[Serial_Worrier]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 6IMYSSs7c#!

Yup this is the future, except instead of phones it will be food. Now you know exactly what it will look like. Check out 1:09 the woman biting a man.

[Rod_Cloutier]

Food will be much worse. You can live without a phone but not without food.

Permaculture looks a little bit more doable after watching this video, than it did before!

[AgentR11]

Adding to that, people get honestly mean when they are hungry but not yet debilitated.

On a relevant, related note, apparently mini-agent has decided that she wants to know about firearms and whatnot. Firearm safety and handling lesson #1 delivered on Zombie Friday. creepily appropriate.

[Rod_Cloutier]

This video was even better. Normal people 'non-shoppers' standing outside the zombie madness to ridicule the absurdity of the situation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAeMeLhj ... r_embedded

Bought a book about 'Gardening when it counts'. (I won't be rioting for food)

[dinopello]

This video was even better. Normal people 'non-shoppers' standing outside the zombie madness to ridicule the absurdity of the situation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAeMeLhj ... r_embedded

So, after the video, the guy filming runs an ad for the Kindle version of his Illuminati book ?

[IanC]

These videos are disturbing. Shame on the stores for pushing this sort of free for all and the media for mindlessly playing along every year. I'm so happy my family's culture is not to participate in this sort of thing.

That said, it seems like there must be an undercurrent of pleasure for the people there. Their paleo-instincts stimulated by the physicality, aggression, and prize-taking of the whole experience. I bet they go home and tell stories about smackin' people down to get their prize in the face of all adversity.

When they're going for loaves of bread, cans of beans, and fresh water, it won't be as funny.

-IanC

[dinopello]

I think pstarr is closest to the truth. While it may look similar to scenes from 3rd worlder's fighting for rice or water, it really is just people looking for something to do. It's boring out there for the masses.

[Outcast_Searcher]

That said, it seems like there must be an undercurrent of pleasure for the people there. Their paleo-instincts stimulated by the physicality, aggression, and prize-taking of the whole experience. I bet they go home and tell stories about smackin' people down to get their prize in the face of all adversity.
-IanC

I thought that's what sports like hockey and rugby were for. I guess since we're getting too fat to actually PLAY sports, so we need a more sedentary scene for publicly acceptable violence...

[ColossalContrarian]

I'd rather those animals spend their money on TV's and other things they don't need. The rest of us can buy our bullets and silver without any of that fuss.

I'm also a huge supporter of natural selection!

[rockdoc123]

I thought that's what sports like hockey and rugby were for

please....rugby is an animal sport played by gentleman. It isn't like hockey at all. Before we let the Americans play it was actually a pretty civilized sport if you ignore the French.

[vaseline2008]

I thought that's what sports like hockey and rugby were for. I guess since we're getting too fat to actually PLAY sports, so we need a more sedentary scene for publicly acceptable violence...

Well on that note at least they got off their butts and got some "exercise"...haha

[autonomous]

Notice how these people are pushing, shoving, screaming, stampeding and even shooting people over something that isn't even an essential need like food? There are two sides to this picture, and the other side, the capitalist producers and organizers of this insanity are no different than these mobs except that they operate on a much larger scale.

The documentary series "The Century of the Self" provides an insight into how capitalists and politicians applied Sigmund Freud's work in the bubbling and murky world of the subconscious to tap into the desires of the masses. Unwittingly, Freud's techniques for probing the unconscious mind served as the precursor to a world full of political spin doctors, marketing moguls, and society's belief that the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness is man's ultimate goal.

The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy, commodification and its implications. The business and political world uses psychological techniques to read, create and fulfill our desires, to make their products or speeches as pleasing as possible to us. Curtis raises the question of the intentions and roots of this fact. Where once the political process was about engaging people's rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a society, the documentary shows how by employing the tactics of psychoanalysis, politicians and capitalists appeal to irrational, primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumer population.

Paul Mazur, a Wall Street banker working for Lehman Brothers in the 1930s, is cited as declaring "We must shift America from a needs-culture to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. Man's desires must overshadow his needs."

America is a mistake, a giant mistake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prTarrgvkjo

[Cloud9]

Freud was just some twit that did a little coke, wanted to bang his mom, had the hots for his niece and figured a way to talk trash in Victorian society. I put about as much stock in his appraisal as I do his analysis.

[autonomous]

Freud was just some twit that did a little coke, wanted to bang his mom, had the hots for his niece and figured a way to talk trash in Victorian society. I put about as much stock in his appraisal as I do his analysis.

So what you are saying is Freud wasn't that much different than your average politician or businessman, and his ideas seemed to make a lot of sense to these people.

[Golgo13]

Freud was just some twit that did a little coke, wanted to bang his mom, had the hots for his niece and figured a way to talk trash in Victorian society. I put about as much stock in his appraisal as I do his analysis.

Freud is not the interesting part. It's his Nephew, Edward Bernays, that really cracked the code on how the mind works & how to take advantage of it.

[Tanada]

Infamous Black Friday shopping is nearly here, what if anything are you planning to buy this season?

[Cog]

Guns, ammo, and Guns.

Yes I said guns twice. Don't judge me. I was born this way and there is nothing I can do about it.

[Newfie]

Nothing special at all. The boat needs a constant supply of this and that. Bought a compressor fan and automatic speed controller for the fridge this am to replace failing bits ($170). Special LED navigation light ($70) yesterday to replace one that was mysteriously destroyed. So it goes.

Sometimes don't buy anything for days, then something breaks.

But Black Friday Sales? Nada.

[Pops]

thanks for kicking over these old threads T, makes me nostalgic for the good old days before just we few bitter enders tapped in... I'm such an addict of my own opinions I binge here for a while then swear off. Sorry to be so one track this time around.

On topic, my general feeling is the same about consumption as about politics currently, we have things so very easy we've forgotten hard and we're looking for a challenge.

I know, sounds like something someone who goes by the nickname "Pops" would say.