The cognitive limit of Dunbar's number is overcome by redefining who counts as "family" and "neighbor." A strategy to extend the natural, primate-like bonds of kin and tribe to a broader, kinship network is fictive yes, but it is a practical approach, and has been the norm at times in history.

Sadly, for many people the bumps and bruises of typical American life experience render them mentally unfit to entertain the concept.  And when an empire is falling, many find the notion quaint and foolish.  In our chaotic time of inverted role models, it takes a strong disposition to keep the faith.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 12, 2026, 05:47 PMYou've misunderstood the term, and I want to clear that up, because it matters.

"Class traitor" is not a moral insult. It's not me calling someone a bad person, or stupid, or uneducated. It's a statement of fact about a relationship. A worker who votes for a billionaire who will cut their food aid, gut their safety net, and hand their jobs to the coal bosses is acting against the interests of their own class.

That's what the phrase describes. It's not a slur; it's a description of what the vote does.

FINALLY....an excellent description of the term. I deal with science and mathematics, the entire shifting/changing/arbitrary/shifting sands of politics stuff is like sandskrit. Thank you.

Quote from: K-DogAnd you made my point for me, more precisely than I could.

Not a surprise. I've lived it. As with most of my success in life, it is a combination of the normal theoretical schooling requirements (YAWN...), intellect, and then EXPERIENCE in the DOING of things, ALWAYS with the delivery of RESULTS. Those lecturing fools who tell students how to drill wells without ever having held a pipe wrench in their lives. 

Quote from: K-DogYou said the people of Appalachia "may no more believe that anyone's political system will cure their living conditions," because they've been pitched the same promise since Johnson's War on Poverty and seen it come to nothing. That's exactly right. And that's the tragedy.

The fact that someone has been betrayed doesn't make their self-destructive vote any less self-destructive. It explains it. And the explanation is not "they're idiots".

You are incorrect in this regard. I grew up among them. Started in the 1st grade and went to school with them until the 9th grade. My step-father was one. His family were ALL that way. All my parents friends were the same. And "idiots" is a strong word, true, how about "unthinking in their decisions"?

Once Mom fled my murdering drunk father and we were on our own, her entire goal was to get educated. Her origins put here married to another guy from Appalachia. He was a good man, unlike my far more intelligent father. So my genes are somewhat biased, compared to my friends from those days, whom I visit regularly. They still live in the same houses they were born into. Live the same way they were when they graduated high school.

Like or not, these are my people. So..idiots was a poor choice..."unthinking in their decisions" I like better.

Quote from:  K-DogWhen a West Virginia town votes 76 percent for Trump, I don't see idiots.  I asked when will they learn.  Idiots can't learn.

A reasonable operating perspective. But there ARE enough idiots in the mix to not discount them outright. Bred, born and raised in this environment doesn't create folks who naturally think for themselves. Sure they learn...and the 1 in 10 who do tend to flee the place. They don't stick around to make things better.

Quote from: K-DogPeople who can afford to be cynical about politics are people like you and me. Not the people starving in West Virginia.  They can't afford it.

And folks who can't be bothered or don't have the minimum numbers of neurons to flee their circumstances leading to doom are no different than lemmings. All it takes is a Pied Piper. PRESTO! Off the cliff we go! The few with brains who didn't flee when the opportunity arose? You go with the herd you grew up with.

Quote from: K-DogAn independent political movement of the working class is the answer. 

Yeah, they tried that, they were called Democans.

Quote from: K-DogI'm not bashing poor people. I'm taking their situation more seriously than you are and calling it for what it is.

I take the situation as seriously as you do. From Jim Crowe in Appalachia all the way through unions and school teachers getting at least a little (black lung benefits for my aunt after her husband died of it being one example and Mom is being taken care of pretty well). I just happen to have taken another path to get out of Dodge.

I've got no objection to someone firing up a different Pied Piper routine in Appalachia, or anywhere else.

Quote from: K-DogYou've written them off as people who can't be expected to know better.

A reasonable statement. Based on direct experience in being raised there, having family still there, and spanning half a century now seeing the rest of the country. Perhaps you HAVEN"T written them off because you are familiar with them theoretically? Not an uncommon thing among the intelligent. RE presents his ideas on how to be La Longue Carabine at PO.com from experience based on punching paper targets when he was 12.

You are willing to suppose that these people, that raised me, can be convinced of something better, if only their were American politics that were better. Not an unreasonable presumption. I discount their ability to stop marrying their cousins, but will grant that they could certainly follow another Pied Piper. The issue is why would they follow YOURS rather than the next used car salesmen in line?

Quote from: K-DogI'm saying they've been robbed of the chance to know better and through despair or bad guidance they continue to make the same bad choice. 

Quite true. But you appear to discount the very belief systems, and overall lack of intelligence, that makes them vulnerable to ANY half wit who comes along pitching another New Deal.

Us hill folks don't trust outsiders much to begin with. Your general socialistic ideals, while appealing to quite a few I imagine, have to at the very LEAST overcome the natural barriers in America to anything other than 2 party system, as both those 2 parties are arrayed against you from the start. And selling anything that resembles Communism in name or appearance is a no-go right out of the gate.

Ideas/slogans/claims that might work among the intelligentsia of suburban Seattle of LA or DC or NYC is one thing, but there is no guarantee it'll work among that swath of folks in Appalachia.

QuoteIn America to anything other than 2 party system, as both those 2 parties are arrayed against you from the start. And selling anything that resembles Communism in name or appearance is a no-go right out of the gate.

True is that, communism and Jews, in the pocket of the Midwest I grew up in people did not hate them or really anybody else.  For a while the small towns and harsh winters only made good people. Community was real.  My mother told me when the first black people showed up (around WWII) that her mother said to her.  "They are working people just like us." I can assume that was in response to what was being said by some others.

