What are you reading?

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Catoptric
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Catoptric » Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:32 am

Nicole Gililland (aka Bree Barrett) won a legal case according to the recent Vice article, but I was needing to find out what her "stage name" was, and this 2019 article is surprisingly detailed.

A Modern-Day Scarlet Letter: How Porn Stigma Almost Claimed the Life of a Nursing Student
https://www.xbiz.com/news/245001/a-mode ... ng-student

How a Former Porn Performer Sued Her School for Discrimination—and Won ($1.7 million?)
https://www.vice.com/en/article/93ab8d/ ... rimination



*******


https://www.healthyplace.com/personalit ... -schizoids

https://exploringyourmind.com/gifted-ad ... they-like/

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/24/narcis ... se-family/

GLOBAL PROBLEMS AND THE CULTURE OF CAPITALISM
https://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/ ... 407412.pdf



********************

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_c ... f_the_Maya
Last edited by Catoptric on Thu Oct 13, 2022 8:38 am, edited 4 times in total.
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jyng1
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by jyng1 » Thu Oct 06, 2022 9:20 pm

New Yorker article: "Are You the Same Person You Used to Be?"

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022 ... MNYR012019

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elfsprin
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by elfsprin » Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:16 am

I really liked that! I'm a bit drunk so I won't post about it now but I have some thoughts.

Here's the text for folks who can't access it. I just copy/pasted, it might be fucked up from endless advertisements, IDK.
► Show Spoiler
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity - Simone Weil

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jyng1
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by jyng1 » Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:31 am

elfsprin wrote:
Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:16 am
I really liked that! I'm a bit drunk so I won't post about it now but I have some thoughts.

Here's the text for folks who can't access it. I just copy/pasted, it might be fucked up from endless advertisements, IDK.
► Show Spoiler
Here's the first episode of the documentary on the Dunedin Longitudinal Study. The whole programme was really interesting.

https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/why-am ... years-2016

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starjots
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by starjots » Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:47 am

The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and the Gospel of Wealth -- by Andrew Carnegie

Audible has a section where members can listen to a selection of free audio books, this was one of them. Andrew Carnegie was the major financial figure in the growth of US steel, being one of the 'robber barons' of the late 19th century. He sold out in 1901 for $500 million in a time when a day laborer made a few dollars a day.

What sets him apart is he decided to give the bulk of his fortune away during his own lifetime, much as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates talk about doing.

I found the book fascinating. It's divided into three parts. The first, on his humble beginnings, which he relishes retelling. Carnegie rose from humble roots, born in Scotland, emigrated to America at 13 with his family. His first job earned him $1.25 a week. He rose rapidly because he was intelligent, had an excellent memory, impressed his superiors, and really liked capitalism.

The second part is his business dealings. He glosses over stuff here -- like he's not that interested in such things anymore when he wrote this at the end of his life, or he's leaving out any details about his ruthlessness in business. What he does talk about is his always being with the workmen, building the best stuff, knowing exactly what things cost etc. There is a lot of detail -- but there obviously could be more.

The last part is his retirement*, how he is giving millions to this and that foundation and his thoughts on how to do this. He is interested in this stuff, and tries to reconcile how being filthy rich is justifiable in the first place. This is his gospel of wealth from the title. Capitalism is the best system which rises all boats, but a by product is some get filthy rich. These are the people with the right skill set. So the best thing for them to do is give it away as they see fit.

That being said, if someone didn't give their lucre away while alive, he thought government should tax the shit out of estates at death. I think this makes him an unusual person in the early twentieth century and worth reading.

Overall - worth a read.

*He also covers US and UK politics in the late 20th century and this was also fascinating. For example, after the Spanish American War (1898), President McKinley (a Republican) wanted to annex the Philippines from Spain. The Senate had to approve this, and Carnegie was much against this nascent imperialism. He tried to get Senator William Jennings Bryan (a famous Democratic politician of the time) to use his influence to kill the bill in the Senate. But Bryan decided if the Republicans wanted to make this mistake, it would help the Democratic party when everything fell apart, so he wasn't going to stop them. The bill was approved, the Philippines were annexed, and the US joined the imperialism train. Carnegie said he couldn't speak civilly to Bryan for years afterward.

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Catoptric
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Catoptric » Wed Oct 19, 2022 12:17 pm

Pedophila & Empire; Satan, Sodomy, & The Deep State Ch 1 25 Joachim Hagopian.epub
https://archive.org/details/pedophila-e ... pub_202103


Looking at a post on social media regarding the use of mummies as curiosities and "medical" purposes, someone mentioned how white slave owners would practice cannibalism and even had cook books passed down in their families (specifically for cannibalism?) Not sure if that's misinterpreted, or if they were getting mixed up with the African slave trade as well as strange situations as posted below regarding a Portuguese ship and a murder man onboard (who perhaps as punishment for rebelling against them was "served as an example?")

