Has it ever changed your life?

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I Shrugged
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Has it ever changed your life?

Post by I Shrugged » Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:39 pm

Up till now, has your life been markedly affected by the voters' choice of US President, or by the replacement of a Supreme Court Justice?

I don't think mine has. I'm not saying that I didn't notice, care, or complain. Or that my tax rate didn't change. But real substantive change in my life? No. Another way of asking is, if you didn't know, didn't follow, and didn't care who was the President or on the SC, but instead just went about your life, would it have actually changed in some meaningful way because of said office holders, versus the probable effects of the other party's office holders? (Not considering third parties etc.)
Last edited by I Shrugged on Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by Mountaineer » Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:56 pm

No.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by Tortoise » Mon Oct 05, 2020 5:50 pm

Yes. The best example I can think of is probably the Dubya administration creating the TSA as part of the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Air travel became much more of a hassle for me after the TSA was created. It's sufficiently irritating and time-consuming that it often factors into my decision of whether flying is even worth the hassle.

Would any other president have created the TSA like Dubya did? If they were Republican or Democrat, probably. But I suspect that if we had a libertarian (lowercase l) president at the time, they wouldn't have done that. They probably would have let the airports temporarily beef up their own security, which could have been dialed back later after the immediate risk and panic was long gone.

Instead, now we're forever stuck with a grumpy federal agency of security theater that will probably never stop randomly patting down 90-year-old Grandma after making her take off her belt and shoes.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by Mountaineer » Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:25 pm

Should have said not significantly. ;D

Getting searched by TSA is a nothing burger for me. YMMV. 8)
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by I Shrugged » Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:38 pm

Tortoise wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 5:50 pm
Yes. The best example I can think of is probably the Dubya administration creating the TSA as part of the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Air travel became much more of a hassle for me after the TSA was created. It's sufficiently irritating and time-consuming that it often factors into my decision of whether flying is even worth the hassle.

Would any other president have created the TSA like Dubya did? If they were Republican or Democrat, probably. But I suspect that if we had a libertarian (lowercase l) president at the time, they wouldn't have done that. They probably would have let the airports temporarily beef up their own security, which could have been dialed back later after the immediate risk and panic was long gone.

Instead, now we're forever stuck with a grumpy federal agency of security theater that will probably never stop randomly patting down 90-year-old Grandma after making her take off her belt and shoes.
See the bold. I think you make my point. We have to be real, I'm talking about the two parties whose candidates win the elections and nominate justices. I'll edit the post to reflect that.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by Cortopassi » Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:30 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:39 pm
Up till now, has your life been markedly affected by the voters' choice of US President, or by the replacement of a Supreme Court Justice?

I don't think mine has. I'm not saying that I didn't notice, care, or complain. Or that my tax rate didn't change. But real substantive change in my life? No. Another way of asking is, if you didn't know, didn't follow, and didn't care who was the President or on the SC, but instead just went about your life, would it have actually changed in some meaningful way because of said office holders, versus the probable effects of the other party's office holders? (Not considering third parties etc.)
As Mountaineer said, not significantly. Maybe we should have Xan shut down the non-investing portions of this forum until after Nov 3rd....
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Oct 06, 2020 7:00 am

Cortopassi wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:30 pm
I Shrugged wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:39 pm
Up till now, has your life been markedly affected by the voters' choice of US President, or by the replacement of a Supreme Court Justice?

I don't think mine has. I'm not saying that I didn't notice, care, or complain. Or that my tax rate didn't change. But real substantive change in my life? No. Another way of asking is, if you didn't know, didn't follow, and didn't care who was the President or on the SC, but instead just went about your life, would it have actually changed in some meaningful way because of said office holders, versus the probable effects of the other party's office holders? (Not considering third parties etc.)
As Mountaineer said, not significantly. Maybe we should have Xan shut down the non-investing portions of this forum until after Nov 3rd....
Noooooooooo............ That would significantly change my life. ;D
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by pp4me » Wed Oct 07, 2020 8:57 am

Here's one way that the election of a president can change a person's life significantly.....

Imagephoto upload url
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by I Shrugged » Wed Oct 07, 2020 10:42 am

pp4me wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 8:57 am
Here's one way that the election of a president can change a person's life significantly.....
Do you think any of the alternate two party general election candidates would have done much differently? For instance Al Gore? They have all been in the thrall of the military/intelligence/think tank war machine. Do you disagree?

