I remember reading something maybe 20 years ago about some ancient Asian sage saying something about how if the leaders of a civilization are moral and honest, the population will follow suit, and vice-versa.

I can't seem to google it up, but this this YouTube clip seems to sum it up pretty well. I realize that a lot of you won't watch it past the first few seconds, but the point at the 3:40 mark about New York restaurants that trusted you to pay for what you ate lasted for 78 years, but then collapsed during the '60's because people were no longer honest hit home for me. Around the time of LBJ's "New Deal" (give these people handouts and they'll vote Democratic for 200 years). But due to people such as Charles Barkley standing up for what's right, that fell short to only 55 years.

Thoughts?

I'm pretty sure the egg came first, because from an evolutionary stand-point, whatever gave birth to the first chicken must have almost been a chicken, but just not 100% a chicken. Thoughts?

Hopefully, the next decade or two could at least rid us of the greedy racist GOP. Let em go down in flames.

There was a time when China was the most influential empire, or Egypt was, or Rome, or Britain. But these things don't last forever. Maybe the US has had its time and is on the decline now, and someone else, China again or India will take over. It's hard to say from where we are now - just like I bet if you lived in Rome 2000 years ago, it would seem impossible that things wouldn't carry on as they were.

Also: chicken came first, by definition. Only a chicken can lay a chicken's egg.

Thoughts?

If the saying was "which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?" I would agree with you, but it never specifies what type of egg hatched the chicken.

I agree with Dizzy, the "something" egg came first and from it came the first chicken, which was a mutation of the "something."

His very last words were "But these things don't last forever" which implies that things are always changing. Tradition is the antithesis of change.

Merikuh baby. Nuff said.

Why only discussion the future of America? Why not any one discussing cartoons or anime's like naruto. They are also very famous and people love to watch them. Why every one is discussing politics every where.

America was founded on the Rock, Jesus Christ. Take away the foundation, and the house crumbles.

That thing looks like it's going to eat US! And excellent post, Derezo! Good to also "see" you!

I was just starting to think that maybe religion is a necessary evil to ignorantly move through this world with the confidence of a supreme being best friend as opposed to the far more anxiety inducing state of knowing you're pretty much alone in the universe.

Then you reminded me why NOT to put faith in any group religions or their beliefs. Even if it did fill me with confidence it would come at the expense of my intelligence and would help to empower dangerous, evil people.

That said, today felt like a million bucks so maybe this concoction of medicines is a good fit afterall. Or perhaps only a subset of them is. I'll comment more on this in the global thread. :*

OR maybe all of these prayers that have been thought up for me actually worked and Yahweh, whether or not that is its real stage name, has planned all along for this to happen like this!

Append:

That said, in this moment, I think that I understand why people, even intelligent people, may find comfort in whatever "God" or other that you believe in. It's probably the "easier" (and more "normal") way to be confident and relaxed. It occurs to me now that whether your beliefs are true/real or not isn't really the point. The point is how they make YOU feel or how they help you in your life, consciousness, and health. (I just hope they don't hurt anyone else or, at least, they do more good in the world than harm)

O tempora, o mores! Wrote Cicero. He wrote this during the early stages of the fall of Rome, lamenting the decline of moral values.

But to be specific, Cicero was complaining about the fact that conspirators against democracy weren't punished. Doesn't that remind you more of the capitol riot, and the fact that Trump is hardly seeing any consequences from instigating it?

Leadership is important, moral values "trickle down" from the top, as it were.

What if helping the poor necessitates tearing down the rich? The rich are the ones keeping the poor poor. It's very much by design. Even if it's not an intended goal it is the result of their actions.

It's not enough to teach people skills. First it takes a long time to develop skills. You and I were learning skills in kindergarten while poor kids were learning bad and necessary lessons to survive in their hell. It's easier said than done to undo that harm. Let alone the previous generations left behind who will continue to bring everyone down.

There are countless people that graduate with skills and can't find a job after. Skills without jobs is useless. Jobs require money being spent. Money being spent requires money in the pockets of poor people, NOT money in the offshore accounts and investment firms of rich people.

An unconditional Universal Basic Income (UBI, https://ubiworks.ca/) that would meet every person's basic health needs (shelter, water, food, and clothing, health care) is the solution. Everybody gets it regardless of how much money they make. It alone will take care of basic needs. No need to steal, even for a drug habit.

And a poor family can pull themselves out of poverty with minimum wage jobs (often their only option). Children growing up outside of poverty make better decisions in life. You can pay for this with a sales tax structure. The wealthy mostly pay for it because they buy the most, but everybody contributes. This also boosts the economy, especially parts of the world that are currently struggling to participate because the neighbourhood is poor. You can't have a thriving business if the people have no money.

The average middle class family will recieve more or less what they pay so it doesn't cost them anything (they might even make some money). Poor people will recieve more than they pay so it helps to bring them out of poverty (and with no conditions there's no incentive to NOT work as there is with current programs). Wealthy people can afford to pay more than they recieve, and sales tax forces them to, but you may need to improve import laws to ensure most purchases gets taxed and the wealthy can't easily cheat as they do with their income, even online or through an agency.

Ideally, if run properly, costs on public law enforcement and public health care should go down, but the government will still need to monitor for abuses or perhaps old habits dying hard.

The USA will need to fix all of its racist systems before that will have any chance of success though. Start by banning for-profit law enforcement and bring it back into the public sphere where it belongs. And charge the people abusing it to help pay for the therapy the victims are going to need.

Skills are only useful if you can either thrive off of the land or there's enough economic activity in your neighbourhood to thrive. The former is pretty much unrealistic due to climate change and human expansion. The latter is unrealistic unless you are willing to inject money into the communities that don't have enough.

Append:

It's also worth noting that a UBI is meant to be a low cost program (little beurocracy) because everybody gets it unconditionally. And everybody should get the same amount regardless of income status. This is to replace other social security programs that are expensive to operate and still don't do nearly enough to make a difference.

Of course, this only works if we continue to maintain the program keeping up with the costs of living/inflation, etc.

That hinges on the structure of society. The notion that anybody "deserves" anything is subjective. In reality, there's a degree of luck in everything. Good fortune isn't just the product of hard work. That's bullshit. It's a cop-out to absolve yourself of having to care about other people who are different from you.

I was just discussing related ideas with my mom in the yard. There's a First Nations reserve between the city I live in and the rural township where I grew up. Of course, the ignorant white people love to judge the people on the reserve for the conditions that many of them live in. It's easy from the outside to judge others, but it's disingenuous.

If you truly cared you'd afford them the benefit of the doubt. Instead of judging others we need to be understanding. Life is not black and white. Especially human life. It's far more complicated then that. Nobody chooses to suffer or fail. Everybody successful had their share of luck to bring about those circumstances.

You could have been born in a poor African village instead of in a developed country. We all have individual strengths and weaknesses, either underdeveloped or developed, depending on the opportunities we've had or not had.

There's no such thing as "underserved handouts". It's called sharing your circumstances with those less fortunate. It's incredibly ignorant to assume that everybody has the same opportunities in life. In particular, a merit-based society necessarily means people will be left behind. Not everybody develops the same. There's an infinite number of variables that impact each of our lives. We often can't understand where each other are coming from, even if we think that we are open to it.

We've all been taught bullshit that seeps into our thoughts and feelings. We're a very long distance from having everything figured out for everyone as a society. We all get to decide whether we'll be a force for community success in this world or a force for selfish greed. Choose wisely. Or don't. It only matters as much as you care.