Why haven't we really advanced much as a species lately?

[The_Unnatural]

Its simple really, its profit over everything. Since everything can be patented and every little object costs thousands of dollars. Technology and innovation is lagging behind because individuals want to get paid first.

 

[The_Unnatural]

Also religion, since religion states mankind shouldn't try to be greater than god. Being stupid is easier.

 

[sub_thug]

Come on now. It's every bit as bad as it sounds. The nation is being exploited. People should not have to buy stock in a company that extracts a nations natural resources to benefit from it.

Oil is a precious, extremely valuable natural resource. As are many other commodities pulled out of the ground. The nation as a whole should be getting 80%-90% of the profits of the oil and other natural resources that come out of our ground and seabed. Whether you prefer to do it by nationalizing the industry or using the tax code, I don't care.

Again, I point you to the richest nations in the world. Regardless of their form of government, how they treat their people, or any other variable, regardless of whether they use the money for good, evil, or squander it. Regardless of whether they nationalize the industry, or just tax the fuck out of it, they all have one thing in common. Those nations are the primary financial beneficiaries of their natural resources. Not other entities.

Oil is useful as a form of fuel or as a lubricant. It's commoditization is exactly why it has value at all. And who is "the nation?" Should we all get money like the Alaskans do? Should the government just collect a ton of money? Who is going to actually do the drilling and refining of said oil? Should the government buy an oil company or start its own a la Saudi Aramco? It's not enough to say that we should all benefit. You have to specify how. My recommendation is through stock for anyone that wants to buy in.

I can buy into whatever stock I want right now. If I want to invest my money in Solar City because I believe in solar electricity, regardless of the company's variance on the NYSE, I can do that. I can even make some money off them. I don't have to support the oil industry at all. That's my choice to make, and I'm glad that I live in a system where I can make those kinds of choices.

 

[Reyesnuthugr]

Yes sir! I admit I went hard but you didn't need to go as far as using the word Zeitgeist! I really heard an old man complain when I read your post, I'm sorry. Being above 40 myself, I can't ignore I often have the same thoughts, I just try to resist them with some useful optimism.

I have to admit that 2017 has been very hard on optimism but I will not be defeated so easily! Sorry to have offended you, it was not my goal: I tried to resist the urge to hate the present.

It is hard, I admit.

I've been boiling about this exact thing for a while now (can you tell?), sorry you had to be the next guy I saw who said it.

I'll take it as a compliment that you think I'm over 40. I'm not even touching fourty yet, although the margins are narrowing with every passing minute. I love sounding like an old man, I complained and wrote essays about grunge culture in the 90's during the peak of the actual thing while in highschool and how it was probably just a corporate attempted re-hash of the 60's (looks like I was right).

Anyways, you gotta learn to embrace the festering elderly vitriol- it's actually cool now!

---

Also one other thing I wanted to mention-- it's not the kids' fault. This trash culture is brought to you by the previous generations. They're the ones pushing this new reality-tv cutthroat backstabbing paradigm as the new "savvy" (i.e. 'that guy's not a mean trashy asshole to be avoided or shunned from doing business with, he's being a genius to be emulated and adored by lying and cheating to sell himself and everyone out, sinking the company/industry'). It makes me sick, because that kind of thinking undoes all the main benefits of civilization in the first place.

The new batch of millennials are just the unfortunate unwitting social-engineering targets/trustful slaves.

 

[cooks1]

Oil is useful as a form of fuel or as a lubricant. It's commoditization is exactly why it has value at all. And who is "the nation?" Should we all get money like the Alaskans do? Should the government just collect a ton of money? Who is going to actually do the drilling and refining of said oil? Should the government buy an oil company or start its own a la Saudi Aramco? It's not enough to say that we should all benefit. You have to specify how. My recommendation is through stock for anyone that wants to buy in.

I can buy into whatever stock I want right now. If I want to invest my money in Solar City because I believe in solar electricity, regardless of the company's variance on the NYSE, I can do that. I can even make some money off them. I don't have to support the oil industry at all. That's my choice to make, and I'm glad that I live in a system where I can make those kinds of choices.

