Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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And Bisbee before she was decommissioned I served on the USS Consolation. Thanks to my Uncle Sam, I too was introduced to people more poor than could be imagined. We used stainless steel suture because our patients would be working in the fields within days and we didn’t want them to dehis.

I didn’t say I don’t like or value social safety nets, I said they are poorly designed and fatally dependent on population growth.

I agree that there is a segment of society that really needs help. I have no evidence that the 68,000 employees in the US State Department are helping. (Btw that is not true for the WHO, the IRC, MSF and the CDC. There is real evidence they are helping. )
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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Well, their "long game" might be limited to the lives of them or their children, certainly not longer than seven generations that this continent's original peoples were used to considering... I do believe most baddies suffer from myopia which prevents them from seeing beyond the next quarterly earnings report. Therefore I try never to confuse cleverness for wisdom.

"USS Consolation." I laughed at that one, until Wikipedia described it was an actual ship. I guess jokes on me!
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

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The bad guys understand power.

I don't believe decisions are actually made by the confused 5% in the middle except in the sense that saying so is a tautology. Voter suppression is very real. For example: Trump won Wisconsin by way less than the number of voters who were disenfranchised by voter ID laws iirc. Focusing on undecided dimwits is definitely one of the major failures of recent Democratic politics.

Don't worry about whether this is appropriate for the thread subject. Deep thread drift is the norm here and we (mostly) like it that way.
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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Bisbee, you clearly have a really kind heart. I admire that. I'll think about the really long game, but the current arc is a wayward vector IMO. It almost makes me wish I was a radical instead of a disgusting pragmatist.

As for the USS Consolation, she was on loan to the PPF as a mercy ship. They 'renamed' her the latest 'HOPE' like a cartoon character that never dies. But up on the bridge and on the radio, she was still the Consolation. We did medical missions off of the North coast of Brazil. Belem and then Forteza. I had thought I had seen poor people in the Southern US, then I saw people from Northern Brazil. The only wealth they had was water - and their wealth flooded them out and injured a few thousand souls. The surgeons were supposed to be working 12 on, 12 off. They worked their 12 on, sleep for 4 and went back into the bays. The PPF ran the medical mission, but she was still a US Navy ship and was sailed by a bunch of guys from Norfolk, VA. The Marine guards were all so young none of us shaved yet. But the people we met from Brazil were kind to a fault. All the wounded pointed at someone else and said "eles vão primeiro" (they go first). I don't speak Portuguese and I had a local guy write down all the phonetic spellings in my diary into the actual words.

So I understand, in concept, your version of the long game. And I mean no offense by this, it has an aura of the afterlife beliefs of many religions. I can admire that without believing it myself.

I would like to thank everyone, especially Marlene, for the very warm welcome here. After this, it will seem a bit mundane to be asking other folks if I should replace my MIM firing pins with stainless steel :-)

I make a very poor 'joiner' - de Tocqueville admired Americans for the willingness to 'join' groups. That has never been me. I was looking for a replacement for the NRA when I found TLGC. I have spent more than a year reading on the forum and pondering whether carrying a firearm is a utilitarian function, or if is has a more primordial meaning. Disgusting pragmatists make poor romantics. And yet, I have discovered more meaning in carrying a firearm than I had anticipated. Perhaps its the physicality. I live in a world where even my computers cannot be touched. 99.9% of the work I do occurs in a compute cloud.

Aso Bisbee, thank you for grounding my (social/political) sorrows with a different point of view. I appreciate it. And I really mean it about the kind heart. Too few humans seem to have been issued such an organ (or spent the time developing one.) I see more thoughtful, kind people on this forum than in a Quaker Meeting - and that my friends is a high complement.

(BTW, Marlene, the Quakers do it sans priests - no guts with which to choke the pols :-)
Last edited by max129 on Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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Marlene, by the numbers I agree. Voter suppression likely had more impact than we will ever know.

And yet, I will hold to my mushy 5% rule. Bodies politick act a bit like the split distances in Achilles and the hare. Even after the shenanigans and the suppressions, we are still stuck with hauling that last damn 5% over the line.

Those are wise words: "The bad guys understand power."
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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max129 wrote: Tue Jul 10, 2018 9:55 am
Those are wise words: "The bad guys understand power."
This is a really strange place to comment on this comment, but it is true. Those seduced and controlled by power will do anything to get it, and, once they have it, will not relinquish it unless they die. Oh, wait. Not making a suggestion, just posting an observation.

Dis elect every supporter of the current occupant of the White House, then arrest and imprison his fat ass for treason while lamenting the disappearance of public executions of traitors after having been duly and fairly tried and convicted.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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I agree, CD, this is an unusual intro thread that went deep really fast. But since we're here drilling...

