Venting thread that still excludes eddy (2)

[jmcd]

Wow I realised the French government got a tip-off off the Turks that they never took into account but the Belgians take the biscuit.

Schengen, like other European (Union) projects, is essentially a utopian(/dystopian) (pipe) dream to start with. And now only the Iberian and Baltic borders and one or two others are still left open.

Neither the federalism nor the multiple languages is problems in Belgium, both of which exist in other countries; it's how they handle it.
Same with the communication: people already have the communication they need; they just don't do anything with it. No need for any EU-level CIA.

And considering existing treaties to be more important than the security of the country would be even more of a bureaucratic nightmare. When people say "the pen is mightier than the sword", that would not appear to be the intention.

[Viktor77]

Wow I realised the French government got a tip-off off the Turks that they never took into account but the Belgians take the biscuit.

Schengen, like other European (Union) projects, is essentially a utopian(/dystopian) (pipe) dream to start with. And now only the Iberian and Baltic borders and one or two others are still left open.

Neither the federalism nor the multiple languages is problems in Belgium, both of which exist in other countries; it's how they handle it.
Same with the communication: people already have the communication they need; they just don't do anything with it. No need for any EU-level CIA.

And considering existing treaties to be more important than the security of the country would be even more of a bureaucratic nightmare. When people say "the pen is mightier than the sword", that would not appear to be the intention.

But when you make this sort of argument that we must do everything for security, what you're essentially saying is that we have the right to curb rights in the name of security, think about the Patriot Act, or intrusive airport screening, etc. It's almost a fascist argument, that security trumps everything and that we must sacrifice our rights in the name of securing the nation. Maybe I'm going too far with what you said but this is how it sounds to me.

I agree that we must consider the security of Europe against terrorism, but I don't see why securing Europe should mean forfeiting the accomplishments Europe has made. With Schengen Europe is essentially one giant country when it comes to movement. What we need to do is reinforce the external borders of Schengen. Any country unwilling, like Greece, should then be given an ultimatum, either make it happen or be kicked out of Schengen, and the onus falls to the next state that has an external border. If we protected the external borders we'll stop the migrants and terrorists in their tracts. Ideally all countries outside of Schengen should also have secure borders like Serbia and Macedonia but we know this not to be true so the responsibility lies on Schengen countries to secure their external borders. Instead of adding controls and building a fence on all internal borders we should be building a fence and adding more controls on external borders. That will eliminate the entire need for internal controls and borders and maintain Schengen in its original spirit.

Furthermore I do not see evidence that shows Europe is sharing information well. Perhaps some countries share and distribute information better but each country should be on the same level. So Belgium needs to both bring their respective authorities up to snuff, but the EU needs to take a larger role in promoting communication across its member states. I don't see an EU CIA as a useless idea at all. It upholds the spirit of the EU. Each country can maintain their own CIA-equivalent which works with an EU-level organisation. We created the EU yet we seem reluctant to give the EU more multinational power, even though that's the purpose. We should have more faith in the EU to serve as the uniting force of its member states, those weak and strong alike.

Yeah yeah yeah you can tell me all you want to run for the EU Parliament. I'm not trying to say everything's rosy with the EU, but Europe agreed to come together to form the EU so let's use it to out benefit.

[Yng]

to whose benefit? who is this 'our'? who is this 'we' that created the EU? are you a citizen of the EU now?? because as far as I am aware you are just doing some long-term-ish tourism with your husband, which is fine but not the best position from which to lecture in the inclusive first person plural.

It is a total strawman to say that we are suggesting we should throw everything away in the name of security. We are endorsing the (probably temporary) reintroduction of border controls between countries in the EU. The Patriot Act is awful - of course it is. But we don't have to run into the streets screaming for the compulsory detention of all Muslims just to be consistent with the position that some minor inconveniences (and that is literally all border controls are; UK citizens somehow manage to cope with having to pass through them every time they go to the rest of the EU) might be worth it in order to preserve security under unusual circumstances.

