Gear is for art. Art are politics

[jcs]

2 hours ago, Emanuel said:

: D Funny post. BTW put me out of there... LOL ;-)

Brother, I understand the humor, perhaps useful for script ideas? A person with NPD would make for a colorful character, since such a person would deny there is an issue while further exhibiting NPD traits!

However, anyone exhibiting NPD traits in the real world might get triggered by a 'funny post' response, so, hope you get the point.

[Emanuel]

18 minutes ago, jcs said:

Brother, I understand the humor, perhaps useful for script ideas? A person with NPD would make for a colorful character, since such a person would deny there is an issue while further exhibiting NPD traits!

However, anyone exhibiting NPD traits in the real world might get triggered by a 'funny post' response, so, hope you get the point.

Yeah dude, I get the point it is useless starting to guess from online appearances instead ; ) That's the whole point IMO (rather than the usual full IMHO version BTW).

But, when I read people pretending they're trying to make a point (to the others) when there's something else in the package, I see on that one, at least, you're right. Hence my 'funny post' remark ;-)

[jcs]

10 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

Yeah dude, I get the point it is useless starting to guess from online appearances instead ; ) That's the whole point IMO (rather than the usual full IMHO version BTW).

But, when I read people pretending they're trying to make a point (to the others) when there's something else in the package, I see on that one, at least, you're right. Hence my 'funny post' remark ;-)

You can call people on BS in a polite way by asking questions or politely stating facts (from your point of view). This can still trigger an NPD response, however with proper moderation the threads won't degenerate into fighting. Think of it like a proper, live moderated debate, or alternatively, all parties making cases in front of a judge, jury, and audience. The judge holds the debate together and if it gets out of hand the bailiffs start removing folks for contempt of court. Or, alternatively put them into a ring and allow them to experience the Rule of the Jungle and see how manners change.

[Emanuel]

Gotcha. I stand. Andrew should elect more staff. My vote for you.

[squig]

17 hours ago, Ed_David said:

I think @Andrew Reid the reason I am in a huff is that a moderator's job is to keep the peace, not do as Don said - "deletes posts, locks threads, promotes or even posts personal insults and pushes people to leave the forum."

That was my understanding during my time as a cinema5D and Magic Lantern mod. I quit Magic Lantern because another mod just didn't get it.

[Ed_David]

 

On 8/25/2017 at 8:44 PM, jcs said:

You can call people on BS in a polite way by asking questions or politely stating facts (from your point of view). This can still trigger an NPD response, however with proper moderation the threads won't degenerate into fighting. Think of it like a proper, live moderated debate, or alternatively, all parties making cases in front of a judge, jury, and audience. The judge holds the debate together and if it gets out of hand the bailiffs start removing folks for contempt of court. Or, alternatively put them into a ring and allow them to experience the Rule of the Jungle and see how manners change.

Totally agreed.  

Ad hominen attacks are highly frowned upon in most forums.

Granted, this is a forum about using mostly still cameras for video.  But still, if things do go and get heated, things do need some moderation, and someone with enough of a temperament to not put themselves into the equation.

I really am not the type to be a moderator, especially on this forum, when several users have it out for me.  

I understand completely why they would - based on how I word my posts.

In the future I will not post from my cell phone in a hurry.

Words really can hurt people, and I am trying, day by day to be more empathic, and less seamingly preachy.

I am in no ways in any position to preach to anyone, and to explain my original post that was deleted.  I  see B&H as not an ethical company, and yet, I still buy from them.

That was the point I was trying to make - at what point do we  actually stand behind our own ethics, and when do we cave because B&H has the best deals and fastest shipping?

That's all I was trying to say.

And I said it poorly and I revised that post.

So I apologize.

Apologize for past posts as well.  Apologize to everyone who I have offended.

 

[Tim Sewell]

Quote

However, anyone exhibiting NPD traits in the real world might get

... elected president of the USA!

[jcs]

1 hour ago, Tim Sewell said:

... elected president of the USA!

It does seem pretty convincing, doesn't it? However, strings are pulled from unseen forces; how do we know what's real in Washington, and who is really in control? Follow the money.

