Denim Blunders, Reflections and General Nonsense.

[Double 0 Soul]

8 minutes ago, AlientoyWorkmachine said:

Visiting Scotland last summer and going on long walks and runs and understanding the right to roam was really a nice reprieve from some of the pathology we have here. 

I was looking at a new photography book last week (Abandoned by Angus McKay) of properties around the highlands..

Some lovely photos

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8900zp534o

Edited Monday at 10:02 PM by Double 0 Soul

[Cold Summer]

7 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

I'm glad we're not a nation of crazy gun nuts.. i'd have more holes than a colander

Over here.. tresspass is a civil case, if you find an abandoned building, it's up to the owner to keep you out, if you break in / damage someone's property, that's a crime, if you climb in through an open door or window, you've done nothing wrong, if the owner doesn't want you in there, it's up to them to keep you out.. If you are taken to court, they're trying to reclaim costs for the damage you caused while breaking in.. no sign of a break in, no case.

The Dixie/Southeastern perspective is more complex than the popular caricature of angry rednecks shooting at stuff. There's definitely some truth to the stereotype, but it's more nuanced than you might expect. I'll try my best to give some kind of insight.

I'm originally from Houston, TX, very different mid/southwestern culture that probably has more in common with Ohio than Alabama. And where I live in Georgia is right on the border of Dixie culture and Appalachia, which is itself a very distinct culture which nevertheless has some overlap with Dixie. I'm much more at home in Appalachian culture and identify much more strongly with it. Appalachia is characterized by cultural things like bluegrass music and the seemingly-contradictory fiercely independent and self sufficient, yet intricately intertwined community and family life. Appalachia is Scots-Irish, which goes a long way toward explaining this sort of cultural character.

Dixie on the other hand is really encapsulated by things like college football mania, where your allegiance to the University of Alabama or Auburn and so on is a sort of tribal identity, and there's this very stratified, almost pseudo-aristocratic social environment imported from England and still ensconced in the cultural unconscious. And the gun-totin' rednecks... are at the bottom of that hierarchy. The (white) people at the bottom can be hostile toward blacks, for instance, because they might feel threatened by the only ones lower on the totem pole than them who might snatch what little honor and pride they have for themselves.

And between being on the losing end of the Civil War and bearing the brunt of Reconstruction, the Great Depression, and more, there are generations of grievances and bitterness about things, and a wariness toward outsiders who can come across as carpetbaggers showing up to take what little scraps they proudly cling to as their own. Dixie people, especially those on the poorer and rural end of things, often feel like they're been under attack for over 150 years. And that is why it could be hard to convince Dixie locals to let you pick through their abandoned buildings. As much as I'd love to collect cool vintage loot, I definitely sympathize with where reticent locals are coming from, even if I don't necessarily agree.

[youngofthesoonest]

11 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

I'm glad we're not a nation of crazy gun nuts.. i'd have more holes than a colander

Over here.. tresspass is a civil case, if you find an abandoned building, it's up to the owner to keep you out, if you break in / damage someone's property, that's a crime, if you climb in through an open door or window, you've done nothing wrong, if the owner doesn't want you in there, it's up to them to keep you out.. If you are taken to court, they're trying to reclaim costs for the damage you caused while breaking in.. no sign of a break in, no case.

oh wow. that's a very wild thing to think about as an American. 

[Double 0 Soul]

You’re allowed to use reasonable force to defend yourself or your property

I only remember one case here in the UK which brought the law into question.. there was a guy called Tony Martin, he lived in a remote and rather dilapidated farm house, he was having issues with folks breaking in and steeling his furniture (theft is always a crime, even if you find someone on the street, it doesn’t make it your property) the police had no record of these crimes but if you’ve ever reported theft to the cops, they do fuck all so there is very little point reporting it..

Some dudes broke into his house, I’m pretty sure their intention was to steal his stuff rather than photograph his decay.. he was waiting in the dark with an illegally held shotgun, opened fire shooting at random in the dark and killed one of them.. it went to court, his supporters believed he had every right to defend his property but we have  a ‘reasonable force’ law over here.. ie- a burglar breaks into your house.. is it considered reasonable to (let’s say) hit them in the face with a baseball bat, killing them in the process if they are (to quote  South Park) coming right for you.. yes indeed it is, is it considered reasonable to stab them in the back if they’re running out your door with your laptop under their arm.. then no, because you’re not under threat. 

