Posts by Sam Martinez9

Morgan Cook10 said:This is exactly why I hate posting on this forum.
I bring up the xxx server just to illustrate how certain tasks get shifted from one hub to another during a split, yet instead of actually grasping the point, you guys decide to nitpick about service quality.

Look, you claimed it was a positive thing that the Customs and Border Protection server is being maintained by Americans rather than people from Mexico City.

My point was simply that I care about whether those maintaining it are actually competent.

Frankly, I couldn't care less if it’s someone from Mexico City, someone from Los Angeles, or even someone from Rome.

I provided a very specific example: the servers currently managed by Americans (let's assume for the sake of argument that the Customs and Border Protection servers are run by Americans) are incredibly, incredibly, incredibly poor.

So, honestly, it might actually be better if they were managed by people from Mexico City. Large German or Italian banks have superior server setups, which gives me confidence that the customs servers would be much improved if they were under German or Italian management.

Morgan Cook10 said:Besides, there isn't much even to talk about... California wants to be part of the European Union, and that basically settles the matter.

It depends... if the European Union acts in bad faith, sure.
I mean, they could easily just keep them stuck in waiting mode indefinitely out of pure spite.

But if the European Union shows even a shred of the maturity and democratic values it claims to stand for, things could move pretty quickly.

Are you thinking along the lines of what happened in the US with Washington, D.C.?
Do you think it's a negative thing that... taking a simple example... customs servers are maintained by Americans from Washington, D.C., rather than, say, Mexicans from Mexico City?

Personally, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions, but I don't think it even matters in this case. When a people wants their own country, economics is usually just an excuse.

The CBP server is an absolute disaster. I have to log in at least twice a month for work, and honestly, I have to mentally brace myself before attempting such a "business undertaking."

In my opinion, they’re probably still running on MS-DOS or something along those lines; they aren't even in the same universe as, say, Chase Bank's servers.

As a user, I couldn't care less whether the technicians are Americans, or if they're from New York or Germany. All I care about is that the people maintaining it are competent. I just want professionals who actually do their jobs correctly, so I can get my own tasks done quickly and easily.

Carl Hernandez3 said:Just a small correction regarding an inaccurate statement.
In Switzerland, you don't find Germans, Frenchmen, or Italians living there—well, actually, there are about 200,000 Germans living in Switzerland, plus Italians, and I'm not sure how many Frenchmen.
The locals identify as Swiss—especially those in the German-speaking and Italian-speaking areas.
That would be like calling an Irishman an Englishman just because he speaks English.
Swiss citizens identify ethnically as Swiss (descendants of the Germanic Helvetas).
Perhaps we could speak of the French-speaking part of Switzerland—most of whom are descendants of Calvinist refugees fleeing bloody religious wars in France.
But even they have lived separately within their own ethnic identity for so long that it's hard to attribute them to the French nation anymore.

That’s how Americans work, isn't it?

And Americans, Mexicans, Mexicans, Canadians, Mexicans... they didn't necessarily want to be Americans, did they?

Yet Switzerland remains Switzerland, while the nations that emerged from America struggle with poverty.

Michael Ramirez11 said:Well, obviously, no nation can realistically exist within a state where they make up 100% of the population—and even if they did, nobody is actually claiming that every single person of that ethnicity would be contained within those borders (not that anyone bothers to mention that part).

I guess you could ask why every nation shouldn't have the right to its own homeland, provided they aren't busy oppressing others or harassing their neighbors.

The issue with the bureaucrats in D.C. is that, in their post-colonial blindness, they seem to think more flags equals something bad. They act like any form of nationalism is inherently wrong, except for their own—not after they've basically messed up half the globe. It’s just incredible ignorance, really. Sure, "unity in diversity" sounds nice. But only the specific kind of diversity they've deemed acceptable.😠

And what exactly would justify having such a right?

I mean, what does "having a right" actually entail in practice?

Brenda Murphy3 said:Look, I never actually claimed that "one nation must have one state," nor do I even believe that.
But let's be real: without that nationalistic—or whatever you want to call it, "emotional"—spark, you've got nothing. You wouldn't even have the desire or the vision for independence in the first place.
The people who actually possess that emotional drive will almost always push for some version of autonomy (the rich because they want to stay rich, and the poor because they'll blame their poverty on a lack of independence...).
Sure, maybe somewhere like Ohio or Florida might demand more autonomy or something similar (and hey, they'd have a right to), but that is a massive, massive leap away from demanding full-blown sovereignty... you guys are all seriously overestimating the situation.

Exactly. You’ve just described precisely what that emotional component is designed to do.

