Undestanding the Society We Live In

This post is meant for those who know something is wrong in our western societies but can’t quite put their finger on it. If you think it’s all the fault of Trump or Biden you can stop reading here.

Although both videos focus on the US, it’s applicable to countries across the west.

Below are two videos I chose as an introduction, the first (five minutes) is a beginner’s guide to understanding the manufactured narcissism that drives and motivates us. The second (14 minutes), is the consequence of that narcissistic individualism.

The key is to watch the first video and listen. Then play it again and understand the message behind it. It’s only if and when you understand that you can go to the next video and realize what it led to.

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At forum level the favourite topics are the partisan ones. Unsurprisingly, as it lets both sides loose to beat each over the head with personal insults and opposing view links. It’s entertaining in small doses, but so predictable. A serious topic that blames the system and not politicians probably isn’t going to get many replies, but I hope those that watched the videos have come away with something to think about, or am I alone in thinking that?

 

@Kris P. Bacon Ok, so I watched your videos, and understood them, and thought about it. Please understand that before reading further.

So, these concepts are dishonest, and they are total BS! Take one topic, frame it, then switch to a different topic and hope we don't notice the rug being pulled out from under us. This is a typical propaganda tactic and invalidates the entire message. I have left things open to debate here. I await your reply.

 

At some point you have to put your hand up and concede its the people themselves who have ****ed everything.

 

That societies are changing all over the west in the last couple of decades is beyond dispute. You can see the near US civil war of blue versus red even on the forum.

Hedges goes beyond blaming individual politicians and presents the consequences in a documentary style and says that what he sees in the US are the signs of a collapsing society he’s seen elsewhere. It’s a summary of a book he wrote and so obviously it jumps from one topic to the next as he has limited time to present it in.

Propaganda is misleading and/or biased information and so the question is, is what you see wrong? That it’s not happening and he’s making it up? Haven’t we become things in a throw-a-way society that puts profit before people?

As a child I too stood waving a little flag cheering, because everyone knew the British Empire would last forever. Meanwhile, someone else in Russia was waving their little flag convinced that the party of Lenin would never end.

What Hedges presents is a portrait of our narcissistic selves followed by an explanation of how the nature of optimism blinds us to reality.

 

Didn’t believing that politicians can solve all problems help lead them there? Retreating into narcissistic bubbles of beliefs doesn’t prevent the consequences of reality.

 

~ Have no fear. America us in good hands. 80 million citizens trust our Leaders ...

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What I'm seeing is that we are in a transition between the burnt-out old generation and the up-and-coming entrepreneurs of a new generation.

Those old eyesores of abandoned properties? Those are from the old generation, they used to run them commercially for a profit, but lately, they can't do that anymore. Not because the system is collapsing, but because they are burnt out and can't run them anymore.

I have seen that a new generation is buying up those old abandoned properties and they are using them to be a central part of their life. It's now their turn to live a life there, they will make a profit and run their new businesses, develop the land, etc.

They are buying up the properties that the old people must give up at the tail-end of their lives. The new people will buy those old properties at high prices, but they will make record profits at even higher prices for goods and services. None of us now will ever know how far they will go and how high the profits will be.

 

You think our conversations here are at civil war levels>? People disagree and have conversations on politics all of the time, but disagreement doesn't mean US civil war levels of hostility.

 

People have been predicting the end of the USA for years, but unlike some other places in the world, the USA always goes in big and is prepared for anything. Russia and China are going to collapse before the USA does. And investors who gambled that way are going to lose big time.

 

Narcissism (and it's associated hedonism/laziness/dependence) has been a fantastic trojan horse for the Big Money.

The message has been that we're far too special to have to live like peasants. We've been convinced that we don't need a community to witness or support our lives, and so now we seek the world and the state as an horrifically insufficient replacement for that far more validating organic kind of witness and support. This disenfranchises us yet further, thus again ramping up our desperation for witness and support.

All of which combines to produce a massive underclass of people who can barely get out of bed, much less fight all the 'non-self' fights that the peasant fights as a matter of course. We are rendered helpless, spending, serfs - perpetually distracted by the quest for validation.

It's a perfect scam.

 

LOL

 

Our selves are narcissistic? We're blindly optimistic?

That doesn't match me at all, and FYI I'm pessimistic and try to be prepared as best as I can.

 

There are more than a few here who have been thrown off other forums. Read some of the threads and notice the venom when discussing current politics. There’s a reason the word “again” is contained within MAGA. Trump knew and why he introduced sanctions on China to slow down the widening gap between the US and China. Before him, Obama also knew although he chose spreading the wealth around and proposed a limit to individual greed. The imminent collapse of China and Russia have been doing the rounds for decades.