You have energy and influence, brother, how will you use it, to heal or to divide? If you don't like what is happening in your reality, how will you change it? Can you make these changes by yourself? Divided we are weak; united we are strong.

[Tim Sewell]

Quote

Can you make these changes by yourself?

All I can do is bring my three children up to be good human beings and in my own life respect and celebrate the humanity in everyone regardless of race, gender, orientation and creed. At our current juncture, that feels like a radical attitude.

[Tim Sewell]

Quote

However, strings are pulled from unseen forces; how do we know what's real in Washington, and who is really in control?

I did a treatment for a screenplay based on this a while ago - on the afternoon of the inauguration the new Prez is driven to a nondescript house on a nondescript suburban housing estate to meet with some badly dressed old men who take a break from arguing about football to let him know that while he might think he's in charge, he really isn't - and outline exactly what will happen to him and his family if he mentions any of what he's been told.

Times now are such that I'd be rather reassured if I knew there were puppetmasters pulling the strings, because nuclear war, unlike the other flavours, is definitely very bad for business.

Quote

and outline exactly what will happen to him and his family if he mentions any of what he's been told

Of course Harrison Ford (for it is he) turns the tables on them, defeats them and takes his presidency on to great things for God, truth and the American way.

And explosions.

[jcs]

Right on @Tim Sewell. I've been asking myself, in the real world, "Where are the good guys? Where are the good guys?" Why aren't they stepping up and doing something?

Then the answer came to me: we are the good guys. If we want them to exist, we must become them, and we must unite and step up, stop expecting someone else to do it for us.

While the Internet is still open, we have a chance. If lockdown happens, we'll need radios, perhaps even pigeons (Ravens for GoT fans). We are truly living in an information war. Each of us can put out healing information to bring unity and hope. From face to face to social media to books and scripts to music and filmed entertainment.

If nuclear war happens and history is a guide, it will start with a false flag.

Our thoughts affect reality, instead of thinking about stopping nuclear war, think about a new system of living, how it will work, and how we get there from here. This is the most important problem to be solved in our lifetimes: we should all be working on it.

[squig]

A lot of the events in a nuclear war screenplay I wrote in 2011 have come to pass, including Trump. A Gulf of Tonkin incident with Iran is the flashpoint.

[Axel]

18 hours ago, jcs said:

However, strings are pulled from unseen forces; how do we know what's real in Washington, and who is really in control? Follow the money.

Easy enough. Who can still remember the particular news / fake news / scandals / tweets of DJT in June 2017? That was (June 8th) when this happened. The official WH announcements were TLDR, mas aburrido no se puede. The law about to be revisited, re-evaluated here was a direct reaction to the financial crisis of 2007, Obama signed it in 2010. This crisis caused hunger for approximately 100.000 more people worldwide. It is responsible for estimated 40.000 deaths. 

For those with real power, who really control Washington, Trump is a welcome distraction. Movie quiz: what is a "Kansas City shuffle"?

[EthanAlexander]

53 minutes ago, Axel said:

Movie quiz: what is a "Kansas City shuffle"?

Lucky Number Slevin! Great reference.

[jcs]

3 hours ago, Axel said:

Easy enough. Who can still remember the particular news / fake news / scandals / tweets of DJT in June 2017? That was (June 8th) when this happened. The official WH announcements were TLDR, mas aburrido no se puede. The law about to be revisited, re-evaluated here was a direct reaction to the financial crisis of 2007, Obama signed it in 2010. This crisis caused hunger for approximately 100.000 more people worldwide. It is responsible for estimated 40.000 deaths. 

For those with real power, who really control Washington, Trump is a welcome distraction. Movie quiz: what is a "Kansas City shuffle"?

Trump is playing the role of "predictably unpredictable". This appears to drive MSM and DC crazy, however it all looks like an act: not real. The entire US money and tax systems are a charade, it's time for the Good Guys (everyone who wants to be) to come with up an open, non-secret system that is sustainable, fair, and stable. The challenge is human nature: folks rarely relinquish power unless they have no choice. So perhaps it's possible for the people to come up with a better solution, and then demand the government make the necessary changes (that's how it's supposed to work anyways: government enforcing the will of the people for the people by the people vs. the government enforcing the will of the Rulers on the people via corruption).

