The thin veneer of civilization - aka lord of the flies (consumerism idiocy)

This post is inspired by the conversation with rblong etl al. in the thought experiment thread re: the propensity for violence to achieve selfish purposes.


http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEA02F5DA8B4179F8

http://violentflashmobs.com/

You might also enjoy one of my favorite "songs"...

"Getting What You Want", a play in three acts by DoChenRollingBearing


Act 1) Get the f*** outta my way, b*****z! I'll kill you! I'll kill you all! I want the Air Jordans!

Act 2) Psssshhhhhtttttttt (sound of pepper spray)............

Act 3) Aaaaiiieee! *whimpers*


Moral of the story? Does not always have to end in death.

Ahhhhhh, my favorite entertainment! I love to watch 'walmartians' and 'malltards' doing stupid shit in the name of consumerism. When i see lines of idiots camping out in front of Best Buy for a week, just to get a new thingamastupid of some sort, I get a solid chuckle every time. When i see these idiots stampede and riot over a pair of sneakers, manufactured using 12 cents an hour child laborers, I laugh even harder. When will these fucktards realize how stupid it is to play in to the hands of the "retailers"?

I wore Chuck Taylors for thirty years and swore by them. At 10 bucks a pair, [at least until about 1990] they were a true bargain and fit well. Now, I wear Sperry Top-Siders, which The Boss buys when they are buy one get one free at Bealls for 45 clams.

Youth.......is definitely wasted on the young.

*EDIT* DCRB........I'm waiting for the next update on RMB........

Yeah, I grew up by one of those malls in Indianapolis. That Lafayette Square Mall was a complete hole the last time I was around there in 2004 or there about. Besides, people stabbing each other over a pair of shoes is nothing new in that area.

These are just the kind of people I don't want to be around when the shit hits the fan..

Yes, this is happening when there is no actual reason for any desperation at all - just imagined lust for something. Wait till enough meals have been missed.

One wonders what a full analysis of the phenomenon of week long lines to get some bling really means. Do that many people really have nothing better to do - even from their own perspective? How are they generating value or income during that time? All they all parasites on someone else who does?

Seems to indicate more than one kind of very deep sickness to me.
Nothing better to do than wait for some bling? Serious failure of imagination there.
Able to camp out for a week - who's supporting that parasite anyway? Me, indirectly? I don't like that.

Or are things already so bad that society is better off without these losers even attempting to be productive, because they'd only break more than they made if they tried?

No way it looks healthy to me. I can think of better places and ways if just wanting to socialize is the goal.

It is frightening DC, when I see these bands of "disaffected 'youths mobbed up". They often look quite sullen, and give you the 'fuck you stare'. Our local high school has a very unequal demographic, and after school, the white children will actually haul ass out of there because of the racial violence, which never seems to be reported by our local 'media' outlets. i see it nearly every afternoon, as these groups of "youths" walk down the middle of the streets, daring you to do something about it. When the shit hits the fan, I for one, will be staying home and protecting the home fort.

That's just f****ng scary.

It's behaviour like this which always has me watching the exits.

Sometimes I wonder whether the greater battle is for survival or against ignorance. In fact I already know what the answer is. I just don't want to admit it.

It's not just here in Florida either. I recently completed a one year project at Fort Gordon in Augusta Georgia, and very near the base was a large mall, with some decent restaurants. Being the lazy bastard that I am, i would frequent a place called The Chop House for eats and suds. More than once, I was forced off teh sidewalk by roving bands of teenage thugs who just walk right through you as if you wer not even there. When yopu comment to them or give them a look, they can get very scary. Just like the under reported "wilding" incidents in St. Louis and many other areas, where black kids flash mob on white victims, beating them for the hell of it, taking cell phones and jewelry. These cxrimes have yet to be labeled race related or hate crimes, but I expect them to become the norm when the checks stop rolling in. What we're seeing now are the kids who grew up being baby sat by a television. Many of them have no capacity for remorse, sympathy, empathe, true love or any other positive emotion. They are stone hard and willing to beat the hell out of someone for kicks. Can you imagine what the country looks like when millions of these 'people' who have been taught by the government schools that Uncle Sugar is the end all be all for everything in their lives are suddenly without basics like food and shelter?