So I don't get why other Americans are so committed to foaming at the mouth, and hating.  The hate and self aggrandizement others seem to take as part of the DNA of being an American I do not have.

Quote from: TDoS on Oct 12, 2026, 03:28 PMIs the Nordic example of capitalism the best example of the "socialism" that you and K-Dog think will work? Or do you have an example from somewhere in the past half a millenia or so you would prefer, Dunbar number plus of course.

The Nordic model is unstable and owners will over time usurp the will of the workers.  And that is exactly what is happening there now.

Ownership of Capital Equals Power: Under the Nordic model, the primary means of production remain privately owned. As long as private ownership exists, the capitalist class retains structural leverage over state policy and things are never 50/50.  The ownership class maintains a small advantage in the most equitable of situations.  Over time that sliver of advantage grows into...

Into the shit we have now.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 13, 2026, 12:42 PM

QuoteIn America to anything other than 2 party system, as both those 2 parties are arrayed against you from the start. And selling anything that resembles Communism in name or appearance is a no-go right out of the gate.

True is that, communism and Jews, in the pocket of the Midwest I grew up in people did not hate them or really anybody else.  For a while the small towns and harsh winters only made good people. Community was real.

Same here. Faith all over the place as well. But no Jews and VERY few colored folk. Can't recall a single synagogue I've ever seen, my county or any other. Pretty much as Appalachia is generally represented. We were all happily poor is the best way to put it. Did it change as folks in general became less rural and more and more ended up in the big shitties and burbs?

Quote from: K-DogSo I don't get why other Americans are so committed to foaming at the mouth, and hating. 

Me either. I only ever discovered foaming at the mouth and hating anyone who dared contradict it when I ran into the true beleivers of peak oil. And by then, we're talking the internet and online stuff, where all kinds of just jack shit stupid behavior and ideas has become the norm in general.

I blame the internet for a bunch of things. Faux expertise accepted as truth because you BELIEVE whatever it is, the concentration of not just bad ideas but anti-science, anti-fact, anti-knowledge first and conclusions later....it was almost like small churches of nuttery suddenly revealed the sheer volume of crackpottery that existed under the surface of normality in America.

Quote from: TDoS on Oct 13, 2026, 05:02 PMI only ever discovered foaming at the mouth and hating anyone who dared contradict it when I ran into the true beleivers of peak oil.

Oh come on.  You never discovered ANYONE who was a Mouth Foaming Racist from the 60s to the 80s anywhere in Amerika?  You missed George Wallace when he ran for POTUS?  You missed it when the KKK burned the crosses and the black kids in Mississippi?  It took until Peak Oil for you to discover hatred in the FSoA? 🙄

RE

Quote from: RE on Oct 13, 2026, 05:50 PM

Quote from: TDoS on Oct 13, 2026, 05:02 PMI only ever discovered foaming at the mouth and hating anyone who dared contradict it when I ran into the true beleivers of peak oil.

Oh come on.  You never discovered ANYONE who was a Mouth Foaming Racist from the 60s to the 80s anywhere in Amerika? 

Oh please. Of course I've bumped into rascists, KKK supporters, howl at the moon religious nutters, it was Applachia! Some of those coal miners were foul mouthed ignorant and weren't all that thrilled working with "black boys". Others could care less, as long as they pulled their weight underground. I've also met racist PhD's, and PhD's who firmly believed in Bigfoot roaming the wilds. And PhD's who couldn't figure out peak oil any better than high school drop outs. It takes all types, and all types exist. Intelligience as it turns out doesn't preclude folks from being nutters, racists, religious zealots, etc etc.

A conclusion I was quite surprised by when I finally reached it. Always thought brains would work things out. My mistake.

Quote from: REYou missed George Wallace when he ran for POTUS? 

Probably. Don't recall ever hearing about him being mentioned up North. I might venture that Jim Crowe wasn't a northern Appalachian thing, compared to the more southernly version.

My best friend in high school was black. Never struck me as weird, no one ever hassled me about it, racism wasn't something I can recall being a thing.

Quote from: REYou missed it when the KKK burned the crosses and the black kids in Mississippi? 

Don't recall that one at all.

Quote from: REIt took until Peak Oil for you to discover hatred in the FSoA? 🙄
RE

Where do you get "hatred"? Halfwits pretending to be geologists, geologists who don't know engineering, engineers who don't know economics or geology, these have nothing to do with hatred of the USA, racism, or politics. Halfwits are just....halfwits.

Quote from: TDoS on Oct 13, 2026, 06:44 PMWhere do you get "hatred"?

QuoteI only ever discovered foaming at the mouth and hating anyone who dared contradict it when I ran into the true beleivers of peak oil

Unfuckingbelievable.  Consistently Inconsistent.  Debate yourself.

RE

QuoteI only ever discovered foaming at the mouth and hating anyone who dared contradict it when I ran into the true beleivers of peak oil

How can a finite resource not PEAK.  Do tell.  Cornucopianism is not tolerated here.  Until you explain how oil CAN'T PEAK you can go ahead and foam.  Be my guest.  Gas will be selling for fifty a gallon, and you will say.

What me worry.

What I find particularly disgusting is labeling the fundamental mathematical relationship of peak oil 'a theory'.  Total hyper-reality bullshit, and adolescent solipsism to do so.  At some point most children learn that they can't impose their will on reality.  Those that do not make the rest of us suffer after they become the worst kind of adults.  You claim to be educated but refuse to provide bona fides.  I have a Linked-In and anybody can look it up.  Unlike you I have no reason to hide under a rock.  You could send me yours privately if you had one.  Since you deny basic mathematics your education which you claim, but do not prove is in serious doubt.