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

Just a few points of curiosity to note.

I’m partly of Appalachian Ohio/Kentucky stock. Didn’t grow up there, but have lived there for a time and visited often and still have family there. I’ve also lived in North Carolina (central NC), and from what I’ve experienced of Texans and Texas I am surprised to see a comparison brought to the Appalachian culture. To my mind there have always been at least three versions of the South (if Appalachian is to be Southern - I’d contend it’s not). @Cold Summer - basically what I’m saying is that I find it novel for a native Houstonian to identify with this! I’d much more expect this part of Texas to breed a sort of simpatico ethos with what I found in central NC - which I would agree is different from the Deep South Alabama/Mississippi etc.

Anyways, being a photographer, I (a good while back now) photographed abandoned properties in rural Appalachia - driving down hollers traipsing through old places by my own, sometimes I’m thank my stars I too do not resemble a colander. Though I also primarily was out to meet and speak with people - which is perhaps what ultimately kept me safe. Stranger though I’d be and distrustful of outsider with camera that they were, I think even fifteen years ago things were different, safer. Distrust seems to be quite high now - higher even, for whatever reasons (and I can think of plenty), and it’s a real shame. I do think most people are good people - and that’s probably evidenced in part by the fact that I’m not dead despite repeatedly popping up as a curious stranger in places where it would be least expected - where the shotguns in closets probably outnumbered the people 3 to 1. 

But it sure is nice to not really have to worry about that so much.

Huh, guess I still rambled some. 

[Cold Summer]

@AlientoyWorkmachineI basically spent my childhood in Texas but moved to north Georgia when I was eleven, and I've been here ever since, excepting the several years I spent in Japan. So this probably explains why I'm not necessarily/especially what one might consider "Texan" in his behavior/outlook (though I am a big fan of the western style, so I guess there's that?) Living here for a long time, I suppose I tend to identify more at this point with some aspect of the local culture.

Economic decay and opioid addiction, amongst other things, has really taken a toll on the South, what lower-class people really need are good blue-collar jobs and a sense of purpose, and unfortunately there's less to go around than before. So... I guess that means we gotta make the Toyo Enterprises equivalent for Dixie in Alabama, or something like that?!

[rbeck]

10 hours ago, Cold Summer said:

The Dixie/Southeastern perspective is more complex than the popular caricature of angry rednecks shooting at stuff. There's definitely some truth to the stereotype, but it's more nuanced than you might expect. I'll try my best to give some kind of insight.

I'm originally from Houston, TX, very different mid/southwestern culture that probably has more in common with Ohio than Alabama. And where I live in Georgia is right on the border of Dixie culture and Appalachia, which is itself a very distinct culture which nevertheless has some overlap with Dixie. I'm much more at home in Appalachian culture and identify much more strongly with it. Appalachia is characterized by cultural things like bluegrass music and the seemingly-contradictory fiercely independent and self sufficient, yet intricately intertwined community and family life. Appalachia is Scots-Irish, which goes a long way toward explaining this sort of cultural character.

Dixie on the other hand is really encapsulated by things like college football mania, where your allegiance to the University of Alabama or Auburn and so on is a sort of tribal identity, and there's this very stratified, almost pseudo-aristocratic social environment imported from England and still ensconced in the cultural unconscious. And the gun-totin' rednecks... are at the bottom of that hierarchy. The (white) people at the bottom can be hostile toward blacks, for instance, because they might feel threatened by the only ones lower on the totem pole than them who might snatch what little honor and pride they have for themselves.

And between being on the losing end of the Civil War and bearing the brunt of Reconstruction, the Great Depression, and more, there are generations of grievances and bitterness about things, and a wariness toward outsiders who can come across as carpetbaggers showing up to take what little scraps they proudly cling to as their own. Dixie people, especially those on the poorer and rural end of things, often feel like they're been under attack for over 150 years. And that is why it could be hard to convince Dixie locals to let you pick through their abandoned buildings. As much as I'd love to collect cool vintage loot, I definitely sympathize with where reticent locals are coming from, even if I don't necessarily agree.

