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[quote=FlyerInHi]
I would not discount the usefulness of jewelry. With them, you can buy the affection of your wife, your daughter-in-law, grand children, etc.. . Heirlooms tie people together through the generations.[/quote]

Why would you want to buy somebody’s affection? Why would you want the affection of somebody whose affection could be bought? Why would you want affection that was really for a diamond and not for you?

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[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=zk]Maybe the guy in India is as happy as the guy at the garden store.[/quote]

maybe. i felt an uncomfortable pause after i said my household income. like it pricked him. i could be projecting.

the guy in the garden store was having a really truly good time. told me hed spent 10 years working at a gas station and this job was awesome in comparison…of course, i didnt tell him my income, but he mightve thought i was a rich idiot, spending so much cash on giant pots…although frankly he didnt seem the type to judge.

i kinda wanted to hang out with him. maybe get trained to work there? that is, if money were no object. which is obviously not the case…[/quote]

Question: If you could trade places with the guy at the garden store, would you? (Leaving your family out of the equation.) You’d have his job and also his innate ability to be happy. You’d work in the garden store, and you’d be happy. You wouldn’t have much money.

You hear people say that how happy you are is a choice, but I think that’s only true to a very small extent. I think (and research says) a person spends most of his life hovering around his spot on the happiness spectrum, and it doesn’t really matter if he’s putting effort into being happy, and it doesn’t really matter if he’s a well-off lawyer or an $11/hour garden-store guy. It doesn’t even matter if he’s paralyzed or blind.

I was in NYC last summer on vacation. I’m having a decent time on vacation, and here I am on the subway. I’m probably mildly stressing about dinner accommodations or tomorrow’s itinerary. Three Jamaican maids walk in and sit down. They’re talking and laughing and sparkling. Two of them were, anyway. The other was happy to be along for the ride. I felt the same way about them as you did about the garden store guy. I wanted to hang out with them.

To me, being born (or raised, or whatever it is) with that level of happiness is worth far more than being born with the advantages of wealth, intelligence, first-world residence, educational opportunities, dominant race, good looks, or just about anything else.

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Videos of primitive tribes fascinate me because they always seem so happy.

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Maybe the guy in India is as happy as the guy at the garden store.

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[quote=flu]Turbo is out…..I can’t believe I woke up in the middle of the night to do this….But I will not be defeated by frozen bolt gods….

[/quote]

Ahh, sweet victory!

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[quote=FlyerInHi]

Of course, being likeable gets a lot done. That’s why, though I’m an ass here, I’m very nice in person.

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Being nice and being likable are completely different things. In fact, I’d say there’s not even very much correlation between the two. A raging asshole is probably not likable, but even then, only if he’s consistently and overtly mean. Plenty of extremely nice people are very much unliked.

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Fascinating article on Trump’s appeal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-will-win-in-a-landslide-the-mind-behind-dilbert-explains-why/#comments

The part that struck me the most:

People are not wired to be rational. Our brains simply evolved to keep us alive. Brains did not evolve to give us truth. Brains merely give us movies in our minds that keeps us sane and motivated.

I don’t normally read the comments much, but I did find this gem in the comments on this article:

The author seems to understand much about Trump. Unfortunately, he may be right that Clinton will lose to Trump because she does not understand, as Trump does, that voters are irrational and vote based on emotion. She definitely tries to make a rational approach to voters. This will not work in competition with Trump, the master manipulator. What might work is to call Trump what he is, a psychopath, and to explain to the public that as a psychopath, Trump does not care at all about the public and only cares about power, domination, persuasion, manipulation, and winning. Uncloak the truth about Trump and he might not look as appealing and might not win.

Of course, to “uncloak the truth about Trump” really won’t do anything. As is stated many times in the article, the truth doesn’t really matter. Hillary must persuade the electorate to believe that Trump is a psychopath. And emotional persuasion is not her strong suit.

All that said, the people who are buying what Trump is selling (who are emotionally vulnerable to his sales pitch) seem to be outnumbered. So far.

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Donald Trump isn’t eligible to be president because he’s a foreign, illegal alien, immigrant bitch.

Discuss.

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[quote=flu][quote=zk]Well played, flu. Little flu gets a life lesson and a laugh. Man, sometimes being a Dad is great, isn’t it? Happy Father’s Day![/quote]

I’m not so sure… The lesson is “the customer is always right, no matter how unreasonable?”