Unless you want to be the one to tell the families of 45 people killed by a bomber who might otherwise have been easily detained at a border that, well, we COULD have stopped him at the border very easily, and the Belgians SHOULD have stopped him, but in the face of the incompetence of our neighbouring police force all we could do was shrug and say 'but won't somebody think of the American tourists and the inconvenience they will face crossing borders? a borderless Europe is a freer Europe (tm) and I'm afraid doing otherwise is literally fascism according to this guy I spoke to who said he was really annoyed because he had to wait at a border for two hours whilst doing the Grand Tour of Europe? oh and that guy was me'

You also seem to have this wonderful idea that ~all terror comes from without~, but this is just clearly untrue. You are aware that (almost?) all of those involved in these attacks were EU citizens, right? Certainly part of the current problem is the (now winding down) huge influx of refugees via Greece, who weren't very interested in border control (and fair enough, what do they owe the EU at this point) but the two problems are distinct, if linked.

[Vijay]

I guess this thread went OT again.

If we protected the external borders we'll stop the migrants and terrorists in their tracts.

You have no idea how sick I am of people in Europe complaining about "the migrants."

[jmcd]

I do not support the Patriot Act at all and I don't think security should trump all. But its main rivals ought to be freedom, environmental protection, social equality, research, education and cultural diversity, not bureaucratic procedure.

Some of the antiterror measures i place in France are somewhat tedious and largely ineffectual. If I have to go through the nursery now to get to the primary school, it's a slight bit of nuisance but for a terrorist it'll just mean blowing up the nursery. Same for showing the contents of my rucksack: if I were intent on blowing something up, I'd make even the slightest bit of effort to hide it and it'd pass. But at least they're trying, I suppose, and it isn't really infringing on civil liberties.

I question the description of Schengen zone as an accomplishment and the idea that we should have faith in the EU. I think there is a reason why these projects are significantly more popular among bureaucrats and politicians than among the general populace. And, if a EU-level CIA upholds the spirit of the EU, it's not just useless, it's downright noxious.

[hwhatting]

Schengen, like other European (Union) projects, is essentially a utopian(/dystopian) (pipe) dream to start with. And now only the Iberian and Baltic borders and one or two others are still left open.

To be honest, I quite like the open borders. And Europe has cross-border commuters and companies doing just-in-time deliveries across Europe, to whom these controls are really disruptive. This is why the EU governments are trying to solve the issue of migrants trekking through Europe without keepin the internal borders permanently closed.
Besides, I'm not especially convinced that border controls, as they are done now, really solve the security issue - they look to me more like actionism in order to soothe public opinion. Reinstating border controls is just a relatively easy way for politicians to say "Hey, we do what we can to protect our nation!" What is needed is solid police work. And while in the case of the perpetrators of the Paris attacks one could at least argue that in theory strict border controls on all crossings might have caught them, this is not true for most of the terrorist attacks of the last years, where the perpetrators mostly came from inside the country. By that logic, we should put up checkpoints inside our cities and on all municipal borders...

[k1234567890y]

unrelated, I am making an announcement:

Tay and babybunny2044 and hatsunix are trustworthy people, they are my brothers and sisters online, if anyone tries to make me distrust any of Tay or babybunny2044 or hatsunix , or tries to persuade me that any of Tay or babybunny2044 or hatsunix is a liar, they are trolling in front of me, harming my brothers and sisters, without any single exception.

Anyone who is trying to attack Tay, babybynny2044 or hatsunix is being my enemy that is confronting me, don't do that.

[Salmoneus]

unrelated, I am making an announcement

I'm really not sure that's true.

After all, if you stand in a village and nigeria and shout something in Evenk, you're not really making an announcement - you're certainly not warning anyone of anything. These things require not just one person making sound, but a certain relevant audience for whom that sound is meaningful. So you may be venting, but I don't think you're announcing, you're just fantasizing about making an announcement. "Masturbating" might be a better word than "announcing".

