DonkeyCigars

Dude what? It's going to change the clock speed of applications and connectivity. Empowering a lot of next-gen tech that is coming. Advancements in things like super computers and data processing and mining and quantum computing...all will be impacted bigly. I see your "Lol, 5g wut?" and raise you an "lol wut?".

Oh my. You are a lost, scared little boy.

Do you remember that movie 300? My 5G comment reminded me of the end scene when they are about to go to war with the Persians and he said “they are full of sheer terror knowing what horrors 300 Spartans did and now they stare across at 10,000!” We as a country and people have fractured so deeply from one another due to the power that 4G tech has enabled us, to allow us human beings to be who we are as human beings, at scale. What horrors 5G will bring?

Tell me you aren’t familiar with my posting history without telling me, Francisco.

How is that? 5G is going to connect us in ways faster than we already are, which is going to open up many other avenues of technological disruption. We've seen what atrocities we can do to ourselves with 4G. I'm scared of 5G. Speaking as a technologist, of course, not as a 5G is a conspiracy theory or whatever camp. But I'd love to hear how that makes me an outed dummy, unless you outed yourself as one by not understanding the premise.

Completely different events, 9/11 and Covid-19. Apples and Oranges and tons of nuance needed to unpack, time we don't have and I'm not sold based on your post that you even understand how different the conversations are and that it would be worth the time with you. Also, and not just you I've heard it from a lot of others here, but those who would lay the blame of the division and brokenness at Fox News and Rush or Joe Rogan (to note, I've never watched hardly any of these), is either lazy (binary, default to an emotionally comfortable answer), naive (young or stupid) or in denial to the inherent wickedness that is a human being. IMO of course. We've digressed however, and I apologize for taking us on a tangent, when all I wanted was to lobby that CCP gets their badge of dishonor when we have these conversations and we remember their infamous part in the origin story of COVID-19-- and let's memorialize that by making sure we remember that so if-- big IF-- we can recover domestically from this and we are ever a healthy country again, we make them pay.

All true. We are all parts of a sphere depending on our lived experiences and it's our job to continue to expand that sphere as lifelong learners/growth mindset people. I'm not making excuses, I agree with you.

The first bolded statement is perfectly timed with the advent and explosion of technology and interconnectivity and interoperability. People have never been more free to be themselves; what you've seen is the reality of what a true Democracy looks like more so than at any other time in history when people have been abstracted and proxied by powers that be, to keep people in K clusters. The last bold is because it's like you have no idea what's coming, do you? Everyone (e.g. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, etc.) who already enables our fractured state is already down the path of creating a metaverse. With 5G, we are cemented as broken beyond repair. Anyways, none of that is CCP's direct fault and I'm just lobbying that we acknowledge the premiere threat to our global power and their hand in starting literally one of the worst global death and destruction of the last century. CCP is the lady who threw the beer in a crowd of the 10 drunk NFL football fans and then watched as they all beat themselves up.

I think the distinction is in the term "at scale". Early America could be governed and managed through more or less sharing the same ethics and aesthetics-- we were loosely bound as a federated group of states who believed in the same ideals. We were more homologous. We are hopelessly fractured and impossibly balkanized as 300mm individuals now-- we've scaled out of control. That's why I think "well duh, it's easy, just manage our ourselves and what we can control, people should be easy to govern and control right, dur" when in reality it's herding 300mm cats. Impossible.

politics doesn't end at the American borders, right?

If I've effectively made the point you suggest then you have effectively made the point that our philosophical and political model-- that of a prized and fierce streak of individualism and the individual rights and freedom that our Western Democracy bends to-- is a model that leads to shooting ourselves in the crotch because it can't be governed at scale.

I'm scared I might be treading into dangerous waters here so I'll just reframe this as my experience; moving somewhere new and getting plugged in with a neighborhood church unlocked everything you are talking about: neighbors, peers, families of similar types and kids of ages, etc. with social outings (golf, softball, book/bible studies, etc.) Especially in the South and Wake Forest, I think you'll find a one-stop shop there if you are so inclined. Disregard if I offended by being presumptuous.

