War Room Lounge v67: Is Australia Real?

[Ruprecht]

Who was the poster who said the girls at his nearby middle school were "high class trim"? I think he also used terms like that.

Bloodworth. It'd be rare for him to use a word with that many syllables though.
I think he mostly stuck with "liberal", "leftist" and sometimes "liberal leftist".

 

[Andy Capp]

Pretty clean knockout of Taleb just now at UFC 242. I don't have any illusions about how good he is, but still, it's sad to see a Canadian get KTFO.

 

[Ruprecht]

Spoiler

Pretty clean knockout of Taleb just now at UFC 242. I don't have any illusions about how good he is, but still, it's sad to see a Canadian get KTFO.

Damnit. Didn't realise that was on this early, and hadn't logged off to avoid spoilers.

 

[Andy Capp]

Damnit. Didn't realise that was on this early, and hadn't logged off to avoid spoilers.

I didn't either. Yesterday, someone said it was at 1pm but I opened the Sherdog.com home page about an hour or more ago to see who all was fighting and found I had already missed the first fight.

Spoiler: Another 242 spoiler

Japanese fighter, Takashi Sato, choked out, 2nd disappointment but good action and well done by the other guy.

 

[Ruprecht]

I didn't either. Yesterday, someone said it was at 1pm but I opened the Sherdog.com home page about an hour or more ago to see who all was fighting and found I had already missed the first fight.

Spoiler: Another 242 spoiler

Japanese fighter, Takashi Sato, choked out, 2nd disappointment but good action and well done by the other guy.

Happens to me pretty regularly. I usually try and avoid Sherdog, youtube, my news feeds etc on a Sunday until I've seen the fights.

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

I think with that hurricane stuff, he actually reached Iraqi Information Minister level of absurdity.

 

[K1levelgrappler]

lmao

 

[Rational Poster]

Bloodworth. It'd be rare for him to use a word with that many syllables though.
I think he mostly stuck with "liberal", "leftist" and sometimes "liberal leftist".

Bloodworth literally dug holes for a living

 

[Mr. Shickadance]

Any one know what happened to the thread on this?


The parents are claiming the cop got special treatment, which I believe is true. It will be interesting to see what happens in this case.

 

[all caps]

Any one know what happened to the thread on this?


The parents are claiming the cop got special treatment, which I believe is true. It will be interesting to see what happens in this case.

I'm still taking an account ban bet on this case.

If she is convicted, I am gone for good. If she walks, whoever accepts is banned.

It's my belief that she gets off.

Also: the thread is right here
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/...an-in-apartment-she-thought-was-hers.3822403/

 

[Mr. Shickadance]

I'm still taking an account ban bet on this case.

If she is convicted, I am gone for good. If she walks, whoever accepts is banned.

It's my belief that she gets off.

Also: the thread is right here
https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/...an-in-apartment-she-thought-was-hers.3822403/

I don’t know if you’re crazy or just that cynical but that’s quite a bet.

I kind of believe she will get off too or an extremely low offense charge.

Thanks for the thread though.

 

[all caps]

crazy

 

[all caps]

Some fringe journeyman wide receiver

@Lowmanproblems

 

[LMP]

@Lowmanproblems

 

[MiniCraque]

Oh, I'm fairly certain about where it comes from at a general level. Speaking generally, it stems from a desire to feel accepted by a particular cultural group and this is done by trying to overtly distance themselves from others who are not part of that group. You see in all sorts of group settings. Someone wants to be accepted to a group so they showcase their acceptability by demeaning outsiders to that group. It's just showcasing affinities by distancing from others.

Again, not speaking about individuals just generally.

There are lots of ways to showcase affinity without needing to insult/demean but some people can't do that. You see this a lot with the lower middle class for some reason. They can't just align with the rich, they also need to bash the poor. It's a method of trying to climb higher by pushing others down.

I tend to stay away from such people in real life.

I feel like you inardventedly just described Milo Yiannopoulos's entire life.