 

China has been dancing close to the edge of a fiscal cliff for a while now. It could go over the edge any minute.

China has been wasting its money on building empty cities that don't even have working plumbing. They have been doing a lot of other stuff too, bad stuff which I will not list here, but simply put China is living on borrowed time, and I expect it to collapse at any moment now.

Perhaps it will be like the fall of the Soviet Union? They will break up, and China's interior will turn into different countries?

 

~ Of course if this happens the Democrats will blame Trump — or Pootin.

 

Popular rumour has it that China is going to collapse any minute now for the past two decades.

The empty city, do you mean Kangbashi in Inner Mongolia? I lived and worked not far from there for years. The empty city was a false rumour and the images were of an empty city when it was being built. You don’t see those images any more now.

China has a booming economy, it’s why Trump tried to slow it down with sanctions. Your information is well out of date.

 

@Kris P. Bacon

Bank runs in China?


An entire generation giving up?


The Chinese don't collect taxes?

 

@Kris P. Bacon

Oh, have you heard of the recent data leak of a billion Chinese people? I have heard that the data might be useful in discovering the real demographic information of China rather than the fake figures China publishes. We'll see.

 

What else did you expect from western media? Try alternative media. I could produce the same stuff about America. The proof is in facts. China isn't declining, even with sanctions slowing it down, it's booming and has been for years. The growth growth rate in 2021 was 8.02%, with the US at 5.97% and its poverty rate fell from 88% in 1981, to 0.7% in 2015. Conversely, the poverty rate in the US almost doubled from 7.4% in 1981 to 13.5% in 2015. All easily discovered facts.

 

Very interesting, but I did chuckle at the 0.7% poverty rate. I wonder what other measures of human success or happiness coming from China suggest...

 

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...your-beliefs-of-russia-and-china-from.601827/

 

China is a complete mess. I've been following the Chinese economy for the past 40 years and believe me, this country has multiple crises going on simultaneously. They are imploding demographically from their one-child policy which is going to cause massive economic issues going forward. They have serious water issues [both flooding in the north and drought in the south]. They have a massive real estate bubble that has popped [and is where most of the money in China is invested]. This alone could take the system down. There are incredible energy issues, food issues, political unrest, on top of all of the economic strife. And their currency is basic monopoly money. They also have a pathetic military that could be defeated by one U.S. Aircraft carrier. Their technology is mostly a joke and their labor costs have skyrocketed such that they are being undercut by other Asian countries [not to mention Latin America and Africa]. Until the CCP is dumped, they will be circling the drain.

Now I am not saying that the U.S. doesn't have its issues [because we certainly do], but compared to the Chinese, the U.S. is going to get through the next ten years in pretty good shape. Russia is hardly a player. Other than its nukes and oil/gas, there's nothing there except a declining population exhausted from 100 years of communism and oligarchs.

 

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...your-beliefs-of-russia-and-china-from.601827/

 

I read what you wrote and some of it is factual, but you do not understand global economics. You also do not seem to grasp what a tiny economy Russia is as well as their horrendous fundamentals. China built what they did on foreign capital, foreign technology and a mountain of debt and monetization. If you believe what the CCP puts out as economic data, then you are literally the only one on the planet who does. Yes, they pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty [based on a mercantilism model] but as I listed above, they are in a world of sh*t. Pretty much everybody recognizes this now. Add to their mess the CCP and a Mao-like personality-cult leader like Xi and you've got some major issues.

Mix in to this bubbling cauldron, de-globalization, and you are seeing their entire system break-down. Technology transfers are being eliminated, capital is chasing cheaper labor elsewhere, and the parts of the global debt bubble is imploding. They are also massively dependent on the euro-dollar-trade and unfortunately [for them] they do not control dollars. The West could put China out of business in six months [don't forget that they need to import just about EVERYTHING, food, energy, capital, you name it.]

Russia and China are not going anywhere anytime soon. The next ten years are going to be really difficult for every country as the predatory and pathological economic practices of the past couple of decades come home to roost. The U.S. is still [by far] in the best position to take advantage of the coming storm by doing what all empires do...whatever they want! But, in the end, the U.S. still has all the advantages that made this country what it is...geography [two oceans and two friendly countries on its boarders], the best farmland, the best university system [although it ain't what it used to be], the best technology, the most stable government, the biggest and most stable economy, the reserve currency, and most of all, a military that enforces it all. I am not saying that this is good, bad, or indifferent, it just is what it is.