[Vijay]

I know I've only been here for just under two months, and most people I've met here seem nice enough, but gee, some come off as awfully rude and condescending. I really don't see why they have to be.

[ObsequiousNewt]

I know I've only been here for just under two months, and most people I've met here seem nice enough, but gee, some come off as awfully rude and condescending. I really don't see why they have to be.

AND THERE IT IS

[KathTheDragon]

inb4 the same people are rude and condescending in response to that comment.

On the flip side, I also don't have a clue why k#y made that post.

[Xephyr]

inb4 the same people are rude and condescending in response to that comment.

On the flip side, I also don't have a clue why k#y made that post.

The "rude and condescending" people were me and Travisb not believing in the American Languages Are Conlangs Invented By Basque Monks Hypothesis in the Na-Dene thread. The rudest things said in it were me saying he has no evidence and travisb saying he wasn't paying attention. Some people just can't handle criticism-- this is still a linguistics board, right?

[Vijay]

Calling everyone stupid is also rude.

And JSYK, you still don't get my point, but forget it.

Plus you're not the only people I'm talking about. But anyway!

On the flip side, I also don't have a clue why k#y made that post.

Maybe just in case someone does know them? Idk.

[Xephyr]

I just did a Search. The last time someone called someone else stupid on this board was December 20th. The perpetrator was thetha. The recipient was Pole, the.

[KathTheDragon]

Some people just can't handle criticism-- this is still a linguistics board, right?

Since when do you have to be rude and condescending when you criticise?

[Vijay]

I just did a Search. The last time someone called someone else stupid on this board was December 20th. The perpetrator was thetha. The recipient was Pole, the.

No, the last time someone called someone else stupid was this:

My the idiocy astounds me.

You guys clearly don't understand linguistics. [...] "open-mindedness" is not an excuse for ignorance and stupidity.

[jal]

No, the last time someone called someone else stupid was this:

My the idiocy astounds me.

You guys clearly don't understand linguistics. [...] "open-mindedness" is not an excuse for ignorance and stupidity.

Apart from being rude, it's also ablist. And, if you need to use such words to make your point... you know how that sentence finishes.

That said, this is a venting thread. The general concensus is that one can vent here without being critisized. So I want to call on everyone to respect that.


JAL

[Viktor77]

I've met a lot of friends on this board but it is true that this board can behave like elementary school kids at the playground sometimes.

Sometimes I think that if you aren't among the board's power circle you have to be either a masochist or just one of those people who's always above it all to be an active member here. Unfortunately I fall into the masochist category. I've left this board so many times but keep coming back. But that's because there are some great people here who I enjoy conversing with.

[jal]

Then again, any place on the internet is full of people acting like they're elemetary school kids at the playground (and yes, that's a rant too).

I for one am glad you're still among us Vik :).


JAL

[Salmoneus]

I know I've only been here for just under two months, and most people I've met here seem nice enough, but gee, some come off as awfully rude and condescending. I really don't see why they have to be.

Because a) some people are awfully rude and narcissistic, and the occasional reminder that they aren't the only people in the world is probably good for them, and certainly good for our ability to cope with them; and b) sometimes people don't seem to be reachable through reasoned dialogue, and it's necessary to make clear just how wrong and/or annoying they are.

When it comes to things like the AmeriNyland Hypothesis, I do do my best to use my indoor voice as long as possible - but sometimes rational argument just lulls people into thinking that they're within the domain where people have rational arguments, and it needs to be pointed out that they're actually being crackpots like the people in the crackpot thread, and if they weren't members of the board people would be laughing about them in the crackpot thread.
Long experience of many, many crackpots on the board over the years has demonstrated this. Nonetheless, I do try to stay polite as long as I can.

