Crazy American Politics

[Elgindon]

7 minutes ago, Goldie03 said:

I've just been to see It's a Wonderful Life, and it made me cry as usual and wish to fuck the death of capitalism would hurry the fuck up 

What do you replace it with?

[Mason89]

14 minutes ago, Goldie03 said:

They look like dragons when they're flying 

Not surprising as seeing a flying dragon is every bit as likely as seeing a flying swan 

[Mason89]

11 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

That's not really getting to the crux of the problem though is it? Unless you think that the world's problems stop and end at Trump or Farage. What would be returning to after the saturation point? The time of good old sensible politics with call me Dave and Big Tony? The grown ups, like Nicola? You don't seem to be articulating a future, simply suggesting that the death of a generation will pave the way to something better. I expect that's unlikely. 

Of course it will be better. The generation above mine has never voted to make things better. Ever. 
They would vote for the Drown a Puppy Party if it offered them £5 off their heating bill and deported their lovely neighbour Abdul 

[Goldie03]

They have huge wings saw one take off from the middle of a road near my work once - a swan that is not a dragon 

[Mason89]

2 minutes ago, Goldie03 said:

They have huge wings saw one take off from the middle of a road near my work once - a swan that is not a dragon 

More than likely a migratory Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) 

It’s an easy mistake to make, as they look very similar. They way to tell the difference is that geese can fly and swans canny 

[Goldie03]

I stand with  @OneBrianIrvine. on this 

[RicoS321]

48 minutes ago, Mason89 said:

Of course it will be better. The generation above mine has never voted to make things better. Ever. 
They would vote for the Drown a Puppy Party if it offered them £5 off their heating bill and deported their lovely neighbour Abdul 

Avoiding the question? I know it's the politics thread, but you don't have to become a politician. 

[Mason89]

6 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Avoiding the question? I know it's the politics thread, but you don't have to become a politician. 

I think the world is bored shitless of political centrism and I don’t think theres an appetite to return to that, once these right wing virgins eventually run out of juice 

There’s a few things that give me optimism at home and abroad. I’m encouraged by the Green Party membership here, I’m loving the fact that everyone despises the Labour Party, I’m over the moon that the Tory Party is effectively killed itself and I’m fairly sure the inevitable fall of Trump will reflect incredibly poorly on Reform. I think Europe will strengthen because of the way the US has acted and I think those 70m non voting yanks are just waiting for something better than the usual pish on offer. 
Theres plenty to be hopeful about. I’m a cup half full kind of guy, unless we’re taking about Aberdeen FC 

[TheDonbytheDee]

49 minutes ago, Mason89 said:

I’m a cup half full kind of guy, unless we’re taking about Aberdeen FC 

then our cups are over brimming with optimism.

[DonUnder]

Blinlemon and RadioRed are far too smart to rise to this bait.

However, I'm (still) game to take one for the team.

While our representatives were responsible for the withdrawal of education funding that has led to a 'breathe in' ...'breath out' App being necessary for X,Y & Z on their phones - contemporaries did invent the internet.

Meanwhile I'll duck back behind my wall of slide rules and log tables and wait for the Utopia that will, no doubt, be delivered.

 

[RicoS321]

16 hours ago, Elgindon said:

What do you replace it with?

Nobody replaces one system with another, they simply occur from the ashes. You don't get to pick and choose. Certainly, we don't.

The most important point, though, is that capitalism can only fail. It's ecologically, materially and energy illiterate - it makes no sense. It's simply a question of when. It's a parasitic system* which, once it kills its host, will die.

Therefore, the question of what replaces capitalism is open to everyone, including those who deny that it's a parasitic system, against all evidence. What would you replace capitalism with? Or, if you prefer, how do you think capitalism evolves in a world with a dwindling resource base and limits to growth? Or, probably a better question (for all), is what do you see coming after capitalism whether we like it or not? 

 

 

*As is socialism, and all forms of communism that have existed alongside other systems. 

[Mason89]

Socialism would work pretty well with the climate emergency, in a way that capitalism wouldn’t. 
In order to get there though, I think theres some fairly radical steps to be taken first. 
Id suggest a Billionaires Guillotine lottery would be great place to start 

[RicoS321]

2 minutes ago, Mason89 said:

Socialism would work pretty well with the climate emergency, in a way that capitalism wouldn’t. 
In order to get there though, I think theres some fairly radical steps to be taken first. 
Id suggest a Billionaires Guillotine lottery would be great place to start 

Socialism is a growth based, competitive, system. Both capitalism and socialism can solve the climate issue, just not in a way that would solve any of the other issues in our current metacrisis. That's why climate becomes a single ticket issue, when it very clearly isn't. Neither system works, they're basically the Huns and Tims of economic systems.

