Things I noticed:
About 75% of the commercial buildings were vacant, with for lease and for sale signs everywhere. So either the economy is nowhere near where people think it is, or more likely, developers have way, way overbuilt. I also see this with transport. Trains are underutilized. Ships are underutilized. Way, way too much supply for the demand.
Why don't these owners of empty strip malls and warehouses put solar panels on their roofs? Why not at least generate some kind of income from an empty building you still have to supply minimal utilities to (so that Mother Nature doesn't tear them apart)? Why not try and get server farms or dumb bulk storage, or some such in there? I suppose they are trying that, but way too many of these buildings cater to the idea of being filled with people, and these buildings will never be filled with people again.
People are stupid. People are stupid because they adapt their plastic brains to their immediate environment, and then just stop. I think people were a lot smarter before the Industrial Revolution (more later on this maybe). Example: I'm riding on my bike on the road, because light industrial land does not have much in the way of bike trails and bike lanes. Cars and trucks. People driving cars and trucks become cars and trucks. So, I'm on these big animal traces with all these big cars and trucks, and they might as well be buffalo and rhinoceroses and elephants that fast little scurrying bike animal me must avoid. And they just don't fucking notice me. Or when they do notice me they freak out, like an elephant noticing a mouse. They are just big, dumb, lumbering clueless animals. No wonder the Vietnamese called the American armed forces elephants. Just big dumb, lumbering clueless animals.
So, big brains does not = smart. Big brains = big dumb animals with big brains.
Speaking of which, Im reading a book called "The Gunning of America" by Pamela Haag. I may do a book report on it, but so far, it's just entertaining, and the gist of what I've gotten from the book (still early), is the The Industrial Revolution Took All The Fun Out Of Guns.
Or, as the Washington Post reviewed the book: Guns in America were no big deal, until Big Business Made Us Love Them.
Which is to say, Ms. Haag does not wish to enter into the current argument about guns, merely provide a historical perspective as to how we arrived where the nation is with respect to guns.
Marketing made guns a fetish item. Guns became an exceptional tool, much the same way that Americans fool themselves into thinking that America is exceptional. America is a nation, an interesting and unique nation, but that's about it. Guns are not exceptional tools.
(The guns = tools argument often turns into a logical fallacy, a category error that pro-gun apologists make, noting that weapons are defined as technology, and are therefore tools, and tools can be misused. Failing to note that a weapon is a tool, but a tool is not a weapon. The sole purpose of a hammer or screwdriver or a shoe is not for maiming and killing).
Honestly, for the longest time, guns were toys. Toys that made noise. Guns occasionally were useful, but only under limited circumstances, and only within a certain range. Inside or outside that range? Useless. Better to have a knife, or an arbalest. or even a stone, the original ranged weapon.
On the American frontier, already manicured by Native Americans into ideal hunting ground, I'm going after small to medium game. If I use bow and arrow, I can kill many rabbits and squirrels and deer and birds. If I use a blunderbuss, or even a rifled musket, still wildly inaccurate beyond a certain range, I scare away ALL the game with one shot. So, gun for hunting, back then? Not so good. Not if you wanted to eat on a steady basis.
But the Indians wanted firesticks you say! Well, the Indians would have wanted a Camaro if they had been around.
Those things were novelties, toys, prestige items, something the other chiefs didn't have. But you didn't fucking use them for hunting!
Guns are actually not a problem. Never should have been a problem. Became problem once big business took over. Big business takes the fun out everything.
People with guns are a problem. More specifically, and wow I am in agreement with Wayne Lapierre on this, people with bad brains that have guns, rotten brains, brains that go haywire, are a problem.
The difference between Lapierre and I is what constitutes mental illness. Who has bad brains? Feel threatened? In fear of your life? Feel the need for personal protection? Maybe you are paranoid. Maybe you've got a rotten brain.
Think about it, the situation that you wish to resolve requires lethal force? Really? Your going to go up to that scary or annoying person, whoever it is that has turned you into a scared little bunny, and with your bunny paws you going to ba-BAM blood and guts and brains all over you, and that solves the problem. Remember we are dealing with civilian life here, not a war zone. Even in the inner city, it is not strictly a war zone. People don't live in war zones. Not for long. If it is really a war zone, they usually become refugees.
All these phantoms and phantasms and bad feelings and discomforts and oh-dearie-dears that you feel you are undergoing drive you to the conclusion that you must kill? Or even maim? Perhaps disfigure for life, and that'll teach them?
I'd say you are insane.
By my definition, Wayne Lapierre is insane. He lives in a very safe house in a very safe neighborhood and goes to work in a fortress, and feels threatened and in need lethal personal protection?
That's one fucked up brain. I'm mean look at him. He's really quiet. He looks like the quiet type that will just snap under the slightest provocation. He probably should have to take a test if he wants a gun.
I can see it right now. Here I am the gun store owner, and Lapierre comes in says he needs a gun.
Need a gun? Uh oh.
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| Probably hears voices in his head! |
Why, even in the inner city, how exactly are you going to be safer brandishing a gun and waving it around? You don't have to be on any drug, just all stressed out.
No, I'm sorry, you got a bad brain. You probably need to evaluated.
up until the NRA bought the Supreme Court and they handed down their disastrous decision, most people in America were perfectly fine with guns being restricted and saw no need to own one or ten. and yeah, we were much smarter before the Industrial Revolution. back then we had to think and invent and make do and scramble. now all our desires are at hand and we don't even have to get out of our chairs for anything. no thinking required. no physical effort required.
ReplyDeleteSo, it turned out the piece I sold under the essay Landscapin' Whirl paid for my car repair. I have 4 cents profit for the week.
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