KevinCarroll

removed by user --post didn't add anything (if a moderator could delete this it'd be great, thanks much).

Hearing this conversation is very refreshing, and explains these ideas way better than I ever could. I grew up on a small farm in rural Illinois. We never had money, and had less by the time I was moving out of the house. Until my late 20's I could not escape the no to blue collar culture, no matter how low the pay or how entry level the position I could not get hired at an office, and I lost track of the times where I had to fill in for a manager position just to train an external hire for the position later leaving me as a grunt at the factory or restaurant I was working at. Eventually, I saved enough to go back to school, and now several years as a software engineer, I am both economically and culturally, pretty 'middle class' and having first hand experienced both cultures really opened my eyes to the class structure in the US. But even after living in both, my past attempts to explain this have fallen short, now I have a great discussion to refer people to when it comes up. As far as prejudice being a function of class difference goes, there is a huge connection there, but I think it has less to do with the source of it and more related to its continuation. Being a member of the lower rung of society it is hard to not feel forgotten if not oppressed, this provides a lot of angst, and when you are being told that you hold a position of privilege because of your race or gender it sounds ridiculous, and how dare one of these rich, fresh-fruit/veggie-eating a-holes tell me what words to say or thoughts to think! At least for myself and people I know, it was less about how convinced I was of my own position and more that I knew this 'SJW' had never even seen the fighting in the trenches let alone lived there. These PC rules are just another way for the elite to make you jump through more hoops for their amusement. This is especially heightened by the fact that if you came from the lower class, especially in a rural area, you've known true blue white supremecists, you know you aren't acting like them so no way you are being racist/homophobic/sexist/etc. Learning to explain things in non-antagonistic (but also not patronizing) terms goes a HUGE distance here.

I do agree that our new internet based enculturation has increased our focus on commodification especially for content creators of some type, but I totally disagree with the end result. I think it is improving the integrity of art as this allows/encourages artists to manage their own distribution, sales, and marketing. The more this happens the less relevant labels, publishers, etc become. I have nothing against these management entities, but think about how much influence they have had over the direction of mass-consumed art, and now that an artist is much more able to manage the business side themselves AND be successful, they can attempt to distribute their raw vision. On the point previous (reduction of individuality) the trend of self managed expression, coupled with the increased connectivity and access to other expression has, in my opinion, also significantly increased the sense of individuality rather than reduced it. As we abstract away our physical identities and put more importance on who we are, our likes, dislikes, voice, and voices we listen to, we are emphasizing the concept of true identity rather than who our meat is. I think this is the key reason we have seen so many identity bound social issues arise. We are nearing absolute control of our identities, but have yet to develop a good API for publishing our own identity definitions, so others may not see or understand those definitions and experience a powerful sense of dissonance. This is additionally supported by your point on reduced rejection of personalized advertising and data mining, when the idea of who I am matters to me, then my time matters to me, I want to spend it fully on expressing myself or satisfying my desires, so if 30 seconds of that time is going to be spent on watching an ad, I would much prefer it be based on something I might be interested in, not something a generic fan of the show I'm watching is interested in. We aren't losing our attention spans, we are becoming more elective about what deserves our attention, just as we aren't becoming mindless consumers or sell-out artists, we are taking in information/experiences that fit our individual wants, and making our self-expression become self-sustaining.

Is the UCB just a convenient place for you all to do these, or is there more of a connection like did a number of you come up through their ranks?

I know there isn't much chance of this happening, but what I really want is for Trump to not get the nomination,but keep on truckin as an independent and face off in the general election with Sanders and Rubio or Jeb!. I think that debate would be INCREDIBLE. Sanders' sincere passion, Rubio/Jeb providing a stoic and intentional counterbalance, then Trump as the wild card. While I'd love to back Sanders, I'll automatically cast my vote for whichever candidate is able to most successfully shut down Trump's traps while simultaneously fully addressing the questions, and conversely (and regretfully) vote for Trump if the other candidates lose face to his trollery.

I'm a big fan of the layman-ized idea that time travel isn't possible, not because of any paradox-check or other fundamental rule of metaphysics, but instead it isn't possible because there is no place to travel to as time is just the perception of an internal component of a static set of effectively simultaneous 'events.' Though it sounds kinda crazy like that, but it helps if you think of it like a novel, from ouside of the story all events are defined as it is just a book sitting on the shelf, but from the perspective from inside the novel (which we can experience by reading it) the story unfolds as a linear set of events ("time").

The oldest human stories have apocalyptic scenarios, I don't think it is a desire for anarchy or simplicity, but more everyone is a part of some subculture with a set of morals, traditions, etc that are different from the majority, sometimes in subtle ways sometimes not so much. We know the world has had access to the knowledge we have but still 'they' don't fully accept 'our' views so really the only true hope for fixing the world to our view is to end this one. We aren't so optimistic to accept that only the true believers will be left so we still have us and them. They aren't necessarily serial killers and what not, but since they lack our values and moral fortitude then they can be corrupted without the restraints from classic society. I think we get the archetypes like tyrant rebuilder, raider, mutant, etc from why that type of person is one of them and not us. So it is us vs them attempting to rebuild society with the our true values. This is why the protaganists are always trying to reestablish, even if it is sort of on the back-burner to survival. I don't think most people have this impulse in spades, but I think we can all identify a little with the desire to see a what if.