Yes, I agree that "bad guys understand power." There is a reason for this of course.The thing with power is, psychologists know it is usually a substitute for something else. Serial Abusers (child abuse, spousal abuse, boss from hell, Weinstein) are motivated by power as a desire to punish others. Seeking power over others is, according to psychologists, often compensatory for not having a grip to wrestle with and overcome one's own insecurities. Victims of child-abuse have a high chance of becoming Child-abusers as adults. Victims of attempts to genocide are more likely to participate in genocide themselves:
https://www.amazon.com/When-Victims-Bec ... 0691102805.
So although Serial Abusers may outwardly appear to seek and occupy position of power, they are in fact weak individuals who lack self-esteem, self-confidence, and feelings of connection with the people around them.

Now open up this discussion to explore people who wield power in general. Though not necessarily true that power always corrupts (while absolute power actually does corrupt absolutely) people who habitually pursue power are often the ones who display clinical signs of having suffered from serial abuse. Take our Grabber in Chief for example. Mr. "Your Fired!" is often understood as a thin-skinned child who lacks self-moderation and self-control and therefore seeks to control everyone and everything else around him. If you take a moment and consider his childhood one begins to see a pattern resolve for his narcissistic penchant of attention seeking and desire for approval from those around him. We can see that as a boy Turnip sought but never got the approval of the stern businessman he looked up to (this feeling of inadequacy Turnip likely passes on like some infectious disease to Junior and Baron). It is because of this arrested-development that he fears people and tears them down to place himself on top of the ragged heap of his administration yet fears all the while fawns over those who appear to hold absolute power: Putin, Kim, Duterte are all living representations of his long dead father who he is still seeking approval from. Many others who currently wield power in the Tea Party GOP (and some from the DNC) share this same dysfunction.

So no, Max, It isn't that I easily live with a "kind heart" but because my default setting is to revolve in the same dysfunction endemic in our society which brought us to this place in history. I get pissed. I suffer depression and know rage, regularly wrestle with thoughts of brute force. But there has to be an exit from this cycle where violence begets violence. Our human history is rife with anger fueling rebellion where successful revolutions merely replace old actors with new ones in the same power-structure. The only real progress have ever been from enlightened leaders who embrace Truth and are willing to bet their lives and political positions on it to engage the difficult task of reconciliation and nation building. The difficult first step is to realize all our feelings of anger and frustration which lead us to desire for retribution is the very seeds of power and abuse that germinates freely in our culture. The work is in doing the weeding: engage and heal those critical feelings within ourselves. I believe only then are we clear enough to know what the right words and actions are to move us to a different reality.

Because, "I'm With More Angry Her 2020," is not a good bumper sticker, and most certainly not the answer to our problems.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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@Bisbee I saw your reply yesterday and I have pondered for a day and some hours.

Of course you get angry and all pissed off.

I am not a big Richard Dawkins fan ('River Out of Eden' and all that). But he does a good job of reminding us that in order for us to be alive there had to be a continuous line of "successes" in parentage. That is, if at any point, one of our parents had failed to breed, died too young or been so bad at survival that their offspring died, none of us would exist.

Each of us is the end product of tens of thousands of biologically successful humans. (And lucky ones at that - do not discount luck.)

Now, how did THAT happen? Because on average, all of our ancestors were the "most successful breeders" in an unbroken line.

And then how did THAT happen?

Because, on average, our ancestors where strong, cunning, violent, paranoid, horny, liars, thieves, killers, and smart enough to run away at the right times.

Well, none of the above is especially pretty. Sure, some of their survival could have been based on integrity, virtue, giving to the community and other goodness. But, when the going gets really ugly, it is the 'ugly' that keeps us alive. Look at this forum. Everyone here not only owns firearms, but seems like the kinds of folk who would use them if needed.

I assure you, no US Marine who earned a Purple Heart did so with a calmness in her or his heart. They were in rage. Violent. Surviving. Angry. Rage.

Hmmmm, are they good people. Damn straight they are good people. The right mix of self awareness and desire to survive that makes for strong human beings.

Sooo, you find yourself angry and pissed off. And you are self aware enough to know that all this must be contemplated and not just acted upon. And that you need to struggle to find the next, higher level of self awareness, self control, self knowledge. And to then ACT at a higher level. Well, that is the best part of being alive; to decide what unfinished work needs to be complete before you either die in bed, or with your boots on.

I still accuse you of having a kind heart, and not in spite of your last comments - because of them.

Read once again he words of Dylan Thomas: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/do- ... good-night

Trite? In my mind, close enough to the right fight that it is an anthem.

