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Strange Tales wrote:I can't stand talking to a brick wall that wants to say hard facts are "faked" because thats the only way they can support their viewpoints. Too many people I used to work with believe chemtrails are used for controlling the population and what not.

Sigh. Lol / cry.

I ran into this problem with my dad. It's like he's basically a nihilist—I present him with any kind of facts and his response is "I don't believe that. Do you believe that? How could you believe anything anyone tells you?" Meanwhile he believes everything on Fox News.

vallaton wrote:not that old yet, just 30. kinda hard to think about "growing up" and getting a steady job and a family. besides, i really don't see the future as something i'd like to bring more kids into.

Same age, V.

And yeah, regarding kids. #3 is inbound, and this is a real question. But, again, to make everything about my question: how best to affect some kinda change? I'm only half kidding when I say I want to create a small army of smart, thoughtful people who try to be rational and sensitive in a world that increasingly dismisses those qualities as weak. That's not a real reason for having kids (IMMORTALITY is mine), but...eh.

I forget who said it (probably one of working class/proletarian writers I read a lot of) said 'there can be no real radicals who have children.' Not totally inaccurate, but it's also a largely obsolete form of radicalism that they're referring to.

Anyway, didn't mean to take this into kid-land.

Strange Tales wrote:the world is what it is and I don't have the mental fortitude to try and malleate people into what I believe is a better human ethically/morally/what not.

Understood. Not gonna argue to try and change your mind, but does that equate to nothing mattering (your actions)?

I don't like kids, they don't like me. GF and I are both immature and don't want kids. Got a nice place to live. Got cool ass dogs. Lets buy pedals!

Invisible Man wrote:But, again, to make everything about my question: how best to affect some kinda change?

This has been on my mind more than anything lately. I've called bullshit on myself for armchair liberalism, and am going to donate my time locally. I think a big thing about having kids is that it often takes your view from widescreen to macro—your'e forced to really focus on protecting what's right in front of you. You're forced to be less selfish.

I think similarly, a lot of us could stop bitching / pontificating about political stuff online and actually get out there and contribute instead. It's less romantic, but more effective.

I know that a lot of left-leaning people contribute, but I'd say the vast majority don't. I've been guilty of that, for sure.

D'arcy said this while we were talking politics/PC-ness a while ago:
"I don't care about what you say, I care about how you vote."

that is to say -- I don't think donating time for the sake of donating time at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, while certainly noble, is more effective at actually effecting change than being an astute and informed voter/active participant in the political process, particularly at the local level.

Also, re: kids:

[youtube][/youtube]

Invisible Man wrote:

vallaton wrote:not that old yet, just 30. kinda hard to think about "growing up" and getting a steady job and a family. besides, i really don't see the future as something i'd like to bring more kids into.

Same age, V.

And yeah, regarding kids. #3 is inbound, and this is a real question. But, again, to make everything about my question: how best to affect some kinda change? I'm only half kidding when I say I want to create a small army of smart, thoughtful people who try to be rational and sensitive in a world that increasingly dismisses those qualities as weak. That's not a real reason for having kids (IMMORTALITY is mine), but...eh.

I forget who said it (probably one of working class/proletarian writers I read a lot of) said 'there can be no real radicals who have children.' Not totally inaccurate, but it's also a largely obsolete form of radicalism that they're referring to.

wish i had some sort of answer to that question. i used to be really positive and believe that all the small decisions matter and can change the world. at the moment i've been struggling for years with severe depression and have had to kind of confront my old "positiveness" that has turned to this toxic selfhate for not being/doing enough. i guess i still think that everything we do matters, but that we just have to hope that it matters enough even if we can't see the change. and that it is also important to look after the wellbeing of ourselves and people around us, and not just the survival of "the world", and that those things don't have to be in conflict with each other.

that's a really interesting quote. kinda understand where that's coming from from the loose context you provided, but as you said it's not that relevant anymore. having kids can be hella radical in so many ways.
that quote reminds me of a quote of camus (sorry everyone, i'm THAT person) i've thought about a lot after becoming depressed. "a man devoid of hope and conscious of being so, has ceased to belong to the future." in a way, kids are our way of belonging to the future. of having a reason to give a shit about what comes of our actions. and as so, they are probably also a way to confront our own toxic behaviours and systems of thought.