Most of the issues arise from secret activities and systems so complex nobody can understand what is really going on (like finance & taxes). Thus, extremely simple systems would be more fair and easier to manage and ideally less easily manipulated. Think about rules and regulations as with patent claims: broad simple claims (scope) are much harder to get around vs. many complex claims, and are thus more powerful. If applied to taxes for example, the system would be easier to make fair, vs. the wealthiest being able to get around paying taxes using complex accounting. The FED and IRS need a complete overhaul, ideally completely replaced with something else (that's actually by the people, for the people, and legal!).

[tomekk]

What you're saying would be ideal but historically oppressive regimes very rarely give up, if ever?

[Ed_David]

15 minutes ago, tomekk said:

What you're saying would be ideal but historically oppressive regimes very rarely give up, if ever?

Even with a likable president like Obama, the system in place, of 350 billion dollars I think spent on military operations makes us an incredibly scary nation.

I really had hope Obama could have winded that down.  And in the last months of his presidency, I wish he put in some executive actions to limit, well, I guess, executive actions.  And then tried to put in some failsafe measures against nuclear attack.

We are a war nation.

I think the 2nd highest spending country on military is China.

And it's sad, because, even if we achieve more social justice in America, for instance: gay marriage, what we are doing to the rest of the world is terrible.

And not to mention the control corporations have on America.

We are, as written in Empire of Illusions, an inverted totalitarian government.  Corporations have complete control over politicians, with the need to raise millions from fundraising.  Plus lobbying on issues, and they even write a lot of the bills that are introduced.

The health care reform bill that was introduced this year by Paul Ryan, Ryancare, was almost entirely drafted by insurance companies.

The only hope, I feel, is more candidates who are elected by direct funding from citizens.

Left or right politically, if we can turn America back into some sort of democratic system, where politicans have power, and are not beholden to corporations, that would be really good.

Because we are in for a terrible economic collapse as well as environmental collapse.

All it takes is China to stop loaning us the trillions we have in debt to them.

And for the environment, well, it's looking like in one hundred years, only about 50 percent of the world will be habitable. 

So yes, right or left on the political spectrum, I wish we could all come together to prevent environmental and economic disaster, which all of us I think could agree on would not be good.

[tomekk]

27 minutes ago, Ed_David said:

Left or right politically, if we can turn America back into some sort of democratic system, where politicans have power, and are not beholden to corporations, that would be really good.

Couldn't this be the problem? I know it seems illogical but let's examine it because I think, that's how people are tricked in today's world into giving away their freedom. If politicians have total power that means people have no power at all. Logically, there is no third option, is there? So you can have strong government and weak people, the other way around or something in between. 

So should we really be giving more power to politicians or should we empower people? 

[jcs]

9 hours ago, tomekk said:

What you're saying would be ideal but historically oppressive regimes very rarely give up, if ever?

That's correct: absolute power corrupts absolutely. History has indeed shown us that, and watch GoT for an entertaining version of it  

Regarding voting, I think it's probably best if we go back to all paper ballots vs. electronic voting machines. We could also use some kind of statistical and cryptographic methods to sample exit polls or other ways to verify that actual counted votes match exit polls or similar to prevent cheating/rigging. If bitcoin and cryptocurrency are truly safe, similar technology should be possible for secure voting that the public can verify without government involvement.

In order to prevent a global collapse, it might make sense to change the system in a major way to prevent a collapse. Meaning not waiting for a voting period. Historically, only a war or civil uprising has been able to effect that level of change. This could be the first time in history that we have a peaceful revolution, and best not to call it a revolution, or resistance etc., rather perhaps something like an Enlightening: have positive targets as goals vs. negative motivators (psychology: toward vs. away from motivators). For example, instead of "NO WAR" use "YES PEACE", because what we think tends to happen, so remove WAR from our thinking. Instead of "LOVE TRUMPS HATE" (political & divisive) replace with "LOVE & KINDNESS". In simple terms, message and think about what you want instead of what you don't want.