Qualifiers:
There is no real virtue in breeding. But it does put you in the survivor++ category. Not a virtue, but a fact. Many of the finest souls who ever lived did not breed.

Service personnel other than Marines do earn Purple Hearts, but they are usually a shade of slightly lighter purple. (No offense intended.)

The very, very best warriors have a kind heart.

I had a boxing coach in the Marines. He told me on day one - you must "fight relaxed". So if you ever do need to pull the damn trigger on a warm target, breathe out just bit before you fire.

I have never killed a person. After 1 year as a Marine, I decided I would rather not kill for a living. They sent me to Duke University and I became a Medical Warrant Officer on the triage line. My job became to keep Marines alive (it's kind of like being a veterinarian, except that animals have rights.) And that is the disposition of my anger, survival instinct and long-line-of-breeders.

[... back from qualifiers and caveats]

@Bisbee, I wish you Godspeed. Deny your kind heart all you wish. It leaks through in your words.

Now, where did I put my S&W 686 Plus - that 7th round may be the one that keeps me alive in a pinch ...
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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max129 wrote: Fri Jul 13, 2018 12:17 am I assure you, no US Marine who earned a Purple Heart did so with a calmness in her or his heart. They were in rage. Violent. Surviving. Angry. Rage.
Not arguing with your real point, but your statement reminded me of one of the more interesting people from WWII. Desmond Doss:

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

The only conscientious objector to ever be awarded the Medal of Honor. He didn't carry a gun and worked as a medic, and at the Battle of Okinawa he worked under heavy fire to rescue 75 wounded soldiers by carrying them off the battlefield to safety. Truly a strong man with a kind heart.
106+ recreational uses of firearms
1 defensive use
0 people injured
0 people killed

Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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I just completely disagree with the notion that aggressive behavior is necessarily the route to “reproductive success”. There are lots of ways and lots of circumstances to have kids and not die. Cooperation and social conviviality are among the most successful. This universal projection on to the past of this admiration for cruelty is a particular philosophical and political bent, not truth or science.

If it seems natural to you that the people who were most evolutionarily successful must have been those that took the most from others rather than those that helped each other the most, that says much more about you than it does about any historical truth.

It is a central myth of capitalism and of European imperialism that those who succeed do so because of strength, but that don’t make it so. Counter examples in both human history and (if we want to get really Darwinian) in other species abound.
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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Marlene wrote: Fri Jul 13, 2018 11:29 am If it seems natural to you that the people who were most evolutionarily successful must have been those that took the most from others rather than those that helped each other the most, that says much more about you than it does about any historical truth.
I don't think that max129 is arguing that the most successful people are the most violent ones. That's clearly not the case, since the most violent people are the ones most likely to die an early death by violence. I think the point is that evolutionary success involves a balance that includes a willingness to commit violence when necessary, and having the emotional composure to know when it's necessary and when it's not is a key part of survival success.
106+ recreational uses of firearms
1 defensive use
0 people injured
0 people killed

Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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@Eris said:

I don't think that max129 is arguing that the most successful people are the most violent ones. That's clearly not the case, since the most violent people are the ones most likely to die an early death by violence. I think the point is that evolutionary success involves a balance that includes a willingness to commit violence when necessary, and having the emotional composure to know when it's necessary and when it's not is a key part of survival success.
@Eris posted a better reply than I might have scripted.

Let's not conflate 'like' or 'approve' with 'believe'.

I believe a fair number of my ancestors were violent when needed, and as Eris has pointed out, probably not violent when not needed. I believe they were often the 'strong' ones.

Moreover, i believe they were good at running away. A huge number of the Jews who survived WWII did so by exiting Germany early enough. The Scottish side of my family was not so good at running away. The Scots were decimated by the Vikings and especially the English. The original Scots were dark haired, dark complected Picts. Most of that has been replaced by invader genes.

How correct was Thomas Hobbes when he wrote 'bellum omnium contra omnes' (the war of all against all)? And his argument that for most of history people's lives were ""solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"? I don't know. In the early 1990s I was fascinated with the sort of socio-historic-anthropology. Explanations of current human behavior derived from our historic roots made sense to me. But in fact, we don't really know how these old societies worked. On a recent trip to Central Mexico, I was told 3 different, and very conflicting accounts of how the old society worked. All of the tellers were original peoples who lived there and stated they were telling the truth both as passed on in their cultures and as researched by local academics. But the 3 versions were very far apart, and they were telling the stories from only 1,000 years ago.

