Finally, a good Book of Mormon movie...

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Not true.  The lists only show the extreme rarity of such events in general during long periods.  There have been times and places in which cultural and political upheaval have certainly taken place, causing violence and even all out war in America.  At other times, we have seen generations of unusual calm.

Back in the 1950s, for example, despite the fact that Black men were regularly lynched in the deep South, most of America was unusually quiet and well-behaved.  There was no security at any airport.  All one needed was his plane ticket.  High school ROTC students went to the principal's office, got their match .22 rifles and some ammo and took it to the range in the basement of the admin bldg for target practice -- without adult supervision.  Any kid wanting a .22 rifle or pellet gun could go to any store and buy it himself, again without adult supervision or permission.  People in general were relaxed and responsible.  Even the Beat Generation seemed intellectually and artistically upbeat.  Then came the Vietnam War, Hippies, Nixon, and all the rest . . .  Now we live in a garrison society in which our privacy is no longer respected and no one can trust his neighbor.  A fine how do you do.  It is not the weapons which have changed.  It is the people and the culture.

So other then the fact that we were killing people (but only specific people) routinely it was a well-behaved culture?

There was no security because because the idea was new. To be honest I think the TSA makes up new rules at random to justify their bloated budget.

My responsible grandfather back in the 40s decided it would be cool to have his brother stand behind a tree and shoot a shotgun at it so they could watch the bullets whiz by. He took too long to load it and his brother popped his head out to ask what the delay was and got two wounds in the forehead. Then there was his high-speed escape as an underaged driver from the Utah State Police. And the time he accidentally started a fire at the gas station he worked at. He was not an isolated incident. Just years before him the battle between labor and union busters was outright violent. The idea that people were more relaxed and responsible is a myth.

I agree with the privacy thing. Thank President Bush and our own hysteria over 9/11. I remember that day pretty well. I was not pleased with how US citizens dealt with it. Revenge, hatred, and fearful enough to sign away any basic freedom if it would make them "safe" again. We don't trust our neighbors because we usually don't know our neighbors anymore. I don't. I think the solution would be to make people less mobile but that has obvious problems.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

So other then the fact that we were killing people (but only specific people) routinely it was a well-behaved culture?

There was no security because because the idea was new. To be honest I think the TSA makes up new rules at random to justify their bloated budget.

My responsible grandfather back in the 40s decided it would be cool to have his brother stand behind a tree and shoot a shotgun at it so they could watch the bullets whiz by. He took too long to load it and his brother popped his head out to ask what the delay was and got two wounds in the forehead. Then there was his high-speed escape as an underaged driver from the Utah State Police. And the time he accidentally started a fire at the gas station he worked at. He was not an isolated incident. Just years before him the battle between labor and union busters was outright violent. The idea that people were more relaxed and responsible is a myth.

I agree with the privacy thing. Thank President Bush and our own hysteria over 9/11. I remember that day pretty well. I was not pleased with how US citizens dealt with it. Revenge, hatred, and fearful enough to sign away any basic freedom if it would make them "safe" again. We don't trust our neighbors because we usually don't know our neighbors anymore. I don't. I think the solution would be to make people less mobile but that has obvious problems.

You can't use outliers and anomalies to establish a statistical norm, Nehor.  History is not linear, but is oscillatory and unpredictable.  We can describe it sociologically in retrospect, but your description is in error -- perhaps based mostly on the present.  Presentism is the true source of myth.

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You can't use outliers and anomalies to establish a statistical norm, Nehor.  History is not linear, but is oscillatory and unpredictable.  We can describe it sociologically in retrospect, but your description is in error -- perhaps based mostly on the present.  Presentism is the true source of myth.

Those who do not know history are doomed to idolize it.

Then people insist they know it well because they lived it through it and you fall back to a paraphrase of Kant: Experience is the mother of illusion.

Edited May 12, 2016 by The Nehor

[bluebell]

10 hours ago, The Nehor said:

So other then the fact that we were killing people (but only specific people) routinely it was a well-behaved culture?

