War Room Lounge v114: Now I really want a Cinnabon. Thanks a--hole.

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JDragon said:
UFC 249 cancelled, all UFC cards postponed indefinitely

https://m.sherdog.com/news/news/UFC...oming-UFC-Cards-Postponed-Indefinitely-172221
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Jack V Savage said:
@MMAisGod, I like this by Kurt Vonnegut:



People are naturally social--we form relationships, we naturally emphathize with others, we like people and want to be liked, etc. But we're lazy as hell, and we're pretty good at finding reasons to declare some people to be the outgroup and not worthy of empathy.

To bring it back to politics, a good society is one in which people are properly incentivized to behave well, which they do without thinking that it's because of the incentives.
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I agree with that, explains a lot of "human history in a nutshell" in there too. Especially agree with a large percentage (that 10/80/10% split is pretty accurate imo), even of things they aren't sure they are capable of in that large bulk. Where the society can turn bad, is when those incentives are replaced with manipulation. If you can get people to start behaving bad, or doing things in no one's interests, and have them believe it's good, they can believe themselves into doing anything even if they "should" know better. If that makes sense.

The Milgram experiment is the first thing that pops to mind. Stanley legitimately set out to prove that people are good, and found how manipulated they can be by following an authority figure that was construed to be "above them" (literally and figuratively lol) during the experiment. I'm sure you have already read about it though. It was about 2/3s of participants pushing shocks all the way until the death shocks, then 3 more death shocks, because the authority figure was telling them to do it in different ways. Guy is over there screaming and dying while they keep pushing the button. Crazy to read, but there are too many recorded experiments like that for me to believe people are naturally good on their own. People can be good, if we can guide everyone there, but there's so many external factors to be led astray that it's almost a hopeless endeavor in the grand scheme of things.

EDIT: About to read your Outgroup link while I have some time. Looks good.
 
Trotsky said:
Hmm, I didn't know Chris Cuomo and Andrew Cuomo were brothers until today.

And now that I see their faces side by side, I'm embarrassed that I didn't realize it.
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I didn't notice that they were different people until a couple weeks ago, and they're way older than I would have thought, because the real Cuomo is Mario. Cuomo is kinda Highlander-ish as a name, it doesn't work very well when lots of the fuckers are running around.
 
Kafir-kun said:
The point about "both parties being the same" is often exaggerated by low info independents who want to appear above politics but if its true about anything its true about foreign policy.
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Yeah, there's a jarring lack of interest, principle, and courage by politicians in this area. It really makes a politician difficult to trust when they're completely comfortable with open hypocrisy and dishonesty in one area of the job.
 
sickc0d3r said:
Wow, haven’t heard that before, that was pretty great, thanks, bud.
Sound was like channeling Hank with a little metal crossover. That lead guitarist can fucking jam. Added to the workout playlist.
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I think Mat Best is in there as a guitarist.

 
Trotsky said:
@tonni

Anymore, I think the only interesting relationship subplots on television are non-traditional ones like gay couples, interracial couples, or mixed faith couples, mostly because it's not territory that has been comprehensively explored by previous sitcoms.

For instance, one of the only things I enjoyed about Shameless was the depiction of a same sex relationship in the early seasons between a gay kid and a very heteronormative, uber-aggressive partner. Likewise, the similar (feminine gay vs. heteronormative gay) relationship in Schitt's Creek is very captivating to me, although I was surprised to realize that I'm still kind of grossed out by dudes kissing one another.

Can't think of any other on-screen relationships that I thought were interesting. Maybe the couple from The Americans.
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It’s probably something personality wise on my part. I can’t get ingaged in it.
 
MMAisGod said:
Do you think most people are good? I don't think so. Most people will look out for themselves, their own interests, or their own instincts, regardless of circumstances around that. It's how you get a guy getting stabbed and laying there on the sidewalk in NYC while everyone steps around him for almost 2 hours until he eventually just dies. Or people/businesses of all sizes being caught attempting to price gouge toilet paper/sanitizer/paper towels/etc the last month in a time of need. Or people being mauled and stomped to death so some guy or chick can grab a tv on Black Friday. Or humanities infatuation with never-ending war for all eternity since the dawn of man. Or why your main man Bernie Sanders has an integrity level that is rare among people with power. Etc. People can do good, but I don't think humans are naturally good at all.



:eek:

Now however, it makes sense.
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I think the potential to be good is in (almost) everyone, but it gets suppressed by rationalizations and shitty environments. People have a consciousness, it’s just that often it’s a lot easier to make the bad decision instead of the one that aligns with your consciousness.

On an individual scale, the laziest decision seems like the reasonable decision. That is why people join gangs. Easy money, easier to succumb to group pressure than to oppose it, it’s an easy confidence boost...

On a larger scale, our environment is set up in a way that makes it very easy to make the poor decisions. People just go with the flow most of the time, it’s really Murphy’s law in effect. The more opportunity there is for crime or other bad behavior, the more it will happen.

I think emphasizing personal responsibility is shortsighted because of this. People need to be taken accountable and education is important etc, but if you set up the environment in a way that makes the easiest decision also the right one, or if you take away the need to pursue easy money, you’ll fix a lot of problems without having to reeducate a single person.

An example of controlling/changing the environment, to control/fix behavior is how in schools where there are more trees/plants in the yard, there is less bullying.

Making the good decisions in life is often an upstream journey (especially at first) and I think it’s not that people are inherently evil (because then we would have no issue with evil) but just plain old lazy/scared/stupid/desparate.

We at least have some good inside of us we can gravitate towards, some do it easier than others, but if humans were born wicked there would be nothing to gravitate towards.
 
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