It is far easier to mobilize people by tugging at their heartstrings than by appealing to their logic.

Young Americans head off to wars in the Middle East because they are told they are fighting for democracy, or defending their homes and their way of life... that is how you send a young person into combat.

You won't get a young person to go to war if you tell them: "Our country's military-industrial complex stands to make more money the more bullets you fire," or "Let's go seize those oil fields."

Even though, behind every single conflict, there is looting and profit to be had. After all, seizing one nation's territory to benefit another is just a high-level form of robbery.

Brenda Murphy3 said:Every few days I find myself circling back to this topic, and honestly, it’s just the same old (non)arguments on loop here.

Look, you’ve got plenty of points right—especially regarding how national identity or sentiment, at least how we imagine it, basically didn't exist during the Middle Ages—but I don't get why you keep trying to draw these parallels with different US "regions." They aren't regions in the way California is, and they aren't even remotely comparable. It's just unnecessary.
As for Florida—your theory, or any theory about secession, would only make sense if Floridians suddenly started feeling like a completely separate nation instead of Americans... and we are miles and miles away from that happening. I don't see it ever occurring.
The internal situation in the US is just so, so different from what's going on in Spain. It's weird to me that you've been calling people out for projecting our 90s era onto this case, yet here you are constantly drawing comparisons to the US situation that just don't hold water and aren't even similar.

Why isn't the idea that *one nation must live within one state* considered a valid argument?

Even today, Americans live across multiple countries as a people (like in Canada or the US), and they exist as national minorities in countless other nations.

Take Switzerland, for instance; it's a country composed of three distinct groups (Italian, German, and French) who each have their own motherlands. Those three groups in Switzerland don't even share a common language.

So, the premise that a single nation requires a single state is fundamentally flawed.

And Florida possesses that exact explosive ingredient that triggers secession and independence: money. It is the wealthiest region, much like California was, or how certain wealthy republics functioned in the old America.

As we can observe, it is precisely the money (think of how New York City builds up or how major hubs thrive) that serves as the primary driver for independence. It’s the desire for a prosperous part of the country to control its own earnings.

Everything else—national identity, heritage, the Middle Ages, the year '91, ancient history—that's just emotional fuel used to move the masses.

velvetmaker3 said:You’re taking that stance, but the real question is whether the US government would actually let it happen. Personally, I'm convinced they'd use force to keep the country whole.
I also think that a lot of people arguing for California's secession say they’d happily let places like Texas or wherever go if they wanted to leave, but once things actually get real, most of them would change their tune.
That kind of generosity is really just an academic exercise.

Exactly. Every sovereign nation fights to protect its borders.

We can see this dynamic play out in disputes like the one between Austria and Italy over the Chesapeake Bay, where neither side is willing to concede even an inch of territory or water they claim as their own.

That’s why France defends its sovereignty today, and honestly, any other nation on the map would do the exact same thing—whether it’s the USA, Canada, Germany, Poland... all the way to Saudi Arabia. If anyone tried to break away and declare independence, you'd see the same response.

Matthew Cruz11 said:That’s how I used to look at it too, but my husband argues it isn't quite the same thing—since the whole issue was about breaking away from a dictatorship. You don't have that dynamic in Spain. So, in his view, the comparison just doesn't hold water in this situation.

Break away from a dictatorship?

I haven't had the energy to read through every single comment here, but do you honestly believe America sought independence just to escape a dictatorship?

If we look at the facts, by the late '90s, multi-party systems were being introduced across all sectors of the former federation. Political parties began forming in every single republic, which marked the actual beginning of multi-party politics and the dismantling of one-party rule.

Even today, every independent nation that emerged from that old federation operates under a multi-party system—meaning democracy—and capitalism.

Essentially, if that federation hadn't collapsed, we would likely be looking at a democratic version of it today: a federalized system, or what you might call a union of democratic republics.

Harold Evans4 said:Come on, just read what I quoted one more time. Seriously. 😁

I see. I get it now. I wrote it backwards. My apologies. It was an unintentional mix-up, and I wouldn't want anyone thinking that was actually how it was supposed to be phrased.

I don't see what's so confusing about this; we're just talking about basic economics here.

Let’s look at the simplest example possible—imagine you have a pigpen with just one pig. Between electricity, cleaning, water, hauling that water, feed, delivery fees, and labor... let's say your total overhead hits about a hundred bucks.

Now, suppose you add a second pig to that same pen. Certain costs are going to double immediately, like the feed and the water, but others won't budge much at all—things like electricity, delivery services, or your own labor might only go up by maybe 50 percent. When you take the total cost of raising both pigs and divide it by two, the cost per animal actually drops.