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Are they gonna turn up team handed at my bunker ?

Or will they quickly revert to frightened children who have just discovered their assumptions regarding entitlement are in need of adjustment ?

How far will they walk in search of a need and will they not fear 'bigger boyz' ?

I have a similar story to Ancona's. My wife's parents were up visiting from Peru, and after staying with us awhile, they went off to Indianapolis to stay with another of their daughters. One afternoon they went to a local mall. The place VERY quickly filled up with post-teen blacks, all BIG and scary looking (note that most Peruvians are short).

Well, they just do not have BIG and scary looking people like that down in Peru. Sure they have gangs and lots of street crime in Peru, but the perps don't LOOK like perps except maybe when they are out hunting in gangs.

Anyway, my wife's sister said that she had never seen that mall be so scary... Turns out that another university was in town for a football game. OK. But, when I was in school, WE did not act (or even dress) like thugs. Maybe it's because we were too wasted...

Almost everyone I talk with in other parts of the USA say pretty much the same.

We're Number One!

Another post, this one is inspired by what I heard on the radio today.

Ever since we moved here to Miami, I would note the terrible driving that goes on here (so many having learned to drive in Bogota, Tegucigalpa, etc.). As the years living here went on and I learned more about this city, once in awhile I would hear that Miami was Number One in this or that.

1) Miami is the poorest big US city (5 years ago pushed aside San Antonio!)
2) Miami has the worst drivers (bonus! worst road-rage, narrowly beating out LA)
3) Miami has the dumbest city (that's very easy to observe)

and just today, heard on the radio, drum roll please,

4) Miami is the VAINEST city in the country! Vanity runs rampant here, so many guys seriously work out...

All of this is presumably documented somewhere. So there! It all happens here. Why do you think they call it The Magic City? Because it is! EVERYTHING happens here!

DCRB,
I lived and worked on Miami Beach from 1981 until 1993 1/2. I grew more and more weary of the crowded and unfriendly atmosphere.....even on the beach. Toward the end of my tenure there, I spent the entire last two years exclusively on the beach side. i could no longer bear to cross the causeway and witness the destruction of what I remembered as a young child. Miami was a wonderful place, with waving palms and open areas, and as a child, I remember walking barefoot near Monkey Jungle while we had a picnic lunch mid-day. Now, the entire stretch of land from North Palm Beach all the way down to Florida City is one giant piece of concrete and pastel colored walls with terra cotta roofs. It is fucking disgusting. I remember going down past the old loop road to pick strawberries when we came on vacation, and we drove through an hour and a half of farmland to get there. Those fields are long ago paved over and covered with "clone houses" made of OSB and a little stucco, ready to blow away in the next stiff breeze.

Far too many areas of this once fine state have been turned in to urban jungles, with no-go zones for all but the most foolhardy. I now live in an older section of town, at the edge of rural/semi rural land, and love it. I hope and pray the Golden Hordes from Miami and Orlando do not decide to come our way.

Just got back from Wallyworld, where I bought some more lids for our Ball jars. As usual, the walmartians were shuffling around in a complete daze. The obligatory, extremely obese Walltard was blocking the entire fucking aisle. When I politely asked her to move so I could just grab what I needed and skeedaddle, she gave me the look of death and said, "When I'm fucking finished here.....hold your fucking horses asshole.....you're not the only one here. Can't you see I'm disabled"? Holy crap! It was everything I could do not to unload on this pathetic excuse for a human being, rolling around in a courtesy electric wheelchair because she needs a drink holder for that super big gulp, and she's too fat to spend any time on those weak ass cankles.