That's fine....For You. Forgive me though if I don't want our nation to bend over and take it up the ass while corporations plunder our natural resources.

It's interesting that you keep mentioning stocks. Because exchanging drilling rights for large equity stakes in the companies drilling is one of the ways smart countries ensure they do not get ass fucked, and prevent their natural resources from getting plundered.

There are many ways the government can make sure the nation is the primary beneficiary. Some countries nationalize and do it themselves. That's fine. Or you can just tax your way there. Or you can make sure the government has large equity stake in the company that does the production as a condition of granting the drilling rights. Like Norway did with Statoil/Norsk. The point is the people are the primary beneficiary of the natural resource, not someone else.

Do you know how much the Norweigan Oil fund is valued at??????

$562 Billion. There are only around 5 million people in the fucking place. Do the math on that. That's basically a 100K pension for every man woman and child in the nation.

We really should look at what Norway did. It was incredibly shrewd and remarkable. They now have a majority share in one of the largest companies in the world that pulls oil out of 36 countries.

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-08-oil-together-now-nationalisation-lessons-from-norway/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statoil

Now.....Try and wrap your head around this.....The US produces 5 times the oil Norway does. Imagine if we were half as smart as them. Instead, the US is using our oil to pay for Norweigan services, as Statoil has 2200 producing wells in the US.

https://www.statoil.com/en/where-we-are/united-states.html

 

[Y2Khaos]

MMA has changed quite a bit since 1992 so that's 1 thing.

 

[ClubFoot]

Porn on you're phone which you can conveniently take anywhere!

And your telling me we haven't advanced much?

Keep you AI and hover boards.

I'm happy with the mobile pron.

Thank you very much. Our great grandparents would have killed for this shit.

 

[freaky]

Porn on you're phone which you can conveniently take anywhere!

And your telling me we haven't advanced much?

Keep you AI and hover boards.

I'm happy with the mobile pron.

Thank you very much. Our great grandparents would have killed for this shit.

You keep to your portable fap material and I'll take my AI Scarlett Johansson. What's that movie call with those blank robots that can upload any personality and characteristics? That's the future I want to be in.

 

[RockstarChris]

i might be partly responsable

 

[ClubFoot]

You keep to your portable fap material and I'll take my AI Scarlett Johansson. What's that movie call with those blank robots that can upload any personality and characteristics? That's the future I want to be in.

Ah, but we aren't there yet Sonny Jim.

As soon as we are the mobile pron will be a great back up.

 

[Y2Khaos]

I never understood why people want to colonize other planets or go to space at all. I totally see the need for satellites but why would you want to live in a place where you can't go outside without some form of protection and life support? From all the exploration of the moon we've done we know there is nothing useful there.

 

[RJ43]

OK Hoss

Your argument is based on the film Event Horizon, bruh. Not really the most insightful place to start.

That's like me asking why men haven't advanced much lately because we're unable to kill an alien predator with our bare hands.

Anyway, If I'm not mistaken we are still considered to be in the information revolution. Maybe it's because I live in San Francisco, but I feel like we see real changes in our lives at a very rapid rate.

 

[JUST BLEED GOD]

Your argument is based on the film Event Horizon, bruh. Not really the most insightful place to start.

That's like me asking why men haven't advanced much lately because we're unable to kill an alien predator with our bare hands.

Anyway, If I'm not mistaken we are still considered to be in the information revolution. Maybe it's because I live in San Francisco, but I feel like we see real changes in our lives at a very rapid rate.

His first response was to call the thread "mind blowingly ignorant/stupid".

Its not "my argument". It's just my observation of how much we envisioned ourselves achieving, but all we've done is combine a phone with a laptop.

Almost nothing else has changed my life.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

 

[Jack Reacheround]

Also religion, since religion states mankind shouldn't try to be greater than god. Being stupid is easier.

I don't really agree with this per say. Hear me out on this one.