The real genesis of human society compounds from 50,000 or more years ago. So in the late 1990s, I lost my fascination for historic anthropology. We have no written histories. No diaries. No songs from their era, and except for a few fired clay objects and cave paintings, not much of any record at all. The Trojan War likely occurred in the late Bronze Era (somewhere between 1350 BCE and 1150 BCE - no one knows for certain). Homer canonized the story around 500 years after the war. It is the journey of Odysseus that shows the ultimate (and quite mythical) alpha male perspective. First, he was a cunning fellow - always scheming with clever tricks. He was also brave, persistent, tough, horny, charming, and damn good at running away. He was a 'Hero'. While the stories are fantastic and mostly invented, the tone and messages are quite clear. Be the 'strong' one. These were not moral lessons; they were the sum of lessons learned thus far by 800 BCE.

I 'believe' this is basically true. I do not 'like' it.
@Marlene said:

It is a central myth of capitalism and of European imperialism that those who succeed do so because of strength, but that don’t make it so. Counter examples in both human history and (if we want to get really Darwinian) in other species abound.
My personal voyage, a tiny bit like Bisbee's, has been to learn a better way of thinking and being.

I try to be kind, cooperative and give back to my community. I am not so good at giving to other communities; I seem a stranger in a strange land when I try to contribute to other cultures. (And I admire those who can cross many cultures as a 'giver' - it is a noble ability - I don't have it. As Marlene points out, I am the clumsy one.)

Like many other people, my life is consumed with the morally neutral act of work. I work for far too many hours per week, and I must do so.

To my clients, I am as cunning and charming as Odysseus. I have to be. It is how one survives the vicissitudes of commerce. But it is morally neutral; and, I know my company delivers good value to our clients. To my employees, most of whom really-truly-need-this-damn-job, I try to be kind and supportive. And over time, we have crafted a team that cooperates and helps each other out. All of this is an unnatural act for me personally. I am a lone wolf. Other than my wife (whom I adore and cherish) all my close friends live several time zones away (all 4 of them). So maintaining a long term team in my own company is a chore for me. But I do it. And I clearly see that the competitive part of being human is not at all the best part.

I am an ironic and inconsistent person. I want to be kind to my fellow humans; and I carry a firearm.

I suspect I am not the only one on this forum to reach such conclusions.

Other notes: I bought the stainless steel striker pin for my Sig Sauer P365. Can't have that failing at the wrong moment.
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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@Eris said:

Not arguing with your real point, but your statement reminded me of one of the more interesting people from WWII. Desmond Doss:

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

The only conscientious objector to ever be awarded the Medal of Honor. He didn't carry a gun and worked as a medic, and at the Battle of Okinawa he worked under heavy fire to rescue 75 wounded soldiers by carrying them off the battlefield to safety. Truly a strong man with a kind heart.
Ok, so inter-service rivalries may not be on-message in this forum. :-)

You may have missed the part where I said I was a "Medical Warrant Officer" for the US Marines. That means I was transferred from the Marines back to the Navy, trained by the Navy and transferred back to the Marines. I was a medical triage officer. The Army has the luxury of extra field surgeons who act as triage officers; the Marines, no such luxury.

I personally have a total of 8 hours of actual combat experience - most civilian police have more 'combat' duty hours than me. The Marines tend to use over-educated persons like me in roles other than combat.

But as a triage officer, I have 48 combat corpsmen reporting to me. Collectively (if memory is correct) they had many thousands of hours of service in hot zones as combat medics.

Their stories are the stuff of legends, without the falsehoods. What did the Marines do on Liberty (time off)? Drink and play cards. What did the combat corpsmen do on Liberty? Lift weights. Why? So they could carry wounded Marines on their backs to the Huey's (Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter).

Technically, the combat corpsmen were Geneva Convention Rule 25 protected if unarmed. So combat corpsmen were supposed to not be shot at as long as they were marked with an arm cross and they were not carrying firearms.

In practice, the enemy targeted the medics because it was demoralizing. But most of the combat corpsmen I know waived Rule 25 and carried weapons. They did not participate in firefights; they carried weapons to protect wounded Marines. The exceptions were like your Desmond Doss; many Quakers served as unarmed combat medics. They were all heroes in my book.

Desmond Doss is member of an elite group: those who take on the dangers of war without being warlike creatures themselves. While the moral mission of the war may be corrupt (Vietnam anyone? Few alumni think the war had a moral purpose. Florence Nightingale's war in Crimea? She thought the war was a crock.), the combat medics courage and heroism is in a class of its own. They were well trained, well equipped and well regarded. Ask any Marine how he or she feels about combat corpsmen.
Last edited by max129 on Sat Jul 14, 2018 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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@Marlene said:

Otherwise, again, the stories we believe say more about us than about anything else.