When the shit finally does hit the fan, I foresee hundreds of thousands like this to end up being dramatically more healthy simply by virtue of having nothing to eat but grass soup, and losing a hundred or three pounds.

I know I sound cold and callous, but as a kid, I NEVER saw people as enormous as I see them every single day, multiple times a day. I will NEVER be convinced that 99 percent of these people have "gland problems" or some genetic predisposition to being "overweight". I see huge people in the Piggly Wiggly or the Winn Dixie market shoving a wagon full of junk food down the aisle, without so much as a single bit of fruit or a single vegetable. Of course, I am one of those six foot tall, one hundred fifty five pound skinny fuckers who can eat as much of whatever the hell I want, and my mosquito like metabolism simply turns itself up and consumes it.

Yo man, there was a time when survival of the fittest actually made cuts in the line up.

Well, I hope some of these observations from the city will cause more pause before people consider rural areas like mine less civilized...we have all races here, no fights. Crime almost zero. No illiteracy. And so on.

Have seen a few grossly obese around, but in general, not, even in WalMart up near the city. The best one - this guy comes up to the general store with his ancient mom. He has to weigh 400+ - I wouldn't know how to estimate, but his car was very unlevel - down on his side. His mom is normal sized. He can't get through the door of the store! So he sends in mom, who can barely walk with a walker, to get an entire shopping bag of twinkies and other like confections, which he starts shoving down his cake hole - whole - before even driving away in his left-leaning car.

This is just one good reason not to like universal health care...I'm not paying for that idiot. I'm sure he has gland problems by now, if he didn't start out that way.

...well, Social Security in the form of food stamps should sort this out, if it was FOOD STAMPS only . Can't imagine someone getting too fat, being in the mercy of charitable soup kitchens, gland problems and all.

But I must agree, having visited US of A three times, I have never ever seen so many monstrously obese people - even comparing to quite a few European countries that I've been to, which are not exactly the poorest nations on earth, and not exactly eating-shy ones (France, Italy...).

These extremely obese guys are simply going to die, when social security collapses - it is not possible to drastically reduce weight if one is extremely obese, without the near sure risk of a stroke, a heart attack, or even when all the metabolic effects of effectively starving & burning all that fat, and releasing toxins that accumulated in it during the years of fattening, into their bloodstream, relatively quickly. That really is simple, they are going to die, and many of them.

regards,

Don't look at me - I'm doing my part to bring down the average. I'm thin like DCF. I also know rule #1 from Zombieland:

...eh, didn't want to offend US of A, maybe I was a bit clumsy, my point is, I can understand if one is upset with people who fatten themselves to the point of qualifying for disability, and worse still, they feel entitled to everything, they behave like they should be regarded almost as a heroes, etc.

There is certainly something wrong with the system, that promotes such aberrations. In a healthy, robust system of social security, it would be impossible. But on the other hand, I have yet to see a "healthy, robust" system of social security.

I have always believed, that people who are on a social paycheck should still somehow EARN these benefits. There's plenty of jobs that could be done by them, once they are collecting the bens anyway, and nobody else is willing to pay for them free market rates that would attract some employees. Like cleaning up the streets, public spaces, sorting the rubbish in the recycling centers etc. This way, someone would have to be at least fit and self sufficient, to collect the bens - and he would move his arse, and burn some calories in the process as well - not to mention his productive contribution to society.

It drives me crazy to see all the litter, that could not be picked up in my town, because "council has no funds" (why all that litter ends up on the streets instead of bins, is another matter, but I digress), yet at the same time, council spends pretty pennies on unemployment benefits. OK, so give them something to do - clean up the streets, if you really want to be a part of the society, and contribute to it! What, you don't? Too bad, get a hike!

It is so perverse here in our ultra-socialistic Yurp, that I have been talking to few people on bens, and they told me, they would like to work, because it drives them crazy to sir at home -but... BUT: IT doesn't make sense for them to start working on low paid, low security jobs, because they are better off financially, collecting the benefits!!! What the hell!!! So if they do the maths, and account additionally that benefits are secure, and jobs are not - the rational decision can be only one. That is sometimes against their morality (not all of them are so decent, though!), well, too bad, but they have families to fed.