Regarding the debt, FED, China: it's all FIAT and make believe. We can do whatever we want to fix it: we just have to all agree, just as we do now with our fantasy currency system.

Regarding giving politicians more power: we should eliminate all politicians. Instead replace with short term private citizens who monitor the system through actual checks & balances (unlike the current system which is corrupt). Artificial intelligence 'big data' systems along with simulation technologies can do a much better job than our current corrupt system. This reminds me of a quote from a cognitive science course taught by Don Norman when I was at UCSD: "in the future, airplanes will be flown by computers, with a pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The pilot will monitor everything to make sure nothing goes wrong, and the dog will bite the pilot's hand if he touches anything" . This is based on statistics which show that most accidents are caused by human error. So we can apply the same principles to large scale systems such as government of resources and application of labor for infrastructure, etc.

Another concept for business in the age of machines / robots / AI is the cessation of competition. Machines and automation will provide plenty of energy, food, and water for everyone. So we can have a totally different society without competition which will really help stop division and bring unity. Alan Watts talked about this back in the 70's*! Think Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek.

* Alan Watts on automation and money (watch it!):

 

[Ed_David]

15 hours ago, tomekk said:

Couldn't this be the problem? I know it seems illogical but let's examine it because I think, that's how people are tricked in today's world into giving away their freedom. If politicians have total power that means people have no power at all. Logically, there is no third option, is there? So you can have strong government and weak people, the other way around or something in between. 

So should we really be giving more power to politicians or should we empower people? 

Agreed.

I meant that politicians have power over corporations, not the other way around.

All politicians are, for me, are members of society chosen by us to represent us.  They get a salary so they can't be bought as easily.

7 hours ago, jcs said:

That's correct: absolute power corrupts absolutely. History has indeed shown us that, and watch GoT for an entertaining version of it  

Regarding voting, I think it's probably best if we go back to all paper ballots vs. electronic voting machines. We could also use some kind of statistical and cryptographic methods to sample exit polls or other ways to verify that actual counted votes match exit polls or similar to prevent cheating/rigging. If bitcoin and cryptocurrency are truly safe, similar technology should be possible for secure voting that the public can verify without government involvement.

In order to prevent a global collapse, it might make sense to change the system in a major way to prevent a collapse. Meaning not waiting for a voting period. Historically, only a war or civil uprising has been able to effect that level of change. This could be the first time in history that we have a peaceful revolution, and best not to call it a revolution, or resistance etc., rather perhaps something like an Enlightening: have positive targets as goals vs. negative motivators (psychology: toward vs. away from motivators). For example, instead of "NO WAR" use "YES PEACE", because what we think tends to happen, so remove WAR from our thinking. Instead of "LOVE TRUMPS HATE" (political & divisive) replace with "LOVE & KINDNESS". In simple terms, message and think about what you want instead of what you don't want.

Regarding the debt, FED, China: it's all FIAT and make believe. We can do whatever we want to fix it: we just have to all agree, just as we do now with our fantasy currency system.

Regarding giving politicians more power: we should eliminate all politicians. Instead replace with short term private citizens who monitor the system through actual checks & balances (unlike the current system which is corrupt). Artificial intelligence 'big data' systems along with simulation technologies can do a much better job than our current corrupt system. This reminds me of a quote from a cognitive science course taught by Don Norman when I was at UCSD: "in the future, airplanes will be flown by computers, with a pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The pilot will monitor everything to make sure nothing goes wrong, and the dog will bite the pilot's hand if he touches anything" . This is based on statistics which show that most accidents are caused by human error. So we can apply the same principles to large scale systems such as government of resources and application of labor for infrastructure, etc.

Another concept for business in the age of machines / robots / AI is the cessation of competition. Machines and automation will provide plenty of energy, food, and water for everyone. So we can have a totally different society without competition which will really help stop division and bring unity. Alan Watts talked about this back in the 70's*! Think Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek.

* Alan Watts on automation and money (watch it!):

 

I like this, but I think politicians are just people - there is nothing that getting rid of them will change.

We just need systems of checks and balances.

Anarchy and small societies still have their own problems.

I mean, even living in a house of 5 friends after 6 months can turn a little nutty.