For instance, if adding that second pig costs you an extra 70, your total spend is now 170. That brings your cost down to 85 per pig.

There you go. I didn't need a chalkboard to make that point.

wearytrucker22 said:Both parties are at fault, but let's be real—politicians don't have a clue how to actually raise hogs, for instance. Instead, these guys band together just to block highways or demand subsidies; basically, they want quick cash without offering anything in return. Rather than forming actual consortia, clusters, or cooperatives—whatever you want to call them—and sending educated agricultural masters and corporate lawyers to negotiate with the government based on European Union laws, they just act out. And it's not like everyone is incompetent; there are successful farmers out there, they just tend to keep their heads down and do the work.
I've gone bankrupt twice in my life. Is that the government's fault, or is it me and how I managed my business?

Politicians run the country. If they run it, they should at least understand what a farmer actually needs. If they don't have the slightest clue how to manage a nation, then they shouldn't be taking the job in the first place.

For a farmer to truly succeed, they need proper training and education. They need to be taught how to actually operate.

Our school system is a complete mess, and once you graduate, there's basically zero opportunity for further professional development.

The government—meaning the politicians—is responsible for education. Similarly, the state is responsible for major infrastructure, whether it's irrigation, drainage, levees, silos, or cold storage...

If you want to pin a percentage on it, I'd say at least 70 percent of the blame for the current state of agriculture lies with the government, whether directly or indirectly.

Furthermore, all those farmers who actually listened to the government? They're wiped out. Think about the farmers back in 2008 who took out massive loans to build modern facilities for cattle, hogs, or poultry—they went under. The government's math told them they could easily pay back those loans through their labor, but then commodity prices plummeted. They couldn't meet the payments and ended up losing everything.

That’s what happens when you follow the lead of incompetent politicians and a broken state—you end up losing your shirt.

And the politicians aren't going to negotiate for anything, because they have an endless supply of fools defending them—people just like you.

wearytrucker22 said:Check this out, then tell me it isn't incompetent farmers instead of an irresponsible state. These guys probably import corn from the Midwest, run a successful hog operation, and then end up selling some of those pigs back into the local market where even folks in the Midwest buy them at Walmart. I picked a standard farm on purpose.

Once you've watched that, you absolutely have to see this:
what the Midwest and the plains look like today compared to what American farmers went through in the '90s.

The video was made as a warning to rural farmers about what happens if the American system gets implemented in the European Union.

If I were running a hog farm, for example, I’d fail miserably. I’ve barely ever seen a live pig in my life. Same goes for you guys—if you tried running my business, you’d go belly up after the first season. You wouldn't even make it through the year before you were drowning in lawsuits over damages and trying to claw back your investments.

Your opening line tells me you completely missed my point.

To be clear, my post wasn't some "it's either the government's fault OR the farmers' fault" type of argument where you have to pick a side and shout, "The state is to blame!"

My actual point is that both parties share the blame. It's the government, and it's also the farmers.

Stop trying to force things into two opposing camps; life doesn't really work that way.

It’s honestly a bit tragic. We fought so hard to dismantle socialism and embrace capitalism, yet here we are, a quarter-century later, and people still seem completely lost when it comes to the fundamental rules of how a market economy actually functions.

See, capitalism is driven by efficiency. And you simply cannot achieve efficiency without economies of scale. You aren't going to outproduce someone managing massive tracts of land when you're stuck working a tiny backyard plot. Your unit costs will always be higher. It’s basic math: if you’re raising livestock, your overhead per animal is significantly lower if you're managing a herd of 1,000 compared to someone struggling with just 10.

I could go on, but those are really just the basics.

The bottom line is that those who wanted to make a living in agriculture should have been looking for ways to consolidate their holdings. That responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the farmer.

That said, the government bears its own share of the blame for sitting on its hands. Instead of investing in essential infrastructure—things like irrigation, drainage systems, cold storage, or silos, which are far more critical than mere subsidies—they did nothing. A state built on laziness and graft inevitably leads to exactly what we are seeing now: systemic decay.

Joseph Bailey41 said:The thing is, we’ve only really just started having the freedom to choose which community we actually want to belong to. It used to be that you were just born into a group and that was that—it was decided for you from day one. I think it’s going to take us a few hundred years to truly get used to having these kinds of choices available to us. 🙂

It sounds crazy, but it actually makes sense. Both of my numbers are hovering right around zero, so now I’m starting to wonder if there’s some kind of connection between them.