It’s actually quite interesting though. My daughter thought the person was being completely unreasonable. But, I never taught her to think that way. It made me wonder where do people learn where to draw the line? I mean, to some people, this was outrageous, to others I’m suspecting otherwise….[/quote]

I meant kind of the opposite. That, even though “the customer is always right” is the mantra of many a retail outlet, and even though the customer might be treated as though they’re right, the customer is, in fact, not always right. Sometimes they’re just ignorant douchebags. I thought your “suggestion” that she go up there and say what you said to say sort of illustrated that, yes, that particular customer was a loser and, at the same time, gave you guys a laugh.

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Well played, flu. Little flu gets a life lesson and a laugh. Man, sometimes being a Dad is great, isn’t it? Happy Father’s Day!

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[quote=njtosd]

That was 25 years ago in the Midlands (an area that delivered a strong vote to leave). You can’t blame Trump for that one – sorry. People severely underestimate the nationalism present in European countries.[/quote]

I wasn’t saying or implying that Trump had anything to do with what’s happening in England. I was drawing a parallel. I think nativism and nationalism similar to the kind that caused the rise of Trump caused the rise of Brexit voters. I agree with your views on nationalism and racism in England.

Globalism is going to continue to be a very rough adjustment for a lot of people.

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[quote=bearishgurl]
[quote=zk][quote=FlyerInHi]This what happens when news outlets like the Sun enable the pitchfork peasants.[/quote]

And Trump wouldn’t be where he is without Fox et.al. encouraging America’s pitchfork peasants….
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This is another pompous statement. Fox News is on cable (and satellite) TV. One can’t get Fox News in their home in my area of SD County unless they sign up for a minimum $53.50 TV pkg (+ telecommunications tax and incl box rental) with a cable or satellite provider (just TWO providers to choose from around here). OR … spend hundreds setting up their own antenna system where they still would have a monthly fee of $15-$20. And $53.50 month presumes the customer already has high-speed internet service with that same provider! If they don’t (and just want to order TV service only), the price to get Fox News is $65-$70 month.

“Pitchfork peasants” can’t afford that expense every month. They are lucky if they have a rabbit-ear antenna which can still pick up local TV channels for free … that is, IF their local area broadcasting has not yet gone “all digital” (as it has in most areas of SD County). [/quote]

What I wrote was, “Fox et. al.” As you know, that means, “and others.” AM radio is full of right-wing propaganda, and I’d estimate that over 99% of voting-age Americans have access to AM radio. And probably the vast majority of working-class and lower-middle-class Americans have access to the internet, where they can get Fox News and, of course, all the right-wing propaganda their hearts desire.

[quote=bearishgurl]
The above comments are just another example of a broad brushstroke of the electorate painted by Piggs who are obviously wrapped up in their own fantastical delusions of how wonderful their own political views and ideologies are.[/quote]

Saying that the right-wing noise machine has put Trump where he is has nothing to do with my political views or ideologies. Saying that “pitchfork peasants” put Trump where he is is just facts. “Peasant,” in this context, means “a usually uneducated person of low social status.” (Miriam Webster). Take away uneducated voters, and Trump wouldn’t be where he is today.

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[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=all]
Either way, a finger to the ruling class is likely preferred to chopped heads, by plebs and patricians alike.[/quote]

The conservatives are losing control of their bases.
The business elites are now losing money because they used and enabled the pitchfork peasants.[/quote]

If you intentionally make people angry and afraid, you shouldn’t expect yourself to be able to predict the outcome of their anger and fear. Especially over a long period of time. Conservatives in this country have been stoking anger and fear for decades, and they got drumpf out of the deal. I’m not sure what’s been going on in the UK, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were basically the same thing over there (with brexit the result instead of drumpf).

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[quote=FlyerInHi]This what happens when news outlets like the Sun enable the pitchfork peasants.[/quote]

And Trump wouldn’t be where he is without Fox et.al. encouraging America’s pitchfork peasants.

British millenials are ticked off about the “leave” vote, but not enough of them voted, and they could’ve made the difference.

Let’s hope American millenials learn a lesson from that and remember it come November.

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[quote=spdrun]Haven’t seen “Threads.” Do you mean “The Day After?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yif-5cKg1Yo&t=3040%5B/quote%5D

Threads was a British movie. Here’s a clip. Bob’s line is at 1:47

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