Wishlist:
Edible People: The Historical Consumption of Slaves and Foreigners and the Cannibalistic Trade in Human Flesh (Anthropology of Food & Nutrition Book 11) by Christian Siefkes
https://www.amazon.com/Edible-People-Co ... B09SH8DC73

"White Cannibalism in the Slave Trade: The Curious Case of the Schooner 'Arrogante' in 1837"
https://www.amherst.edu/news/events/cal ... ered%20man.

More details:
The real horrors of the transatlantic slave trade behind Taboo and Roots
https://theconversation.com/the-real-ho ... oots-73568
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aether
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by aether » Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:02 am

Matthew Perry - Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.
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aether
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by aether » Sat Nov 12, 2022 1:39 am

Ruben Dario was never an anti-imperialist. He supported the Spanish Empire. Just read this section of "to Roosevelt" poem. It appears Ruben Dario may have known the English language.
Tened cuidado. ¡Vive la América española!
Hay mil cachorros sueltos del León Español.

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Catoptric
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Catoptric » Wed Nov 16, 2022 11:14 am

Author and Economics Professor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Meeropol

PDF file of book, titled, 'Surrender How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution'
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/ ... 006137.pdf

Amazon book reviews.
https://www.amazon.com/Surrender-Clinto ... erReviews
**********************

Book summary:
Spoiler
Show
Michael Meeropol argues that the ballooning of the federal budget deficit was not a serious problem in the 1980s, nor were the successful recent efforts to get it under control the basis for the prosperous economy of the mid-1990s. In this controversial book, the author provides a close look at what actually happened to the American economy during the years of the "Reagan Revolution" and reveals that the huge deficits had no negative effect on the economy. It was the other policies of the Reagan years--high interest rates to fight inflation, supply-side tax cuts, reductions in regulation, increased advantages for investors and the wealthy, the unraveling of the safety net for the poor--that were unsuccessful in generating more rapid growth and other economic improvements.
Meeropol provides compelling evidence of the failure of the U.S. economy between 1990 and 1994 to generate rising incomes for most of the population or improvements in productivity. This caused, first, the electoral repudiation of President Bush in 1992, followed by a repudiation of President Clinton in the 1994 Congressional elections. The Clinton administration made a half-hearted attempt to reverse the Reagan Revolution in economic policy, but ultimately surrendered to the Republican Congressional majority in 1996 when Clinton promised to balance the budget by 2000 and signed the welfare reform bill. The rapid growth of the economy in 1997 caused surprisingly high government revenues, a dramatic fall in the federal budget deficit, and a brief euphoria evident in an almost uncontrollable stock market boom. Finally, Meeropol argues powerfully that the next recession, certain to come before the end of 1999, will turn the predicted path to budget balance and millennial prosperity into a painful joke on the hubris of public policymakers.
Accessibly written as a work of recent history and public policy as much as economics, this book is intended for all Americans interested in issues of economic policy, especially the budget deficit and the Clinton versus Congress debates. No specialized training in economics is needed.
"A wonderfully accessible discussion of contemporary American economic policy. Meeropol demonstrates that the Reagan-era policies of tax cuts and shredded safety nets, coupled with strident talk of balanced budgets, have been continued and even brought to fruition by the neo-liberal Clinton regime." --Frances Fox Piven, Graduate School, City University of New York
Michael Meeropol is Chair and Professor of Economics, Western New England College.
I'm having to argue with an idiot whose only response is a laughing emoji and saying, "You weren't even old enough to see what it was like before Reagan" and blaming Carter, instead of considering that Keynesian economics has a natural ebb and flow which doesn't try to coddle the wealthy and ensure greater wealth disparity and bigger bubbles of needless consumer consumption; deregulation, and the illusion of progress.

Column: How Reaganomics, deregulation and bailouts led to the rise of Trump
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/co ... e-of-trump

I posted all of these links and will probably unfriend the idiot even if he's sort of a relative (or a spouse of an aunt) if he does the laughing emoji bullshit one more time.

I probably could even remind him of the state of education prior to Reagan, and how that might be relevant, considering that nothing was really done to improve it, given that government was dumbed down and has mostly remained in 1970's era technology apart from military spending. . .

Remembering “A Nation At Risk”: Reflections on Politics and Policy
https://www.educationnext.org/rememberi ... cs-policy/

And when talking about the legacy of Reaganomics:

The Untold Story Of How Clinton's Budget Destroyed The American Economy
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-bil ... omy-2012-9

Clinton was being "tied down" to his constituency (not the general masses) for reelection and the fallout from that time, as well as a decade after it with the real estate crisis, is a big part in the "economic recovery" (the sham of the illusion that the economy was doing good.)