I really appreciate the way you put this. I'm not going to go and say that there's nothing wrong with southerners' mindsets, but no one is perfect, and if you look at things with historical perspective you can start to see how things pass through generations and are taken as a fact of life. 

I think it's unfair sometimes the way some Europeans (not any of you Euros in this thread btw, you all seem lovely) bash Americans as being less civilized and evolved. I'm not even patriotic, but it bothers me when I see people talking about stupid Americans as if Europe is this perfect continent that has no problems of its own. They act like since they don't eat cheeseburgers that they are better than us.

There are problems everywhere and to put those problems on the population as a whole is so unfair because of how complex and multifaceted societies are. 

[Double 0 Soul]

You must’ve missed my recent cheeseburger contribution to this thread.. 

7 minutes ago, rbeck said:

it bothers me when I see people talking about stupid Americans as if Europe is this perfect continent that has no problems of its own. 

Some Americans yes.. but ‘Americans’ as a generalisation, I wouldn’t say so.. We can be equally as judgemental about fellow Europeans, one thing I can say with certainty, stupidity is never confined within borders.

[rbeck]

47 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

You must’ve missed my recent cheeseburger contribution to this thread.. 

Some Americans yes.. but ‘Americans’ as a generalisation, I wouldn’t say so.. We can be equally as judgemental about fellow Europeans, one thing I can say with certainty, stupidity is never confined within borders.

I did miss your cheeseburger comment, but I can also recognize that your comments are playful and not intended to offend. But yeah, borders don't make someone inherently more intelligent like some Europeans would have us believe. 

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

I think there’s a lot to writer Colin Woodard’s theory that the US is really best thought of something more like 11 countries with distinct regional cultures depending on who colonized and settled an area and when. This gets obscured by the structure of the 50 states and federal government but when thought of this way and then considering things like The Troubles and other armed struggles within smaller countries I think Americans can start to look a little more…well, sort of unsurprising I guess. 

[chicote]

I’ve been thinking often recently that the highest form of “education” a society can have is shown in its capacity to accept, and live with, differences and contradictions both within and outside of itself. To that end, I see many rich, college-educated liberals in Seattle being stuck in the same backwards state of mine as the proverbial backwater Southerner: distrustful of outsiders, intolerant of difference, to the point it’s become a trend to even cut family members out of your lives who voted differently than you. It’s a problem both sides of the political & socioeconomic spectrum are really struggling with.

I finished reading a wonderful book a couple weeks back, The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. There’s a passage in it where he discusses arranged marriages, often seen as antiquated, backward, even barbaric in the West (and surely there are elements of this when there are huge age discrepancies, etc — that’s beside the point for the moment). But in fact, he argues, a high percentage of those in this arrangement report themselves as quite happy. Why? Because, contrary to the modern social narrative that you’re meant to “fall in” love, which itself presupposes chance more than effort, he says people enter into arranged marriages understanding that they are building a loving relationship together, basically from scratch. That from being more or less strangers, perhaps with nothing in common beyond some shared cultural understanding, they work to find their common humanity, their capacity for care and empathy, and develop a lifetime commitment to one another, which forms the basis for their, not instant, but gradually developing, love.

In contrast, the West’s “modern” love ideas are far more transactional. Do you and your spouse feel the same burning, passionate connection after 5 years that you felt as new lovers? Perhaps not, and so one or both partners may just abandon the relationship to search for another, in hopes that this time, that initial feeling of love won’t fade away (it almost always does). That this dynamic has now stretched to include family and community members, and become codified in the act of “cancelling”, “ghosting” or otherwise abandoning people who don’t easily and comfortably conform to your ideas of acceptable, pleasing behavior, is to me one of the most concerning and notable elements of the decline of contemporary society in the West.

It’s interesting to consider that behavior such as inviting a stranger in for tea or offering a ride to someone broken down on the side of the road are now seen as risky, perhaps intolerably dangerous, though our grandparents may have thought nothing of either one. In fact, where I am living in rural Mexico, these are still normal, even socially expected, behaviors today. Why we have gone down the path of separateness I think has many factors, economic pressure and social media being some of them, but those are factors all over the world, and some places still stubbornly continue to embrace one another’s differences and embrace contradictions rather than turn away from them. So I don’t think those factors alone tell the whole story. Anyway, sorry for the long ramble, but this conversation about cultural difference & isolation has felt increasingly relevant this past decade and I am always wondering where it comes from and what can be done about it.