When it comes to the occasional sarcastic (but generally true and useful) rejoinder to narcissistic arseholes, however, or people who are at that moment being narcissistic arseholes, I have no regrets.


Viktor: there is no "power circle". LB, Zompist and I probably yell at each other more than anybody else. But if you have any complaints about people mistreating you, do let us know. I think we've actually got a pretty good record on responding to concerns like that. Like when we banned a couple of our friends who had been here for a decade because they were being abusive to people [and in the process we drove off a bunch of people you probably think were in our "power circle"]

[jal]

Viktor: there is no "power circle". LB, Zompist and I probably yell at each other more than anybody else.

In no definiton of "power circle" it's mentioned that the ones inside can't yell at each other ;).

and in the process we drove off a bunch of people you probably think were in our "power circle"

Misunderstanding who's in the power circle doens't mean there's no power circle :).

It's more like a power... triangle then? :)

Rant: Damn, all Easter choclates and candy are 50% off. I shouldn't have bought them, now I'm just trying to lose the calories I gained today, tonight at the gym, instead of the ones I was trying to lose that were already on me...


JAL

[Viktor77]

I for one am glad you're still among us Vik .

And I'm glad you're among us too, Jal.

And to Sal, I may have overstated the extent of a "power circle" but I do think there is one, with you and LB and a few other very well established old timers taking part. Of course I also have one of this board's highest post counts so for all I know, from the POV of others I probably belong to it too.

And since the banishing of Pthug/Pthag who was basically a cyberbully (though I don't know if it was exclusively towards me or if he just had a stick up his ass), things have been pretty good. If there are any heated exchanges I'm sure it's equally as much my fault as the other, usually. I didn't much appreciated being so attacked for my cautiously optimistic support of Sanders in Ephemera. But that's yesterday's news.

[ObsequiousNewt]

No, the last time someone called someone else stupid was this:

My the idiocy astounds me.

You guys clearly don't understand linguistics. [...] "open-mindedness" is not an excuse for ignorance and stupidity.

Apart from being rude, it's also ablist.

what

[Chagen]

I'm so lonely. I've always been a loner, but as time goes by I start to truly grasp how pathetically lonely I am. This is my average schoolweek-day:

-Wake up; on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I wake at about 8-9 AM and walk to school at around 9-10; on Tuesdays and Thursdays I wake at 6:30 and catch a ride from my dad to school at 7
-Go to school
-Spend the first few hours before class starts by aimlessly browsing the internet on my laptop, maybe grab something to eat and drink. I usually do this in the UC (the area meant for chilling at) or in the library (not as much now that I use the UC)
-Go to class silently and continue to shitpost on the internet take notes from the lecture
-Leave; on Tuesdays and Thursdays I blow away the hours between the next class by browsing my laptop again and taking solo walks around the campus while listening to music; other days I have only one class so I just go home
-Go home. It's about a 30-minute walk, 20 if I rush it, but it's really hot and my backpack's heavy so I don't like to run
-Come home slightly tired and sweaty. Go to my room
-Masturbate (usually). Aimlessly browse the internet on my laptop, maybe play games or read (usually too depressed to do those though). Maybe go for a walk or two around my apartment complex
-Realize a few hours in that I'm not actually enjoying this. Or anything. Do it anyway
-Evade my parents when they get home and hole up in my room. Usually get into an argument with them. If they ask me to do something then I do it as quickly as possible and return to my room
-Eat dinner; my family has long since given up eating together, so my mom usually just delivers the food to my door
-Continue to mindlessly browse the internet
-Go to bed at around 11:30-1:30
-Repeat

This is my life. I have accurately described literally the past two years of my life with this one outline. Every day is the same. I don't talk to anyone besides my parents and I usually try to avoid them. I would be a hikikomori if not for college and my like for solo walks outside. Even on the internet I am a recluse. You guys don't see it as much because you've already gotten past my shell. But I mostly just browse the internet: I don't post and talk on it as much because I have a penchant for starting shit with my bad temper and habit for passive-aggressive insulting (as those who have been on this forum since I first joined can attest). I don't even have online friends outside of this place and the CBB, much less offline ones.

