Comments

1
Being outraged about Harambe and climate change aren't mutually exclusive, you know.
2
we're not "reticent" to do something about ACC, we're actively being blocked from action by business interests.

those millions and millions of animals? already dead on the north end of the great barrier reef.
3
@1, true...however it's kind of hypocritical for a jet fuel guzzling celebrity to go on about the warranted death of an isolated animal while steadfastly contributing to the death of countless species. The gorilla thing is just a shitty turn of events.
4
.... you kids still hangin' around expecting gubmint to solve a problem?

Is your idolatry for government "leaders" so great that you can't look their track record of getting jackshit done.

Healthcare system? Fucked up.
Education system? Fucked up.
Justice system? Fucked up.
Transportation system? Fucked up.

You expect the same type of feeble minds that can't move vagrants from under a highway to change a global climate?

Fuck.
5
@4: maybe it would be less fucked up if Regressives would get the fuck out of the way. stop going into government to make sure it doesn't work.

what part of government does work? the 2 things Regressives fucking love: the Military and the Cops. plenty of cash to get things done there.
6
Who are the regressives? Because hopelessly clinging to consistently failed public policy and epically disproven economic theories from the early 1900's sounds like the "regressive" you mean.

From Vladivostok to Venezuela, the idea that government is interested in anything other than perpetuating itself has been made blazingly clear.

Check yourself on the war on poverty, public school system. We've thrown buckets of cash at these, and haven't made a dent. (We spend a higher percentage of GDP on public secondary education than other OECD countries). So many ain't the problem. Government is, in fact, the problem. Everything else is symptom.

But how cute – you still be-weeve.

Sucker.
7
@6 if/when you grow up you'll learn about this thing adults call "reality".
8
@4,6, ok then, what's your proposed solutions? Private industry (just as corrupt, selfish, and fucked up as any government)? Ignore it and hope the problem goes away? Or is it that you don't think there's a problem to begin with? That would fit the short-sighted beliefs of most typical Americans: wait until a problem is so massive that 100x the money, energy, and resources need to be spent fixing it than if a little preventative maintenance had been done ages ago. I suppose that suits the 1% though... as long as they come out smelling like a rose and with their pockets stuffed with cash, they don't give a shit about anyone else. America # 1!
9
The Regressives have been working overtime to prevent anything good from happening in our state and in our nation. They are getting what they want, a nation in decline and a populace so dispirited that they cannot act believing anything they do will not do any good. We know what would help on a number of fronts but are blocked at every turn by those who only want to hang onto the fortunes they have accumulated.
10

"....to prevent anything good from happening in our state and nation?"

What, precisely, is the fun that's being killed across the land – and who, in your estimation, is blocking it?

Because in fact free-market capitalism (or as close as we can get to it) has done more to lift people out of poverty, disease and malnutrition than government has ever imagined possible. (e.g. India's mean household wealth has tripled since 1990. That's 1/6th of the global population.)

Instead of bleating like sheep for the Dems, consider how much better things are getting because of democratization, liberalization and technical innovation.
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/1…

Most of these are driven and sustained by people and private property rights. Not governments and confiscation.

Why wouldn't people want to "hang on to the fortune's they accumulated"? (Mind if we come-over and rob shit from your place?)

The reason you're all so dispirited is because you believed, "Oh Yes We Can." But you can't say you weren't warned. Caveat emptor!

Just as Europe exported socialism and communism to the developing world, they are returning free-market capitalism back to us.

Stop waiting for help. Stop worrying about what other people make. Get a good education (not just a degree). Develop technical and soft skills. Bust your ass. People who do that – white, black, brown, Asian – generally tend to do quite well. It's the ones that sit around waiting for government to better their lot that get nowhere. Why would you look at the history of the world, and your own government and say: "Nope, this time its gonna' work. They promised." ?

Gullible.
11
I'm not aware of any specific individual who has never done anything about climate change and who was quick to condemn the shooting of a famous animal. What is his or her name?

By and large, I think the ones doing nothing about climate change (Republicans, the fossil fossil industry, know nothing chauvinist yahoos who like Donald Trump) are not at all quick to condemn shooting this animal or any other. Do any of them mind at all?

Pretty sure the ones who are unhappy about the gorilla's death have probably at least done one thing, maybe a small thing, about climate change. Or at the very least, would be willing to try if given a good opportunity.
12
For everyone who commented that being outraged about Harambe's death is not mutually exclusive with caring about extinction and / or climate change -- a fair point! I tried not to frame the issue as a zero-sum game, provocative title aside, but understand how it might come off that way.

That said -- do read the essay, which makes a much more nuanced argument about the struggle to capture the public imagination with the long-term trench warfare that is the conservation of uncharismatic species and populations.
13
@10: "Because in fact free-market capitalism (or as close as we can get to it) has done more to lift people out of poverty, disease and malnutrition than government has ever imagined possible."
So tell me, how many advances in medicine came entirely from the free market? How many diseases have been cured without Uncle Sam getting the ball rolling? Who has kept American agriculture solvent by managing food production? Who developed the Internet, a cornerstone of all modern prosperity?
Private industry makes improvements. For-profit companies make things cheaper and more efficient. But it is public research that makes ADVANCES, that makes the leaps forward that allow for the improvement of the human condition. The continuous-motion steam engine? Invented by James Watt at the state-run University of Glasgow. The polio vaccine? Invented by Jonas Salk in cooperation with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (a nonprofit founded by FDR) and the University of Pittsburgh (a public research university). Remember golden rice, one of the most stunning advances in nutritional biotechnology? Developed first by LSU, a publicly funded university.
14
a pedestrian hit at 30 mph instead of 25 mph is 70 percent more likely to be killed.

Ok, but that comes at the cost of the vehicle arriving 17% later.
15
@13 Yes, and these universities act as capitalist with their technology transfer departments, being compensated for their IP. They too are independent agents in markets of commercial property.

Now ask yourself – how are these universities funded? Magic money. Or taxes from productive businesses. And how are these inventors compensated? Only by their university salary – or are most also part of venture firms? And who underwrites their chairs, departments, grants and facilities. Usually companies or individuals who made a shitload of money in business. It's called philanthropy.

For you to think that public universities aren't an expression of capitalism is naive in the extreme. Has it every occurred to you that the world's greatest universities are in the US – because of their relationship to the resources and orientation of a free market that rewards ideas?

Don't indulge your own stupidity.
16
You, of course, don't understand that universities invent stuff because the make a ton of money to pay for everything else. And that they have to intersect research with commerce to attract faculty.

You know that, right?

http://comotion.uw.edu/
17
It's so easy to be an armchair quarterback. Try doing it in the real world. It's way harder than you think.
18
@15, 16: So you're saying that when the government funds research, it's NOT really the government's doing because the tax money was derived from private sources. By your logic, ALL funding is actually the government's accomplishment because the money came from a mint at some point. And apparently you think somehow that the research conducted at public universities is for profit? If you think research universities come anywhere NEAR recouping their investments simply by selling their discoveries, well, you must never have set foot in one.
You're a joke.

But go ahead, tell me how charitable donations and public funding and undirected research are all actually just the free market in action. Demonstrate further how little you know about public research.

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