[TheDonbytheDee]

5 minutes ago, Mason89 said:

Socialism would work pretty well with the climate emergency, in a way that capitalism wouldn’t. 
In order to get there though, I think theres some fairly radical steps to be taken first. 
Id suggest a Billionaires Guillotine lottery would be great place to start 

Too many folk get Socialism mixed up with what we believe is Communism, which is what was supposedly what happened after the Russian Revolution and then after WW2, with the Totalitarianism of the Iron Curtain.

What we got after WW2, in the UK was pretty damn good. As close to Socialism as we could ever get in a capitalist country. 

I suspect climate change, mixed with an  over populated world and the rise of AI, will come to a head soon enough and force the issue.

 

 

[Mason89]

19 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Socialism is a growth based, competitive, system. Both capitalism and socialism can solve the climate issue, just not in a way that would solve any of the other issues in our current metacrisis. That's why climate becomes a single ticket issue, when it very clearly isn't. Neither system works, they're basically the Huns and Tims of economic systems.

I would like to see socialism given a wee run out, before we write it off 

[RicoS321]

27 minutes ago, Mason89 said:

I would like to see socialism given a wee run out, before we write it off 

It's a growth-based, competitive system. To rip up a growth based, competitive system and replace it with another would be the stupidest thing we could do. It takes a real denialist mindset to suggest otherwise. You correctly derided those who deny climate change, but I'm not sure that moving the denial barrier to "nicer" perpetual economic growth is any less derisory. 

[tlg1903]

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

 Or, probably a better question (for all), is what do you see coming after capitalism whether we like it or not? 

 

Good question.  I suppose it depends hugely on what it is that brings about the end of capatalism.  If it's a really gruesome global war over resources (which seems the most likely) then it really is impossible to predict as it will likely take a long time before anything resembling civilisation starts to form again.  That said, when it did, it would probably just adopt capitalism again 

A more positive scenario that would knock capitalism for 6  would be the advancement of automation to the point where humans don't actually have to work to live.  That's not say they don't but it's because they want to and it's not for financial reward as we would think of it.   I'm sceptical myself and no idea how it would work but ultimately the goal of automation has always been to make whatever job that's being automated easier for a human to complete.  Eventually that ideal leads to no-one having to work because there is no need to and that would fuck with capitalism big time.  What comes after that who knows but it would likely be a significant moment in human civilisation.  

[Jupiter]

Some of you guys sound like communists, what the hell is wrong with you?

[InversneckieDob]

On 17/12/2025 at 18:58, Jupiter said:

Some of you guys sound like communists, what the hell is wrong with you?

I don't think I've read a post on this thread espousing communism.

But feel free to point them out?

 

As regards the broader point, I'd hesitate to go down Mason's road of tarring a couple of generations with the same brush.

I think (confess I'm nae sure) that I'm just about a Boomer (born 63?).

I think there's a lot of utter cunts in my generation. 

Equally there's a lot of us who never bought into the short-termism of Thatcherism.

I dinna have Mason's global faith in the younger generations. 

Yes, there's some dinna buy into the reactionary populism but many more do.

Far beyond that.....apathy.

I think the genie is too far oota the bottle,  I think the world is fucked, I think there are people born now who will see the end of the world.

Yer Trumps and Farages (as well as all the far-right populists in Europe) are nae the drivers,  they're the grifters taking advantage.

Capitalism has fucked the economy globally. 

There's generation on generation disenfranchisement, nae cash to spend on interventionist, societal support and proper re-education so the cycle continues.

Each generation another round of cannon fodder.

I hope Mason's right but I think we're a' fucked.

[Mason89]

Quite frankly, I think you’re all 

[Don Julio]

I’m in my 50s, grew up in the Shire and have spent the bulk of my life living in cities, including some of the biggest on the planet.

i think we’re pretty fucked. Our genetically hardwired desire to consume calories where we can find them and to take rest where we can leads us away from any kind of existence in symbiosis with the planet

On trips like this week’s to Prague (I’m as guilty as anyone else) I can’t help but wonder at our never ending drive to build more and more infrastructure and concrete over the world, fly planes to places we don’t need to go, and so on. The end result has to be catastrophic.

There we all are in Irish pubs in Prague drinking overpriced beer so we can watch some men kick a ball about. Burning a load of fossil fuel to get there and then back again. It’s insane.

There was an auld wifie in my village who had been to Aberdeen once, but as she said, “I didnae really like it, so I nivver went back”. 

In a similar vein, my son’s an anarcho-primitivist. I can totally see why. But he still came to Prague.