[OutSider]

21 minutes ago, chicote said:

That this dynamic has now stretched to include family and community members, and become codified in the act of “cancelling”, “ghosting” or otherwise abandoning people who don’t easily and comfortably conform to your ideas of acceptable, pleasing behavior, is to me one of the most concerning and notable elements of the decline of contemporary society in the West.

What options are there? You can stay silent and enable the behaviour. Speak up and start a fight, though not all are strong enough to do this. Better to just go LC or NC. East/West shouldn't matter. Learn to behave.

The decline is the celebration of the troll and that's a global issue

Edited 11 hours ago by OutSider

[chicote]

39 minutes ago, OutSider said:

What options are there?

The options are the same as they have always been: accepting that most people, the vast, vast, majority, share the exact same base desires as we do — to love and be loved, to live a fulfilling life, to be appreciated for their contributions and achievements, and to accept and learn from their mistakes. These same people, without exception, are going to have painful experiences from their upbringings, to be hurt when trying to be vulnerable, and to learn to react with fear, withdrawal, anger or violence, and in doing so they’ll also cause pain to other people. The choice becomes available when we realize and accept that about others — and just as importantly, about ourselves — and choose to meet people’s pain, struggle and difference with understanding and compassion. The choice to “go NC” (no contact) with somebody is valid when someone, in very rare cases, proves themselves pathologically incapable of meeting you halfway in your process of healing. But in the vast majority of relationships today, people can and deserve much more understanding and commitment than they get, even from close friends, partners and family members. To not offer them that opportunity is a failure to fully respect the complexity of the human condition, in my opinion. And it’s a root cause of the epidemics of loneliness and division I know we are all experiencing at this moment in history.

Edited 10 hours ago by chicote

[Cold Summer]

3 hours ago, rbeck said:

...but it bothers me when I see people talking about stupid Americans as if Europe is this perfect continent that has no problems of its own. They act like since they don't eat cheeseburgers that they are better than us.

I get that, but I always read that as sort of tongue-in-cheek ribbing, which to me at least is all in good fun. They call us uncouth mouth-breathing burger-chompers, we call them cheese-eating surrender monkeys, everybody has a good laugh and goes home at the end of the day. Or something like that.

2 hours ago, AlientoyWorkmachine said:

I think there’s a lot to writer Colin Woodard’s theory that the US is really best thought of something more like 11 countries with distinct regional cultures depending on who colonized and settled an area and when. This gets obscured by the structure of the 50 states and federal government but when thought of this way and then considering things like The Troubles and other armed struggles within smaller countries I think Americans can start to look a little more…well, sort of unsurprising I guess. 

100%. America is really more like an empire of a centralized government sometimes strongly, sometimes loosely uniting various disparate nations and cultures within its borders. Early in the nation's history this was all a lot less defined, but since the end of the Civil War, for better or worse, the Empire model won out. A united political entity in the borders of what we call the USA has made a lot of us pretty wealthy and comfortable by historical standards, but oftentimes at the expense of factors that can't be so readily quantified, like community and cultural cohesion. Plenty of interesting questions to consider surrounding it all.

[Double 0 Soul]

I'm still picking through the bones of it.. but has anyone looked at the implications of the UKs Online Safety Act on superfuture? @Maynard Friedman @beautiful_FrEaK ?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

Who the Act applies to 

The Act’s duties apply to search services and services that allow users to post content online or to interact with each other. This includes a range of websites, apps and other services, including social media services, consumer file cloud storage and sharing sites, video sharing platforms, online forums, dating services, and online instant messaging services.

The Act applies to services even if the companies providing them are outside the UK should they have links to the UK. This includes if the service has a significant number of UK users, if the UK is a target market or it is capable of being accessed by UK users and there is a material risk of significant harm to such users.

 

[Double 0 Soul]

The plugs are starting to be pulled on some smaller communities..

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/401475/