 

[Lord Coke]

Alienation Is Killing Americans and Japanese https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...4lZ67lPaAnjSNP0zLoR9DiDHz0FNa41TqKIaTArf3sXEM

People are increasingly finding themselves alone in old age, on both sides of the Pacific.
Nautilus|

• Amos Zeeberg

Almost a quarter of Japanese men and a tenth of Japanese women over age 60 say there is not a single person they could rely on in difficult times. The American crisis may not be so dissimilar from the Japanese one. Photo from Trung Kaching / Flickr.

The stories have become all too familiar in Japan, though people often do their best to ignore them. An elderly or middle-aged person, usually a man, is found dead, at home in his apartment, frequently right in his bed. It has been days, weeks, or even months since he has had contact with another human being. Often the discovery is made by a landlord frustrated at not receiving a rent payment or a neighbor who notices an unpleasant smell. The deceased has almost no connections with the world around him: no job, no relationships with neighbors, no spouse or children who care to be in contact. He has little desire to take care of his home, his relationships, his health. “The majority of lonely deaths are people who are kind of messy,” Taichi Yoshida, who runs a moving company that often cleans out apartments where people are discovered long after they die, told Time magazine. “It’s the person who, when they take something out, they don’t put it back; when something breaks, they don’t fix it; when a relationship falls apart, they don’t repair it.”

These lonely deaths are called kodokushi. Each one passes without much notice, but the phenomenon is frequent enough to be widely known. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported there were 3,700 “unaccompanied deaths” in Japan in 2013, but some researchers estimate that because of significant under-counting, the true figure is closer to 30,000. In any case, the frequency of kodokushi has been on the rise since they emerged in the 1980s.

The increase seems to be associated with deep social changes in the country, particularly the breakdown of the traditional multigenerational Japanese family. In 1960, about 80 percent of elderly Japanese lived with a child; since then that number has split in half. Combined with the fast, well-known aging of the population—today about one in five Japanese people is over 65; that number is projected to grow to one in three by 2030—that leaves a lot of seniors adrift. Already almost a quarter of Japanese men and a tenth of Japanese women over age 60 say there is not a single person they could rely on in difficult times. “It’s like a microcosm of the aging society in Japan,” says a Japanese official. “It’s something no one had anticipated a decade ago.”

The country’s decades-long economic doldrums is also a factor. Many men have lost jobs, been forced to retire early, or faced other financial problems, depressing their social standing and making it harder just to get by. Money woes are particularly hard for the generation of Japanese men who came of age when the economy was booming, who invested so much of themselves in their work, forsaking the personal relationships, even with their own children, that could otherwise keep them engaged as they age. “Their world has evaporated under their feet,” says Scott North, a sociologist at Osaka University who studies Japanese work life. “The firm has been everything for these men. Their sense of manliness, their social position, their sense of self is all rooted in the corporate structure.”

In many ways, kodokushi seems to be specifically Japanese. It’s afflicting a society simultaneously coping with significant change in family structure and a generation-long economic slump. Japanese people in sad isolation may feel limited by gaman, the ideal of suffering through tough times without complaint, keeping a stiff upper lip. Similarly, the society has traditionally rejected the American trend toward medicalizing mental illness and mood disorders, spurning talk therapy and antidepressants long after they became commonplace in the West. Many lonely seniors never reach out for help or connection.

But the increase in deaths of despair may not be unique to Japan. In 2015, Nobel Prize–winning economist Angus Deaton and Anne Case reported a reversal in one of the most reliable and reassuring trends in modern public health: A big slice of the American populace was dying faster than expected. Deaton and Case, a pair of Princeton economists who happen to be married to each other, specifically found that the mortality rate for white people aged 45–54 without a college education had increased dramatically between 1999 and 2013. The increase ran counter to all recent historical precedent, and it contrasted with concurrent decreases among black and Hispanic people in the U.S. and nationwide decreases in all other rich countries. “Half a million people are dead who should not be dead,” Deaton told the Washington Post. “About 40 times the Ebola stats. You’re getting up there with [deaths from] HIV-AIDS.” Deaton said the increase is so contrary to longstanding trends that demographers’ first reaction would be to say, “‘You’ve got to have made a mistake. That cannot possibly be true.’”