And if I was scraping a living in a developing country somewhere I’d want better for my kids and would likely flee to the city.

The incentives are all stacked against us. We’ve become our own worst enemies. We’re doomed.

[tlg1903]

On 16/12/2025 at 20:32, Goldie03 said:

They have huge wings saw one take off from the middle of a road near my work once - a swan that is not a dragon 

They do have big wings.  I was walking my dog by the canal in Inverness a few years back and whilst off balance picking up his business i failed to notice a swan come up the bank about 20 metres down the path.  Only realised with it's first hiss and the sensation of the lead being pulled from hand as my dog charged at it.  Heart was in my mouth when it spread it's wings as I know they can break bones but, thankfully, Alaskan Malamutes are pretty fucking big themselves and when he got closer to said swan, said swan shat it and got back in the water pronto.  It ended up swimming alongside and hissing at us for the next few minutes.  

[RicoS321]

2 hours ago, Don Julio said:

Our genetically hardwired desire to consume calories where we can find them and to take rest where we can leads us away from any kind of existence in symbiosis with the planet

Except for the majority of human existence, we did live in symbiosis with the planet. There is a far greater body of evidence that we're hardwired to do just that (as every other species on the planet does), rather than the post agricultural world based on parasitic systems. Parasitic systems that always consume themselves over time. Mainly because they ignore time in their myths and stories (our myths being progress and growth). 

2 hours ago, Don Julio said:

In a similar vein, my son’s an anarcho-primitivist. I can totally see why. But he still came to Prague

Good lad. There's no contradiction there. It's not for anarcho-primitives to be dictating systems to people. It's completely possible to understand that the only workable human existence is that of anarcho-primitivism, whilst recognising that the only way to reach that point is through civilisation's collapse. With anarcho-primitivism, there's nothing to be designed or systematised, it just simply is. Humans living as nature intended - universally connected - as every other species does. It's not something you can cajole people into, or have a dictator, or a democracy, set the rules. 

That doesn't absolve anyone of individual responsibility, but there is no feasible way to enact anarcho-primitivism within the existing system, so you basically have to choose your own level of adherence to it. I choose to watch fitba, which is obviously just a circus, but I can suspend disbelief to offer some relief. You'd go fairly mental quite quickly otherwise. He's probably got a job and lives in a hoose too, the heathen. If he doesn't already, you can point him to the writings of Darren Allen and Tom Murphy for some light entertainment.

[tlg1903]

33 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

That doesn't absolve anyone of individual responsibility, but there is no feasible way to enact anarcho-primitivism within the existing system, so you basically have to choose your own level of adherence to it. I choose to watch fitba, which is obviously just a circus, but I can suspend disbelief to offer some relief. You'd go fairly mental quite quickly otherwise. He's probably got a job and lives in a hoose too, the heathen. If he doesn't already, you can point him to the writings of Darren Allen and Tom Murphy for some light entertainment.

I would be genuinely lost without football in my life.  It's a daily escape from the world that enhances my life in terms of both usually having a game to look forward to and maintaining friendships.  

[OrlandoDon]

28 minutes ago, tlg1903 said:

I would be genuinely lost without football in my life.  It's a daily escape from the world that enhances my life in terms of both usually having a game to look forward to and maintaining friendships.  

I used to feel that way, but not any more. Other than Aberdeen  and Scotland, couldn’t tell you the last time I watch a game that didn’t involve my club or country. Money has killed my enthusiasm. It’s a bunching over paid mercenaries now, no culture or heart in a club any more. I’ve expressed my worry’s about the dons in recent months and the lack of Scottish players for that reason. Milne and lobban are a godsend, hoping Marshall comes through and we sign Watson and another couple of Scots in the near future. Clinging on to shinnie, a diehard don, and a lesser extent devlin, love that type of Scot in our team. Means something to me. I’d even take Gunn in goal, although I’m 50/50 on mitov right now.

what was sad this week was I had no interest in our European game. It was even less interesting than a preseason friendly. Didn’t watch and simply checked the score after work. I’ve never done that before where I had so little interest. The format for European football doesn’t inspire me at all, and really I had little interest in our European campaign. Worrying for me!

I’ve also said this before. Living here in the states for 30 years, I appreciate the banter here as it keeps me connected with my roots and I really enjoy talking Aberdeen and Scotland. But that’s it, most other football is pretty dull now. Saying all of this, I’m intrigued by the world cup in a way, as we have some more unknown teams, playing Haiti will be different, plus playing Brazil and Morocco will be different and fun. But will I watch other World Cup games, unlikely.

Bit off topic for crazy American politics!

Edited 3 hours ago by OrlandoDon