IntenseDebate - Todd S.

9 years ago @ Broadsnark - How Consumers Choose T... · 1 reply · +1 points

This is along a line similar to what I was thinking yesterday. I was listening to an interview with Papa Chomsky on Democracy Now. He was talking specifically about the Palestinians but he spoke some about activists in general. He was talking about how activists should always keep in mind the effects that their actions and outcomes will have on the victims - the people that the activists are presumably fighting for in the first place. I got to wondering what corporations would look like if they always thought about how their actions would affect their own victims.. I mean customers, instead of their own internal concerns.

"Consumer choice can help". Yes, indeed. I always bring up the point in political discussion that "freedom" is really nothing more than having a choice, and any time your choices are limited or reduced, so goes your freedom.

9 years ago @ Broadsnark - Things You Might Have ... · 2 replies · +1 points

Basically the characters choose not sacrifice themselves to stop a Lovecraftian ancient evil from rising. Something along the lines of any society that has to sacrifice others in order to survive doesn't deserve to. The final lines were something like "humanity has had its run, time to give someone else a chance".

9 years ago @ Broadsnark - Things You Might Have ... · 4 replies · +1 points

Most of the people I work with would vomit at that prosthetics story. They tend to think patenting is next to godliness. Consequently, most of the people I work with make me want to vomit.

Most of the rest of the links make me want to vomit as well. I rewatched the movie "The Cabin in the Woods" last night. I'm starting to agree more and more with the main characters' ending sentiments.

9 years ago @ Broadsnark - Religion Doesn't Exist · 2 replies · +1 points

I think my favorite definition of "religion" comes from Emile Durkheim's Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. He says, "A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, i.e., things set apart and forbidden--beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."

This is equally applicable to theism as it is to patriotism, or any other "ism".

9 years ago @ Broadsnark - Four Decades Doesn't T... · 1 reply · +1 points

I'll be turning 40 at the end of this month. Kind of surprised I'm still here and kicking, to be honest. Hope your weekend goes well.

9 years ago @ Broadsnark - "Anarchist" Is Not a P... · 1 reply · +1 points

So, some guy is going about his daily life, totally unknown to you or I or even to cosmopolitan reactionaries. Until the State comes by and says "gimme", at which point he's a post-hoc anarchist. *sigh*

This Bundy guy is clearly a whack-job, but this is actually part of a much larger trend that the government has been undertaking lately of seizing money and property from people. I can't help but wonder if Mr. Fieldhand would be so vitriolic should the protagonist in the case be someone less personally objectionable. The whole thing has become an ad hominem.

10 years ago @ Broadsnark - Drop the Faux Condi Co... · 1 reply · +1 points

Right, and I think that things like Twitter and social media in general are conditioning people to look just at the surface of issues. Everything happens in short, easily digestible blurbs. Or worse, listicles, like "The 16 Skeeziest Corporate Board Members You Love to Hate".

Sure, most people thought like that before Twitter, but it has most definitely intensified. People aren't going around pointing out systemic injustice because most of them just can't be bothered to take the time to figure it out.

10 years ago @ Broadsnark - Drop the Faux Condi Co... · 3 replies · +2 points

Why are you wasting energy

At the risk of sounding like an old guy, I blame social media. Twitter in particular is a red herring breeding ground. People drag (and get dragged by) others into what would otherwise have been private and/or petty arguments. And there isn't a day that goes by that I don't see some kind of more-anarchist-than-thou posturing between people who are all in my Twitter timeline. I just chuckle and move on, because there is worthwhile stuff out there. I just wish there was a way to pinpoint it without having to sift through the rest.

10 years ago @ Broadsnark - Book Review - One Game... · 1 reply · +1 points

I can understand the need for sport. I enjoy watching several different sports myself. I do think though that in the West and in the US in particular we overdo things. Sport becomes the metaphor for life itself and everything is competitive. I look at sport the same way I look at religion: I'm actually quite supportive of it in the abstract (in theory), but I am against the organized and institutionalized versions of it. I think we'd all be better off if sport were a part of our individual lives rather than this reified thing-in-the-world that's just out there for us to watch, performed and controlled by others.

10 years ago @ Broadsnark - The Classism and Ignor... · 1 reply · +6 points

when a lot of white liberals say “racist,” what they usually mean is low-class

Some baby boomers - who were all retired teachers as well - were discussing students and how some kids "act black", yada yada. I wondered out loud why they would look at the differences to draw that conclusion (white kids acting black) and not the similarities: poor Southern kids acting like poor Southern kids. Once the issue shifted to socioeconomic class, the entire room became visibly uncomfortable and a few even lashed out (verbally). It's amazing how supposedly liberal, educated adults can freely talk about race issues but go into a near rage when class comes up. And I think that's Americans in general, really. It's fine to talk about the woes of the "middle class", but don't even think about bringing up the under/lower/working class because this ain't Russia kid, and we don't have class here, despite the implicit assumption of both a lower and upper class when speaking of the "middle".

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