There was no security because because the idea was new. To be honest I think the TSA makes up new rules at random to justify their bloated budget.

My responsible grandfather back in the 40s decided it would be cool to have his brother stand behind a tree and shoot a shotgun at it so they could watch the bullets whiz by. He took too long to load it and his brother popped his head out to ask what the delay was and got two wounds in the forehead. Then there was his high-speed escape as an underaged driver from the Utah State Police. And the time he accidentally started a fire at the gas station he worked at. He was not an isolated incident. Just years before him the battle between labor and union busters was outright violent. The idea that people were more relaxed and responsible is a myth.

I agree with the privacy thing. Thank President Bush and our own hysteria over 9/11. I remember that day pretty well. I was not pleased with how US citizens dealt with it. Revenge, hatred, and fearful enough to sign away any basic freedom if it would make them "safe" again. We don't trust our neighbors because we usually don't know our neighbors anymore. I don't. I think the solution would be to make people less mobile but that has obvious problems.

I think one of the differences is that many of those previous mass killings were for a political or religious cause (ie. terrorism).  

Most that happen now in the US are not-they are do to the personal issues of the killer.  Beyond that, the volume of these killings has grown.  For example, there were roughly 300 mass shootings in 2015 (shootings defined where 4 or more people were injured or killed) in the US, resulting in 379 people being killed and 1,094 injured.  Of these shootings, only 3 were classified as terrorism (one on a planned parenthood, one in the name of white supremacy, and one the result of islamic extremists).

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Those who do not know history are doomed to idolize it.

Then people insist they know it well because they lived it through it and you fall back to a paraphrase of Kant: Experience is the mother of illusion.

You have me there, Nehor.  You are too clever by half.

Bob Dylan and I did live it, and we do both share the same view of it -- perhaps a common illusion.  We were born the same year, but he is the better poet.

When I moved to Provo from L.A. some years ago, I was very taken with the notion that I had moved back into the 1950s, as though I had gone through a time warp.  Again, perhaps merely an illusion.

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

I think one of the differences is that many of those previous mass killings were for a political or religious cause (ie. terrorism).  

Most that happen now in the US are not-they are do to the personal issues of the killer.  Beyond that, the volume of these killings has grown.  For example, there were roughly 300 mass shootings in 2015 (shootings defined where 4 or more people were injured or killed) in the US, resulting in 379 people being killed and 1,094 injured.  Of these shootings, only 3 were classified as terrorism (one on a planned parenthood, one in the name of white supremacy, and one the result of islamic extremists).

I am not sure how much that matters. I think most had a cause they just never articulated it.

I think the best thing to do is demean and insult the shooters as failed idiots in the media. The image of the shooter has become romanticized. Time to change that.

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You have me there, Nehor.  You are too clever by half.

Bob Dylan and I did live it, and we do both share the same view of it -- perhaps a common illusion.  We were born the same year, but he is the better poet.

When I moved to Provo from L.A. some years ago, I was very taken with the notion that I had moved back into the 1950s, as though I had gone through a time warp.  Again, perhaps merely an illusion.

Utah is weird. Nice place to visit but I do not think I would enjoy living there.

While some of it is illusion I do believe we romanticize our own pasts. Looking back on my childhood and teenage days I fought wars on the hill near our home and long days water skiing and tubing and the like but I also know on some level that that is an illusion. It is a biased view. I struggle harder to remember the fights, the anxieties that go with having little power as a child and being at the mercy of teachers and parents. The social anxieties, the academic competition, the insane feelings driven by hormone changes that the most trivial events were critical to my life and how a word from a friend or a girl could crush me. The news was always telling us we were doomed. If I could go back in time and give my teenage self some useful advice I would tell him (among other things) to watch less news and read fewer newspapers. I am less stressed now then I was back then.

This kind of illusion is better then that some suffer from who are still trapped in their past humiliations and hurts.

The world might be getting worse but it was never a bed of roses. Plus, as the scriptures say, when it gets worse we get to be even stronger. Our futures are bright and I expect my future to be much greater and happier then my youth or now.

Then I die and then real life begins which is ever better.