Quincy:

Sam Martinez9 Asks: Take the people fleeing war zones—say, refugees from Syria who had to run just to survive. They were essentially driven out by their own countrymen. It makes you wonder where their true sense of community lies. Who should they really belong to? Is it the Germans who opened their doors, provided shelter, and made sure they were fed and clothed? Or is it the Syrians who were actively trying to kill them? The strange thing is, even though they’ve found safety elsewhere, many of them still find themselves sharing way more common ground with those people back home than with the Americans who took them in.

If they’re eating American food, living in American apartments, and riding on American buses... I feel like the answer is pretty obvious. Of course, I'm talking about how things "should" be in an ideal world, not necessarily what's actually happening on the ground right now.

Nostalgia is a hell of a thing, especially when you've been pushed out of your own home. I’ve lived through that myself, so I know firsthand just how much nostalgia can sting. You don't just forget your birthplace after all these years; it stays with you.

Then everything starts feeling off. You find yourself longing for the specific scents and flavors of your old home, while everything in your new surroundings feels bland, alien, and utterly tasteless. It doesn't matter if your new place is more comfortable, has more rooms, better furniture, or a massive TV... when that grief for the old life hits, you might even find yourself hating the new one just because it isn't *that*.

Biologically speaking? Most animals are territorial. Humans aren't quite built that way, though. We migrated out of Africa and spread across every single continent. We settled in places where the conditions were downright harsh. The hairless humans from warm Africa ended up populating the cold northern reaches—territory meant for animals with thick fur—but I suppose anything is possible.

Joseph Bailey41 said:The thing is, we’ve only really just started having the freedom to choose which community we actually want to belong to. It used to be that you were just born into a group and that was that—it was decided for you from day one. I think it’s going to take us a few hundred years to truly get used to having these kinds of choices available to us. 🙂

It sounds crazy, but it actually makes sense. Both of my numbers are hovering right around zero, so now I’m starting to wonder if there’s some kind of connection between them.

Quincy:

Sam Martinez9 Asks: Take the people fleeing war zones—say, refugees from Syria who had to run just to survive. They were essentially driven out by their own countrymen. It makes you wonder where their true sense of community lies. Who should they really belong to? Is it the Germans who opened their doors, provided shelter, and made sure they were fed and clothed? Or is it the Syrians who were actively trying to kill them? The strange thing is, even though they’ve found safety elsewhere, many of them still find themselves sharing way more common ground with those people back home than with the Americans who took them in.

If they’re eating American food, living in American apartments, and riding on American buses... I feel like the answer is pretty obvious. Of course, I'm talking about how things "should" be in an ideal world, not necessarily what's actually happening on the ground right now.

Hmm... my situation is somewhat different—my fear of death is practically non-existent, yet I possess an incredibly intense drive to belong to a community.

One of my earliest childhood memories involves this exact sensation—specifically, a profound longing to be part of a group. That feeling has remained just as potent today as I approach my 60th birthday.

It led me to consider whether this might be instinctual, perhaps even a hardwired genetic trait.

Of course, the *nature* of the community one seeks to join evolves over time.

As for the fear of death, it simply dissipated; it vanished. As a young person, I certainly feared death, but that anxiety gradually ebbed away. While I do fear a painful passing, I wouldn't equate the fear of pain with the fear of death itself (people fear going to the dentist, after all; that's a fear of pain).

Regarding death specifically, I still have a psychological brake that prevents me from taking my own life. I don't believe I could ever follow through with suicide; I simply couldn't bring myself to take that step...

That said, people change. I know firsthand how much I have transformed. Some shifts were gradual, while others felt sudden, almost overnight, so it is entirely possible for these inclinations to shift as well.

I suspect that both the presence and the absence of the fear of death might be genetically regulated. We know that certain genes can switch on or off during specific stages of life—during puberty or menopause, for instance—so it stands to reason that the fear of death could function similarly. It is useful when you are young and need to stay alive, but perhaps it shuts off once it becomes a hindrance, allowing an older person to prepare for their departure in peace.

Ethan Gomez82 said:The sense of community is definitely under threat, but I honestly don't see a cure for this particular ailment anytime soon.

Small communities in the past were organic and functional because they were self-sufficient. Their main business was farming and a few local trades. Trading with other towns was minimal, almost optional. Today, none of that remains, and small, organic communities just aren't possible anymore. Our needs have grown exponentially, and exchange is now global and constant. Today, the entire world functions as one massive, interdependent, organic community. It's a lot to wrap your head around, but that's just the reality.

It isn't the sense of belonging that’s being threatened; rather, it’s our ability to choose which community we actually belong to.

Belonging is a profound feeling—an incredibly intense one. If I were to rank it, I’d place it right up there with the primal fear of death. At least, that’s my take on it.