We are living in a totally fecked up system, my friends.

PS.
Oh, and BTW, back on the original topic - do not worry, it is exactly like that also in other countries - at least I can confirm incidents like that in Poland. There are equivalent of "black Friday" sales in electronic shops, or when a new mall opens and it is bound to have some crazy promotions on the first day, that will surely not satisfy the demand - exactly the same scenes here... "That is my palette of sugar, I am buying it all!!!" - and eagle-spreaded woman diving on the fucking thing, like a fully-trained commando, on a mission, fighting for his dear life with a knife-bearer, in a best of Hollywood movies! Screaming at anyone approaching "her" palette of discounted sugar, like she was protecting her children from ze Germans! Saw it myself, my wife is a barber and she was working in the hair saloon inside the mall, with a good view of a shopping hall. If it wasn't so embarrassing, it would be quite funny.

Bushi,
I completely agree! It astounds me that some states in the US pay 450 and even as much as 565 a week in unemployment benefits. They were never meant to be a source of true income, the program was originally designed to buffer a man while he went out to find work. Now, people seem to think they should make you whole, or nearly whole, on your last salary. Here in Florida someone like me, who earns six figures, will max out at 250 a week. That is the most Florida will pay on unemployment insurance. Up ion NY, or MA, the rate is double that. Here in Florida, folks do not want to be on UI simply because one can't live on it.

I periodically read a website called The Welfare State We're In, a British site that goes in to great detail on taboo subjects such as national health scheme, welfare benefits, child benefits and such. He once detailed a couple who made nearly 2,000 pounds [not dollars] a month and got a free council house that looked to be pretty nice, all because they had ten kids and needed to stay at home with them or some such shit. They openly said that they would never go back to work because they couldn't earn what they were getting from the government for free, so why do it?

ancona said:

(..)They openly said that they would never go back to work because they couldn't earn what they were getting from the government for free, so why do it?

Click to expand...

Exactly! This kind of stuff drives me crazy. But you know what - that is OK, because they will pass such great values onto all of their 10 offspring, so the society as a whole will be much better off, down the road, indeed!!!

Absolute disgrace! Stupid naive suckers like meself, are working their arses off, to provide for my two kids, AND those 10 brats - and the glorious govt, in the meantime borrows, because obviously, suckers like myself are not able to provide for someone else's 10 brats - so my two boys will be paying them off, once they reach adulthood!

...big pile of
:doodoo:
:doodoo::doodoo:

ancona said:

Ahhhhhh, my favorite entertainment! I love to watch 'walmartians' and 'malltards' doing stupid shit in the name of consumerism. When i see lines of idiots camping out in front of Best Buy for a week, just to get a new thingamastupid of some sort, I get a solid chuckle every time. When i see these idiots stampede and riot over a pair of sneakers, manufactured using 12 cents an hour child laborers, I laugh even harder. When will these fucktards realize how stupid it is to play in to the hands of the "retailers"?

Click to expand...

The sad thing in our culture is that fiscal irresponsibility is rewarded by bailouts and debt forgiveness at a cost to the fiscally responsible. It begins to feel futile being fiscally responsible.

<SLV> said:

The sad thing in our culture is that fiscal irresponsibility is rewarded by bailouts and debt forgiveness at a cost to the fiscally responsible. It begins to feel futile being fiscally responsible.

Click to expand...

Every time I see a news story about student loan forgiveness I kick myself for saving and paying for my kid's college tuition. Why wasn't I smart enough to help them get student loans instead! I paid (am still paying actually) for my kids out of pocket and now I get to pay for a whole lot of others too (with my taxes).

I just noticed there are two of these threads. Is one for one type of post & the other for another?
...

This thread focused on violence over stupid consumerism shit like Black Friday riots. The other thread is for political anger.