From what I've seen and read, nobody is NOT doing that, which is why I responded as I did. It's good and fine and well to focus on the millions of Americans blah blah blah, but the greatest benefactor to our political missteps has been our greatest threat, CCP: - Afghanistan War (America bears the brunt of the costs, CCP gets free lithium and a weakened America) - COVID-19 (China starts the fire, we make it worse and are burning ourself alive) This is still the COVID-19 political thread where we can talk about the geopolitical angles of this thing, right?

Trump/Republicans own some blame for making COVID-19 worse domestically than it could have been, in hindsight. I'm not running away from that truth and don't know why you think I am.

I agree 100% with everything you said in this post. Where I'm getting in trouble with people here is that some of you are refusing to acknowledge CCP's role prior to 2/7/2020, as you time boxed, and/or pretending that it's irrelevant or not a part of the perpetrators that need to be prosecuted in the court of public and political opinion. My whole point in the cheeky "FIFY" was to remind you people that the CCP started this mess. What we don't know is if they started it knowing how fragile and divided and balkanized we are as a country and the fracturing and death was intentional or just a lucky result for the Chinese. Regardless, Americans have been our own worst enemies the last 18 months once the powder keg was lit. I think we are all in agreement there. TL;DR: My only point and ask is let's not forget to assign the Chinese a slice of the blame pie chart.

You missed the post that agreed that the blame should be divvied up accordingly to a variety of stakeholders and not just CCP (or Americans).

You do both in parallel, when the fire rages for 18 months especially. And especially if we can't beat the arsonist 1 v 1 and that arsonist is cooking up more plans to ruin and set fire to other areas in advancement of geographic and geopolitical power at our direct expense.

Fair. There are lots of fingerprints on the murder weapon. Let's just not forget about the Chinese ones when divvying out anger, resentment, and pain. I feel like too many people are politically dismissive under the guise "What good is it to fret about how the Chinese started this even if they are our biggest global and geopolitical enemy not named Russia!"

Yea, PS4 runs well and the kids have a switch too, but, for example, NB2k22 just came out and it's pretty lame for PS4 but apparently a whole different look and feel and experience on the PS5. And I'm thinking through, does it make sense to buy a few now and they will be $1k in December, or are we going to get a lot of good supply? It's a risk.

Nah, there are dozens of other 8 week courses or cohorts or programs that are more focused on and around what you are describing in your speaking goals. Toastmasters is a completely different animal (in my opinion and experiences), but I'm just one data point. And that is just from the speaking skill perspective, if you are interested in getting connected into a community or make friends/peers/network, like I thought was your main objective, sounds like the rotary club (first time I'm ever hearing of this club, I'll have to check this out myself) is the better bet. You are in tech and support a specific technology stack it sounds like from your role-- why not hone in on the social stuff around that? Let's pretend you are a MSFT Product guy, why not go to the "Wake Forest MSFT Product Meet Up at the Wake Forest Bar and Grill" or whatever. They usually do these things monthly.

My argument is that China is the arsonist that started the fire across the globe and in America. America is of course guilty of mismanaging the conflagration here at home which has ultimately resulted in 677k domestic deaths. How you want to slice and dice the accountability is up to you. I was being hyperbolic in setting all the deaths at the feet of CCP, as stated, as a jarring reminder to those who would ignore or dismiss CCP's culpability in this worldwide pandemic.

This page is amazing.

I agree that we ("Americans") have been one of our own worst enemies once the fire was started, but I'll never not be confused with how quick and easy some of you people want to let CCP off the hook and eat all the culpability. While hyperbolic, the intent was to "never forget" the bull crap CCP and how they brought this to our doorstep.

I'll be a good sport and afford you your victory lap and grandstanding here, because as it turns out you were right. I do still contend that a response had to be made-- "Attention must be paid!"-- and obviously with the benefit of hindsight, would have opted for a different strategy. This is likely Biden's exact stance as well. Though to maybe your unstated point, the US Military might just be wholly incapable of executing in a succesful way retribution against a modern enemy (re: shape shifting, etc.) and/or with unmanned drones. That is pathetic if that is the case, but at this point, I wouldn't doubt it.