I struggle with this all the time. It's important to find some issues that your family unit can rally around. I want to burn down capitalism, but my wife grows tired of that language. She just wants to see people treated fairly and doesn't think anything else would be better (which is what I want too, obviously) so in order for our household to be united I've had to adjust my rhetoric a little. We rally around gender equality, equity for humans, that sort of stuff. The whole "burn down the system" trope has faded a little, but more practical, tangible impacts in our community are now evident.

Your peer group becomes (or at least mine has) less understanding of your disdain for the status quo values of consumerism and all sorts of junk, but you just have to keep going, ya know?

Idk, I struggle with this general subject all the time.

Can't buy (or grow) food with ideological purity.

D.o.S. wrote:Can't buy (or grow) food with ideological purity.

can't buy or grow food with bad compromises either. probably have to get some dirt or shit or something to trade instead.

Invisible Man wrote:

Strange Tales wrote:the world is what it is and I don't have the mental fortitude to try and malleate people into what I believe is a better human ethically/morally/what not.

Understood. Not gonna argue to try and change your mind, but does that equate to nothing mattering (your actions)?

On a grander scale? (whatever that means) Most assuredly, no, I don't feel like it matters. I just do what I can do at my own level; be it talking to people, releasing music to show others and what not. Can't really have a conversation with people though because people are so set in their ways, and political/socio beliefs and what not seems to delve into personal attacks quicker than a bridge can be made. I have short patience for people that don't want to try and think outside of their own box.

also, edit: I'm fine with arguing, as long as it doesn't delve into name-calling bullshit I see happen all the time. bloatedsack below me basically hits all points though.

UglyCasanova wrote:I don't like kids, they don't like me. GF and I are both immature and don't want kids. Got a nice place to live. Got cool ass dogs. Lets buy pedals!

My wife and I used to say that. Doctors told us it couldn't happen. We used science to make sure it wouldn't happen. I smoked alot of pot, and supposedly the boys can't swim... but somehow my fucking balls must produce the most Herculean sperm of all mankind because they not only overcame the drugs, punched past science and said, "Barren? Fuck you, we will colonize your fucking uterus because we are fucking sperm gods!"

And then they made fucking twins.

So yeah.. my advice to you is that of one of my favourite '80s movies: The only winning move is not to play.

Fucking twins.

Anyways. I gave up on my leftist ideals ages ago. It's impossible, and the extremely "liberal" people are just closed minded fucking fascists at heart, anyways. Laibach and the NSK taught me a long time ago that "politics" and people shouldn't be represented by a straight line of left-to-right, liberal-to-conservative thought but as a giant fucking horseshoe. When you get to the ends of that shoe, it turns out that the extremists on each side are only seperated by a little fucking space, and that they're almost the same people in the end.

I'm just tired of lefties screaming at me for not being open minded enough, and I realize that so much of their pie in the sky bullshit isn't just unobtainable, but hurtful and regressive.

However, with all that said, I much rather read the horseshit from the extreme left because it's just kinda funny and easy to laugh at versus the stuff from the extreme right which scares me. I can spend hours giggling away on democracticunderground but 5 minutes of freerepublic just leaves me cold and scared.

bloatedsack wrote:"Barren? Fuck you, we will colonize your fucking uterus because we are fucking sperm gods!"

"bloatedsack"

Sperm gods FTW!

EDIT: Invisible—now I see what you did there

Sack's not so bloated now, eh?

Nah, married for like 13 years or something (I should probably know that) and kids for nine and a half... it's gone past bloated and has sort started to slough off from lack of use.

Freedom to do anything/nothing isn't freedom at all.
Gases expand to fill the available space; what happens when they are released into a vacuum?
Can 'meaninglessness' really be unprincipled?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKGX9tdPeN0[/youtube]