Quotations and Literature Forum

Well, it appears things are starting to hit the fan a little faster than I expected. All this about the internet censorship and harming free speech has a lot of my friends and co-workers worried, especially with the looming "Mayan Prediction". I wanted to know, what are some of your opinions, if you don't mind my asking, of the state of the world at the moment?

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"The sun rises every day. What is to love? Lock the sun in a box. Force the sun to overcome adversity in order to rise. THEN, we will cheer! I often admire a beautiful sunrise, but I will never consider the sun a champion for having risen."
Garth Stein

Increasingly selfish and hypocritical.

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السلام عليكم

So called "First World" countries - greedy, intolerant and obscenely wasteful.

All countries - rich get richer, poor get poorer and the divide between these extremes gets larger.

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The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
e e cummings (1894 - 1962)

For an example of obscene consumption have a look at 'Man v Food'.

To see how stupidly wasteful we are, look at the hard rubbish left out for pick up.

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السلام عليكم

Inbuilt obsolescence and the desire for the newest design seems to me all wrong.

I still have a 43 year old Kenwood Chef Mixer in good working order. luckily it is such a classic that I can get it serviced and some spares.
My last fridge/freezer was 32 years old when it finally died and my washing machine 20 years old.

I will be lucky if the replacements give me 7 -10 years worth.

There is the argument that all this keeps people in work, but they could be employed on useful projects, that would improve their living standards. or those of others. Especially as most of the labour is paid at abysmal rates in poorer countries and the companies and shareholders the only ones grabbing huge profits.

Then, more people could train in craftsmanship for quality things and all the people who used to make a living doing reasonable repairs and servicing would return.

But hey, you can't go backwards and I certainly don't believe all the old ways were always the best etc, but I do feel as though we are racing headlong and ever faster to some kind of complete meltdown.

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The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
e e cummings (1894 - 1962)

Aye, my Kenwood needed a new gearbox a few years back, $36 and an hour of my time.

Vacuum died 2 days ago, uneconomical to repair.

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السلام عليكم

Usually i'd like to give a more reasoned response, but right now i don't have time, so this will have to make do.

The western governments can't/don't have the balls to regulate the whims of the free market, but it can regulate you. Therefore austerity packages all round for the 99%, multi million pound salaries for the 1%. Hurrah for neo-liberalism!

I'll write a more thought provoking response when i get he chance.

Agree entirely Mosh At a more local level, individual servo prosecuted for raising fuel price in response to supply problems. Oil companies play with prices continually, ACCC say "Our role is not price control" Government - silence. I think it was Nike some years ago who paid whatever basketball star more for his name than they spent on the whole (Offshore) manufacturing workforce. Mind you, I think these problems run deeper that just company executive, the unions have priced local labour out of the market with their excessive demands.
Politicians, self interested scum the world over.

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السلام عليكم