We are not in a Democracy if the only way people retain their position within government is being corrupted by interest groups, which is probably an indication we are in an oligarchy.

This also echoes the other Professor above:
"Nobel laureate Paul Krugman downplayed the success of Reagan's policies. "Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession," Krugman wrote in the New York Times. "But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before and the poverty rate had actually risen."
In addition, many of the consequences of the Reagan era would not be truly understood until the end of the Reagan presidency. For example, the deregulation of the financial services industry would play a major part in the Savings and Loan crisis, as well as the financial collapse of 2008."

Reaganomics: What It Was, Major Goals, and Long-Term Impact
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/reaganomics.asp

It's also echoed here:
https://www.aei.org/economics/again-the ... -tax-cuts/

The Ten Causes of the Reagan Boom: 1982-1997 (I suggest 'print' -> save as PDF to make the index text stand out better and to save it.)
https://www.hoover.org/research/ten-cau ... -1982-1997

Japans economy had a very strong growth in the 1980s, which corresponded to what was being mentioned with Reaganomics (which evidently was not controlled by our government policies.)

Reaganomics: Myth and Reality by Paul Craig Roberts
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10. ... 90.9944463

Understanding Japan's "Lost Decade" Real Estate Crisis
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/e ... he%201990s

**If that dipshit doesn't connect the dots to Japan's "progress" with that of Clinton's .com irrational exhuberance and the ensuing real estate crash a decade later (as well as the current absurdity with the stock market such as Tesla's shit company overvaluation, etc.) I'm going to give up on him**

1987 article: Shocks, Deadlocks, and Scorched Earth: Reaganomics and the Decline of U.S. Hegemony by Michael Moffitt
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40209061

1988: The Coming Meltdown of Traditional Capitalism
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... 9CA768DB76


1974, following the terms of Gerald Ford's Presidency, the political populist message was what would be called, "Reaganomics."
https://qz.com/895785/laffer-curve-ever ... eaganomics


Bush Sr. was criticized for attacking his then-political rival, although over the years his characterization of Reaganomics as voodoo economics has been validated.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/vo ... nomics.asp

I even had a Triple 9 society member echo the sentiment (he likes Carter as well,) and he was referring to other governments that have had no issue using traditional demand-side economies, which are doing really well and showing significant growth.)

The basic premise of Kenysian economics (which echoes that policy decisions depend on a system that permits a balanced ecosystem and not a forced economic "growth":
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fa ... basics.htm

They both have their drawbacks (though I do consider their economies to be in a far more safe place right now because they don't try to tamper-resist the inevitable downturns as they happen.) Demand-side (Keynesian) tries to force employment models which may only create wage inflation (weakening the value of the workforce) while yet, while the effects of supply-side are no doubt creating sinkholes in once affluent cities, which can only be filled with big box mega corporations that have a chain gang of once middle-class America.

A pretty cool slideshow:


THE 40-YEAR CON OF TRICKLE-DOWN REAGANOMICS: WHY REPUBLICAN’S TOXIC CLASS WARFARE ONLY SPREADS POVERTY
https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/th ... ds-poverty

The Murder of the U.S. Middle Class Began 40 Years Ago This Week
https://theintercept.com/2021/08/06/mid ... tco-strike

How the Right Gets Reagan Wrong
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... ng-215306/

"Conservatives face a rendezvous with destiny, a time for choosing. They can choose to follow the false prophets of Reaganism, and thereby hand power over to the left for decades to come. Or they can embrace the real Reagan and finally create the new Republican Party he dreamed of, a party that can make America the shining city on a hill he always knew we could be."






****************

Afterthoughts (it really is just the fall of Rome)

What History Teaches us about The Concentration of Wealth
https://fs.blog/history-concentration-of-wealth/




A Democracy of Dunces
https://fee.org/articles/a-democracy-of-dunces/

"Americans Are Emotionally Committed to Their Erroneous Economic Beliefs"

"The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, by George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan, offers another explanation for why pro-market policies don’t do well at the ballot box: Voters feel that interventionist policies are good policies and have no incentive to acquire information that would upset long-held preferences. Caplan writes, “In the naive public-interest view, democracy works because it does what voters want. In the view of most democracy skeptics, it fails because it does not do what voters want. In my view, democracy fails because it does what voters want.”"



Why Democracy collapses (pdf)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10 ... 2105053787
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Catoptric
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Catoptric » Sat Nov 19, 2022 2:24 pm

NSA document: Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence
https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/document ... strial.pdf


Hypothetical Dan Brown novel.


The Parable of Hank
http://www.clock.org/~fair/opinion/hank.html
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