Guilty as charged.

What you may mean as an insult, I insist on accepting as a complement. Thank you.
“Morally neutral act of work”

:roflmao: I honestly cannot think of an example that would make this true.
My company is in the non-polluting data science industry. We do large scale optimizations, mostly for technology and service companies.

We never traffic in personal consumer data. We 'vote' on new clients to avoid morally negative or ambiguous work. And a few of our clients look like they are actually doing the world some real good. (We work a little bit harder for them, but don't snitch.)

And yet, I would have preferred that we use the advanced math tools we have in more socially giving activities. We did a big pro-bono project for the WHO during the Elboa epidemic, and that was not 'morally neutral' work. I wish it was a business. I really, truly do. It is not.

The fact is that the vast majority of mathematicians produced by modern society do not end up in classrooms or industry; they work for their Governments in some modern age variant of SIG INT (Signal Intelligence). Basically, the NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in North America. I truly wish it were not so.

So I can try hard to find more work with the better causes of humankind. I continue to do so.

The bulk of our work is in fact, morally neutral. On any given Monday morning, like most of the people on this Forum, I get up and do a job that is not evil, but has limited prospects of making the world a better place. It is a cross that I bear, and perhaps the heaviest of them.
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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@Marlene said:

I don’t mean to insult your view, only your presentation of it as a broad truth.
I neither want to discount those who tell me I make an awkward conversationalist, nor let them stop my thinking.

I agree 100% that when you call me out, it is because I have overstated a case or made trivial someone else's private horror.

I disagree with Jimi Hendrix that 'Life is but a joke', but I do joke about life a bit too often.

And I desperately want all this to make sense; so I also tend to 'categorize' that which others experience differently.

No harm or malice intended.
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Re: Sort of New Member from NV ... it's complicated

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We got so tangled in the other dialogs that I neglected to say what firearms I favor. I owned a Beretta 92 for 30 years. I just loved it. But then one day, California made my magazines illegal and I decided it was a bit on the heavy side. So I sold it to a dealer and moved to wheel guns.

Then I moved my formal domicile to Nevada. I still regret selling the Beretta. But I replaced it with a Sig Sauer P320 Compact (and a Sub Compact to keep it company). This is my single favorite firearm. Yesterday I put 200 rounds through my P320 Compact. I spent too many years 'target practicing' and I am trying to wean myself off of trying to drive tacks. I practice with aimed, but semi-rapid fire shots. It is a lot less satisfying than hitting the exact center of the block dot every time with super slow aim, but it is closer to the skill I actually need/want.

Both of the above Sig Sauers are a bit big for truly concealed carry, so I have a P365 on order (and a stainless striker).

On a daily basis, I actually carry a S&W MP 340 .357 Mag. It is a perfect carry gun, except for capacity. It fits in a pocket, is light, fires well and I trust it absolutely. But those 5 shots seem like a serious limitation, thus the new Sig P365.

I also have 3 other 'fun to own' firearms. A Blackhawk .357 to remind me of my life in Alaska, a S&W 686 Plus and a Henry Steel in .357. (The rifle caliber is to avoid stockpiling more kinds of ammo.)

I allow myself to still 'target practice' with the above 3 because it is fun.

Nevada is a great place to own firearms and shoot as much as you want. If anyone is near Las Vegas and wants to shoot, forget the ranges near the strip. I live close enough to walk to one and never go there. They are all tourist traps offering you the chance to shoot a .50 Caliber for only $299 in a package deal. Instead, head down to Southeast Vegas (Henderson) and visit the Green Valley Range - these are really good people, the range is great and most of the visitors are not the tourist crowd.

If you want to shoot long iron, there is a County range way up North West, but it is almost an hour drive, and always a 30 minute wait when you get there. They have decent rifle, shotgun and archery facilities.

My one major regret with firearms is not owning a M 1911 .45. I hated the ones in the military (I was pre 9mm, all .45) - the military pistols were all multi-maker mongrels and rattled like a junk box when fired. Accuracy was poor. They were clean, but rather worn.

I shot a new, perfect Colt Gold Cup Trophy last year, and it was a revelation. I am avoiding owning a .45 for as long as possible because other than fun, I have no use for one, and I don't want to go down another ammunition caliber route.

And, as for firearm fetish behavior, I must have read more ballistics reports than an FBI agent. I pour over the muzzle energy and delivered energy, materials penetration, etc. like it is a comic book.

If you notice there is a pattern in my posts on quiet days, it is because I switch between running long jobs in SageMath and reading about firearms.
Last edited by max129 on Tue Jul 31, 2018 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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