The death rate for U.S. whites (USW), U.S. Hispanics (USH), and six comparison countries (France, Germany, UK, Canada, Australia, Sweden) since 1990. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Deaton and Case’s report was soon followed up by another that came to a similar but even broader conclusion. The New York Times analyzed over 60 million death certificates collected by the CDC and found that the mortality rates for all white people between the ages of 25 and 54 had increased since 1999—not only the smaller demographic that Deaton and Case had studied. The study found that the death rate was increasing particularly quickly for white women.

As for why we’re seeing this unexpected increase in mortality, Deaton said, “Drugs and alcohol, and suicide . . . are clearly the proximate cause.” The drugs include the widely reported epidemics of abuse of both heroin and prescription opioid painkillers like oxycodone, both opioids. But behind the epidemic of drug abuse, according to many experts, are economic challenges and weak community and personal bonds. “On a range of social and economic indicators, middle-aged whites have been falling behind in the 21st century,” wrotethe authors of yet another recent study that came to a similar conclusion. Health is declining and death rates increasing among less-educated white people because of their “disengagement from the mainstream economy; declining levels of social connectedness; weakened communal institutions; and the splintering of society along class, geographic, and cultural lines,” they wrote.

Looked at that way, the American crisis may not be so dissimilar from the Japanese one. People in each nation are facing social and economic challenges that may be somewhat beyond their abilities to handle. They try to cope in different ways, depending on their personal and cultural backgrounds, and they fail in distinctive ways, as well. Too often, we find out about their struggles with despair only after their sad deaths.



Amos Zeeberg is a freelance science journalist based in Tokyo. Follow him on Twitter @settostun.

This article was originally published on September 15, 2017, by Nautilus, and is republished here with permission.

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• 
  
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  good read
  
  
• 
  
  Tony D'Ambra
  
  September 16, 2017
  
  In many ways, kodokushi seems to be specifically Japanese. It’s afflicting a society simultaneously coping with significant change in family structure and a generation-long economic slump. Japanese people in sad isolation may feel limited by gaman, the ideal of suffering through tough times without complaint, keeping a stiff upper lip. Similarly, the society has traditionally rejected the American trend toward medicalizing mental illness and mood disorders, spurning talk therapy and antidepressants long after they became commonplace in the West. Many lonely seniors never reach out for help or connection.
  
  
• 
  
  Jacqueline Dozier
  
  September 17, 2017
  
  As for why we’re seeing this unexpected increase in mortality, Deaton said, “Drugs and alcohol, and suicide . . . are clearly the proximate cause.” The drugs include the widely reported epidemics of abuse of both heroin and prescription opioid painkillers like oxycodone, both opioids. But behind the epidemic of drug abuse, according to many experts, are economic challenges and weak community and personal bonds.
  
  
• 
  
  Evandro Junqueira Figueiredo
  
  June 19, 2018
  
  Almost a quarter of Japanese men and a tenth of Japanese women over age 60 say there is not a single person they could rely on in difficult times. The American crisis may not be so dissimilar from the Japanese one.
  
  
• 
  
  Evandro Junqueira Figueiredo
  
  June 19, 2018
  
  “The majority of lonely deaths are people who are kind of messy,”

 

[HockeyBjj]

Alright, someone is going to have to talk to the POTUS about this sharpie thing...

You know you could post these in the meme thread right? Could use some better lefty contributions there, and these got solid chuckles out of me.

 

[Fawlty]

Pretty sure you have to an 8chan account to post in that thread.

 

[Rational Poster]

LOL, they edited the clothing commercial with TJ and Wonderboy so you only see Wonderboy like 99% of the time.

 

[luckyshot]

You know you could post these in the meme thread right? Could use some better lefty contributions there, and these got solid chuckles out of me.

I did. I posted them in the lounge, too, because I realize most decent posters avoid the meme thread.