Now, I usually just shrug in depression and move on, but I saw someone two days ago that changed me. I'll have to tell you about my grandfather (on my mom's side) to explain why. He was an Arizonan black person, who's old enough to remember making money through picking cotton and brutal racism. He was an army veteran in 'nam, and he and his wife took in my half-brother when he was born (she died later, only a few months before I was born). He is nearly as reclusive as I am. He didn't talk to anyone and spent his time alone. My mom says that he was like this to her and her brother too. I actually lived with him and my brother for two years or so due to some school stuff (long story). During that entire time, I didn't have a single conversation with him.

Well, about 13 years ago, he was helping this woman at night by the side of a highway, upon where a speeding teenager in a mustang collided into him with enough force to send him into the air, after which he collided with the pavement. Miraculously, he survived, able to walk, talk, and (mostly) take care of himself. The fucker in the mustang got away with it. Of course, such a brutal accident had irreversible effects. His health had been getting lower and lower as the years went by. He could still walk, but not do much else, and was suffering from alzheimer's and dementia. A few weeks ago, though, he collapsed out of nowhere with pneumonia, and was sent to the hospital in a coma. The doctors were blunt: he wasn't going to survive for much longer.

As of now he is in Hospice. He is in a coma, and is dying. He wont survive. He can't move at all or do anything. The doctors took out his IV (his body wasn't taking it), so he's literally starving to death. Me and my mom visited him. And at that moment, I was reminded of my own mortality. He probably wont make it to the end of this month.

My depression does not leave me with much emotion, but it does leave me with the ability to be terrified of my own death. One day, I will die, having lived an existence that when compared to merely human civilization is an ember; compared to the incomprehensible senescence of the universe it is not even a subatomic particle. So many thousands of years of human civilization I will not see. There is so much the future could hold, yet I wont see it. And will I die alone? Will I spend this already pathetic existence alone and wasted in my home? My grandfather has no close friends and all of his relatives besides my mom and her two sons are hundreds or thousands of miles away. He has nobody to even come to his funeral. Will it be the same for me? Will I be buried unceremoniously, with no one to visit my grave?

No wonder the afterlife is a universal aspect in religions around the world. Reality is cruel.

I have so many things I want to do. But can I even do them? I will die with so many stories and ideas of my own unrealized simply because there is not enough time on earth. And now I've spent so long as a reclusive hikikomori I don't even know how to fix it. I hate growing up. I hate college. I hate my mortality salience. I hate everything.

...I don't even know what the fuck I'm saying here. Christ.

[Vijay]

I was going to respond to stuff that came before this, but I'll come back to that. I feel this is more important.

Chagen, for whatever it's worth, I'm very sorry to hear all of that. My last grandparent died three years ago. I've seen her maybe five times, the last time being twelve years ago. My dad assured me I would see her again before she died, but of course, that didn't happen. It would have been nice if I could've seen her again, but well, what can you do? Sometimes things just don't work out. I would like to see her house again sometime, though, and the lady who used to take care of her in her old age and her son. Oh, and of course, I'm lonely, too. I don't talk to anyone else offline, either (unless maybe it's like a friend of my mom's visiting, or answering the phone occasionally when my parents aren't home), and don't talk to many people online.

But enough about me. We never know how much we will or won't accomplish before we die, until we do accomplish things. But even if there are a lot of things that you don't manage to accomplish in the end, at least you do have these ideas, and even that is worth it, really; not having realized your ideas or dreams doesn't make your existence any less valid. And I know it's hard to believe and probably even harder to actually do, and maybe I could say something more helpful if I knew you better than I do now, but I think you will manage to do what you want to do in your life. You seem like a pretty reasonable person to me, at least. I'd say that's a good sign.