People don't do everything their religion tells them to do. It is people who tell them which rules are more important and how to interpret them. And right now, those people are being told by others, who have an interest in discrediting climate science, to discredit all science. Kind of like how some Muslims are being told to blow shit up by a minority of Muslims who have a vested interest in preventing the influence of western values in their countries. Religion isn't so much the mechanism driving these things, but is more like the vehicle the drivers are using to carry out their nefarious agendas.
And nobody better turn this into a "Islam is a violent religion and all Muslims are savages," thread. I'm not debating that shit with any of you dumbasses. I'm just saying that Christianity itself may not be to blame for suppressing scientific achievement. It's just being used by those who want to do that anyway.

 

[Metal_Daze]

I've been boiling about this exact thing for a while now (can you tell?), sorry you had to be the next guy I saw who said it.

I'll take it as a compliment that you think I'm over 40. I'm not even touching fourty yet, although the margins are narrowing with every passing minute. I love sounding like an old man, I complained and wrote essays about grunge culture in the 90's during the peak of the actual thing while in highschool and how it was probably just a corporate attempted re-hash of the 60's (looks like I was right).

Anyways, you gotta learn to embrace the festering elderly vitriol- it's actually cool now!

---

Also one other thing I wanted to mention-- it's not the kids' fault. This trash culture is brought to you by the previous generations. They're the ones pushing this new reality-tv cutthroat backstabbing paradigm as the new "savvy" (i.e. 'that guy's not a mean trashy asshole to be avoided or shunned from doing business with, he's being a genius to be emulated and adored by lying and cheating to sell himself and everyone out, sinking the company/industry'). It makes me sick, because that kind of thinking undoes all the main benefits of civilization in the first place.

The new batch of millennials are just the unfortunate unwitting social-engineering targets/trustful slaves.

Oh I can be negative, overly so! Concerning the highlighted sentence (on grunge). Put yourself in the place of a 40 years-old guitar player. I spent my teen years practicing and improving my guitar skills. I wanted to become a guitar hero, like my heroes (Jimmy, SRV, Slash, Satriani, etc).

The exact moment I became good enough to lead a band, Nevermind became ultra popular and the dream was over. Nobody cared about guitar from that point on. It was all about the attitude, the clothes, the hairdo and how silly you look when you take a picture.

None of these pictures have anything to do with music. It's all attitude, resistance, non-conformism and satire. Anybody can take a silly picture and resist the authority. I don't want to take anything from Kurt, he had tremendous charisma and his influence is undeniable.

But mastering a musical instrument, mastering the guitar is something else. Kurt Cobain never mastered the guitar: he was an incredible song writer and a potable live player but he must be the worst guitar player ever.

All his shtick was about attitude. Music took the backstage and is not even back yet. He changed things but I can't see it as "changed for the better" because what became of music after doesn't bode well with me.

 

[Metal_Daze]

Porn on you're phone which you can conveniently take anywhere!

And your telling me we haven't advanced much?

Keep you AI and hover boards.

I'm happy with the mobile pron.

Thank you very much. Our great grandparents would have killed for this shit.

The Grand Wazoo would be proud of these words.

 

[jericksen5]

I never understood why people want to colonize other planets or go to space at all. I totally see the need for satellites but why would you want to live in a place where you can't go outside without some form of protection and life support? From all the exploration of the moon we've done we know there is nothing useful there.

Because if you look back at the history of the planet earth, it has only been hospitable for human life for a short span of time. And at some point, it will no longer be hospitable for human life again, weather its due to manmade climate change or natural changes. In order to survive as a species, at some point we will need to colonize other worlds.

 

[rj144]

Because if you look back at the history of the planet earth, it has only been hospitable for human life for a short span of time. And at some point, it will no longer be hospitable for human life again, weather its due to manmade climate change or natural changes. In order to survive as a species, at some point we will need to colonize other worlds.

Yes good point and good pun.

 

[Shaved Rabbit]

Where the sex robots at?

It's 2017 for christ sake, I never asked for this future.