Not for any high level idealist reason. I just figured "what's the point?"

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22 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

I think I only watch Bill Maher when you post a clip, but he seems fairly sensible to me. The best truth comes from comedians. Thanks Mark.

However, it also kind of illustrates that a stupid reaction can flare up, be ridiculed, justice done (I think he said the chick with no sense of humour got fired?) and settle down again. People like him and Ricky Gervais do fine in the world of over sensitive pussies. In fact what would they do for material? It would only be a problem if over sensitive pussies started killing people they were offended by. But they won't. Because they're oversensitive pussies.

EDIT: I pondered something else over lunch.... namely that boomers like Bill Maher, when railing against the bleeding heart liberal youth, seem to conveniently forget that they were also bleeding heart liberal youth once, and then grew out of it to bring the human race to the brink of extinction (via rampant consumerism). Not only that, but the bleeding heart youth of today have been raised by Bill and his friends. So, they must not have been very good parents.

Those who live in glass houses....

And the thing is Maher considers himself a liberal progressive but as he says he calls out "his own tribe" when they are being stupid. I like that. Whatever your political slant, I totally support critically looking at some of the attitudes within your side of the isle as they say that are dysfunctional, counterproductive, etc.  There's a lot of idiocy on the edges of both liberal and conservatism it's just that on the right it's off the charts when you factor anti democratic demagoguery autocratic leaning views. 

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