Trump being the exception in this case.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by pp4me » Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:05 am

I Shrugged wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 10:42 am
pp4me wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 8:57 am
Here's one way that the election of a president can change a person's life significantly.....
Do you think any of the alternate two party general election candidates would have done much differently? For instance Al Gore? They have all been in the thrall of the military/intelligence/think tank war machine. Do you disagree?

Trump being the exception in this case.
No way of knowing how Gore would have handled 9/11. He probably would have had to do something to retaliate in Afghanistan but maybe we could have skipped the whole WMD in Iraq fiasco. I think that with GWB it was mostly about finishing what his father started with Saddam Hussein. Gore might not have felt the need to do that. His main thing was combatting climate change which would have probably also been a government boondoggle but probably less destructive than Bush's wars.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by jalanlong » Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:23 am

I Shrugged wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:39 pm
Up till now, has your life been markedly affected by the voters' choice of US President, or by the replacement of a Supreme Court Justice?

I don't think mine has. I'm not saying that I didn't notice, care, or complain. Or that my tax rate didn't change. But real substantive change in my life? No. Another way of asking is, if you didn't know, didn't follow, and didn't care who was the President or on the SC, but instead just went about your life, would it have actually changed in some meaningful way because of said office holders, versus the probable effects of the other party's office holders? (Not considering third parties etc.)
Not really an answer to the question but is it not amazing how many people think that an election so affects their lives that they are crying and breaking down at the thought of the opposite party taking the White House (or a Supreme Court justice dying). I cannot imagine what it is like to live like those people. Nor the people who will travel to an campaign event, stand behind a candidate while they are speaking, hold up signs and cheer at everything they say. I just cannot understand those people. If you really want to effect change in some way you feel passionate about, aren't there a lot more productive ways to go about it rather than to spend your time holding a sign and cheering a candidate as they spew generic platitudes about "investing in the future"?
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by Lonestar » Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:29 am

tomfoolery wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:29 pm
GWB refusing to renew the clinton assault weapon ban has changed my life for the better.

Standard capacity gun magazines that retail priced for $20 used to sell for $80 to $100 because they had to be made pre-1994 and grandfathered in. Today they’d probably cost $300 a pop if the AWB renewed. Now they are $10 to $15

Although at the tremendous cost of billions of Americans slain by assault weapons.
You are exaggerating!!! Fact checking, and relying on Joe Biden's accurate data, there has only been 300 million deaths from assault weapons. Wait a minute........was that Covid deaths? I can't remember.......

And by the way, Ive got pre-1994 U.S.G.I. mags I paid $35 for. I was there too.

To the OP's question. I can't think of any presidential action that has changed my life to any extent. I honestly believe that the coming election can possibly have several affects on issues that will change my life. Maybe effects that are irreversible. I sure hope I am wrong.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by Tortoise » Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:46 pm

As doodle has pointed out many times, the U.S. President has a very visible symbolic role. Sure, he also does some real work, but a large part of what the President does is to represent the federal government both to Americans and the rest of the world as a figurehead.

That's probably why Americans usually get so riled up over presidential elections even though for most of them, the president tends to have very little direct influence over their daily lives. We want to see "our" values represented as prominently as possible by our top-level leader.

The increased tension that Americans are feeling in recent years is largely due to the fact that our diverse cultural values used to overlap to at least some extent but are rapidly becoming more mutually exclusive. As I believe jalanlong pointed out on a different thread, it's not always possible to find middle ground between two values if they are sufficiently different. If they are mutually exclusive, finding middle ground may actually be impossible. In those cases, unity is achieved not by merging the two opposing values but by embracing one and rejecting the other.

Because of the increased cultural tension and polarization, I agree with Lonestar that the stakes are probably higher in the coming election. American culture is at a crossroads. The President still doesn't have much direct power over our individual daily lives, but he definitely has an influence over the direction and speed of the American cultural shift we've been experiencing.

Another way of saying all of this is that when we vote for a U.S. President, we're effectively voting for the version of American culture that we want to see publicly encouraged at home and represented abroad. Does it immediately affect my daily life today? No. But does it affect my daily life eventually? Almost certainly, because culture is more than just an abstract idea.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by doodle » Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:53 pm

Tortoise wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:46 pm
As doodle has pointed out many times, the U.S. President has a very visible symbolic role. Sure, he also does some real work, but a large part of what the President does is to represent the federal government both to Americans and the rest of the world as a figurehead.