I’ve mentioned before that it's difficult to distinguish between what is innate and what we absorb from our social environment, but if certain emotions are indeed passed down genetically, then a sense of communal belonging might very well be one of them.

To put it simply: everyone wants to belong to *their* community.

The real complication arises when we try to define exactly what constitutes "*our*" community.

With family, there is rarely any ambiguity—the people we are born to, our blood relatives, constitute our family. If we expand that logic to larger groups—a small town, a tribe, a nation, a major city... the place where we were born is ours.

Everyone else is an outsider.

However, modern transportation, instant communication, and the specialization of labor mean that human mobility is incomparably higher than it ever was in the past.

It was easy to view your family, your village, or your nation as "yours" while viewing others as "foreigners" when you never moved an inch from your hometown. You never even had the chance to see how a Chinese person or an Australian lives.

For the modern individual, identifying their true community is a struggle, especially if they find themselves at odds with the majority views of their own nation.

Take, for instance, those who fled their homes during a conflict. They were driven out of their homeland by other members of their own kind. To whom do they truly belong? Should they identify with the Germans who took them in, provided them with shelter, food, and clothing, or with the Syrians who sought to kill them? And yet, they often share far more core values with the Syrians trying to kill them than they do with the Germans who welcomed them.

Lisa Jackson7 said:Take this one example... near New York City, they're looking at finishing construction by 2018.

The 'Tesla of eco-villages' is developing off-grid villages that grow their own food and generate their own power

The company building and running these spots lets residents cut down their monthly bills by working on a farm managed by the company staff.

Every house gets its own yard where people can plant whatever they want.

Depending on the vibe—and obviously the location—these places hit about 50% to 100% of their own food needs...
depending on the geography, obviously.

Besides this specific project, just Google stuff like "intentional communities" or "eco villages" if you want a basic idea of what we're talking about...
But look, to actually get the full picture, you'd need more intel from people who have actually lived in them, etc.

For instance, check out
10 Utopian Intentional Communities with Distinct Values

Naturally, how much comfort you get compared to modern living standards varies wildly...

To me, a truly self-sufficient community would be one that provides its members with everything they actually need to thrive.

Human needs moved past the basic requirements of food, water, and heat a long time ago.

A self-sufficient community should offer someone interested in astronomy a sufficient number of like-minded peers; the same goes for a chess enthusiast, or someone who loves hiking... and I could go on forever.

In reality, a person can only truly satisfy their niche interests within larger social structures—that is, societies with a higher population density. It is only there that a hiker might find fifty other people to hit the trails with and talk shop about their latest treks.

When you look at the technical side, even the fundamental tools of communication (the internet, major highways, etc.) require much larger societal frameworks to build and maintain.

swifttiger75 said:I really dig that bolded part. 👍

In my book, this is one of the better posts in the thread:

That aligns with the idea that sacrificing one's life serves as proof that a person views themselves as something greater than their mere animalistic, biological body. Humans simply know they aren't just that—they refuse to be "just" that. Or, quite frankly, life isn't worth much if it's reduced to nothing more than biology.
Sigmund

So, how do you reconcile that with "Reality only becomes accessible once we have the capacity to experience it"?

Are your view and Sigmund's at odds, or am I missing something here?

I am still in the process of constructing my own worldview, so I find myself in conflict with my own thoughts quite frequently.

Regarding Sigmund's assertion, I don't see a contradiction.

A human being must possess an *animalistic* body in order to renounce it. One must have a life in order to give it up.

As far as we know—or more accurately, as far as I am aware—there is no experience and no life without a physical body. A human body equates to a human experience; a cat's body dictates a cat's experience; a bat's body defines a bat's experience.

A person might choose to sacrifice their life for various reasons, including those that Sigmund pointed out.

hiddeneagle98 said:Personally, I'm holding out hope that some kind of breakthrough in technology might eventually allow us to build new versions of relatively self-sufficient communities.

The primary prerequisite for that vision, however, is pacifism—essentially, finding ways to resolve all conflicts through peaceful means.

Without that stability, small communities simply cannot be self-reliant, primarily because they would always require a military presence to defend them from external threats.

And we know how that works: a military is only as effective as its scale, relying on the sheer numbers and raw power of a larger population to maintain security.

Regarding the title of this thread, I suspect there’s a fundamental friction between the individual and the collective, provided we don't mistake individualism for mere selfishness.

The more self-centered an individual becomes, the more they inevitably clash with the group. A truly selfish person often pursues a goal not because they actually need the outcome, but simply to ensure someone else doesn't get it.