That's probably why Americans usually get so riled up over presidential elections even though for most of them, the president tends to have very little direct influence over their daily lives. We want to see "our" values represented as prominently as possible by our top-level leader.

The increased tension that Americans are feeling in recent years is largely due to the fact that our diverse cultural values used to overlap to at least some extent but are rapidly becoming more mutually exclusive. As I believe jalanlong pointed out on a different thread, it's not always possible to find middle ground between two values if they are sufficiently different. If they are mutually exclusive, finding middle ground may actually be impossible. In those cases, unity is achieved not by merging the two opposing values but by embracing one and rejecting the other.

Because of the increased cultural tension and polarization, I agree with Lonestar that the stakes are probably higher in the coming election. American culture is at a crossroads. The President still doesn't have much direct power over our individual daily lives, but he definitely has an influence over the direction and speed of the American cultural shift we've been experiencing.

Another way of saying all of this is that when we vote for a U.S. President, we're effectively voting for the version of American culture that we want to see publicly encouraged at home and represented abroad. Does it immediately affect my daily life today? No. But does it affect my daily life eventually? Almost certainly, because culture is more than just an abstract idea.
I agree. However, I think most americans want the same things but are just confused about how to get there....well, the path is being deliberately obfuscated by special interests. Most people want clean water, air, safe neighborhoods, affordable health care, good schools, tolerant kind neighbors. I see special interests pulling a divide and conquer on the average american. They have pitted us against one another to distract from everything they're getting away with behind the scenes.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by I Shrugged » Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:56 pm

Yes, it's almost as this election is the Red Sox versus the Yankees or Georgia versus Florida, something as visceral (and important) as those!
The Alabama rooter who poisoned the prized trees at Auburn was ahead of his time.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by flyingpylon » Wed Oct 07, 2020 3:07 pm

The increasing division in the US correlates with the rise of social media and the increasing ease of sharing information (and disinformation).

Related to the health/nutrition conversation, should large and powerful companies be allowed to serve people information and interactions that create addictions, push people to ideological extremes, and divide the country?
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by Tortoise » Wed Oct 07, 2020 4:13 pm

Agreed that social media addiction is a big factor. Perhaps these divisions always existed between us but were previously hidden due to the veil of civility that existed in our interactions with strangers?

The analogy with food/drug addiction is an apt one. Addictive behavior is quite general. It seems that addictive behavior usually indicates an underlying psychological issue that needs to be dealt with or a spiritual hole that needs to be filled.

Maybe we should take a poll to see how many forum members consider themselves to be addicted to social media vs. just interested in it as light entertainment.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by I Shrugged » Wed Oct 07, 2020 6:22 pm

I just think that 30 years ago, most people didn't care too much about politics. I did, and probably many of you did. But my typical bowling league buddies, not as much as today. Everyone had opinions, but it wasn't such a big deal. Everyone today is really into it.

Government is not supposed to mean so much to our daily lives. It's just supposed to be something that works in the background to keep the peace and general welfare. I hate that it has come to be everyone's everything.
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by I Shrugged » Wed Oct 07, 2020 6:31 pm

When will the divisiveness end? A short article, worth considering.

https://internationalman.com/articles/w ... eness-end/
Simonjester wrote: very good...
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Re: Has it ever changed your life?

Post by flyingpylon » Wed Oct 07, 2020 7:23 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Wed Oct 07, 2020 6:22 pm
I just think that 30 years ago, most people didn't care too much about politics. I did, and probably many of you did. But my typical bowling league buddies, not as much as today. Everyone had opinions, but it wasn't such a big deal. Everyone today is really into it.

Government is not supposed to mean so much to our daily lives. It's just supposed to be something that works in the background to keep the peace and general welfare. I hate that it has come to be everyone's everything.
I think some of that is because the legislative branch has stopped doing its job. Consequently, power has shifted to the executive and judicial branches, turning every Presidential election and Supreme Court vacancy into what seems like a life or death matter.

Also, regarding social media, I forgot to mention the role that automation plays. If it was just people sharing with people that would be one thing, but it is very easy for people and organizations to crank out massive volumes of posts and ads to very specifically targeted groups of people.
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