Venting The Nobel Peace Prize in the News (Sadly so many things said about the world today)

[Dejected 55]

So... Machado, from Venezuela tried to pander to Trump by giving him her Nobel Peace Prize. He accepted the prize of course. Let that sink in while I ramble...

Firstly... you can't give away anything but the physical memento of the Nobel Prize. It's literally in the rules of the thing... you can't pass it on, period. You win it and the honor is yours forever... you can't transfer that. Like winning an Oscar, you can sell the statue but you still won the Oscar. the owner of the statue didn't retroactively win the Oscar just for possessing the trophy.

Talk about a participation trophy... Trump accepting it is crazy. I mean, I know he has an ego and wants a prize... but, this is one of the saddest things I could imagine a person wanting to be a part of. This is worse than actually thinking you deserved the prize and losing... having an actual winner give you their trophy, and you pretending as though now you are the winner!

This is worse than an honorary degree. Honorary degrees from universities have always been laughable to me... and a slap in the face to people who genuinely earned their diploma... but at least an honorary degree is bestowed on you by a credited university and it is a title that belongs to you. i.e. you get something real, even if the degree is symbolic only. Being given someone's Nobel Prize plaque, or whatever, has zero significance at all. You literally have nothing you didn't have before... except that thing... maybe there is some gold in it that is worth something. I don't know.

And this isn't one way embarrassment either... Machado... she is trying to gain favor with Trump... since we kidnapped Venezuela's leader... Machado hopes to have Trump endorse her as leader... by bribing him with this gift... this sad meaningless gift... That's now how you prove you are worthy of leading your people... and, what's worse, by all accounts Trump doesn't have any thoughts about endorsing her as a leader... probably wouldn't just because she is a woman, but outside that, I gather he has zero fucks to give about considering her no matter what gift she might give.

And... if you ever thought Machado was deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize... and maybe she was, I don't know... but IF you actually won that prize and gave it to Trump of all people, in order to curry pathetic favor from a pathetic man... the whole damn thing probably makes Nobel spin like a top in his grave and wishing there was a revocation clause where they could retract a prize from someone so dumb and undeserving that they would give it away so easily to so undeserving of a person.

I could go on and on... but this isn't (by far actually) the dumbest or worst thing to happen this week... probably wasn't the worst thing to happen on the day it happened.

You think, though, you've seen it all... and new sad and stupid keeps happening. Nobody knows who should wear the "I'm with Stupid" t-shirts anymore... they need to just make "I'm the stupid" shirts in all sizes for everyone.

 

[InvasionOfPublicity]

This has also been on my mind since seeing the news. Honestly, its just more evidence about the sad state of the world today. Sometimes I feel like it's beyond repair.

 

[Hollowman]

I saw a pic of him receiving it. He had the biggest dumb smile, such a douche.

 

[Dejected 55]

This has also been on my mind since seeing the news. Honestly, its just more evidence about the sad state of the world today. Sometimes I feel like it's beyond repair.

It's the totality of it all too... I feel like when I was growing up there was corruption and stupidity... but it felt like there was at least some honesty and intelligence too. I mean, I remember a time when there were people I disagreed with but I could at least believe they were intelligent and believed in what they said. It's the whole thing where I believe our founding fathers assumed that people in this country would mostly want what was right/best for the most people... and would fight for that... and debates would happen when each side wanted the same goal BUT disagreed on how to get there... and the checks and balances would be enough to keep the riff-raff and corruption from getting a foothold.

Now it's somehow gone topsy turvy... and the riff-raff has all the power on both sides and they neither agree on the goal OR how to get there and fight constantly... meanwhile the checks and balances actually hinder the handful of decent people who actually want to turn things around for everyone. It's pretty fucked up. Like, you wouldn't write a movie with characters this poorly written/developed and storylines so thin and disjointed.

I saw a pic of him receiving it. He had the biggest dumb smile, such a douche.

Yeah. That pic... it says SO much. How happy, I mean genuinely happy, that seemed to make him. The nonsense of it. Randomly, I was in the grocery store today. A woman was pushing her cart and had two young toddlers in there. Those kids were so happy and were smiling and saying "Hey!" to literally everyone... and they were so excited whether people said hey back to them or not. I did... but those kids... as happy as they were... looked sad compared to how damn happy Trump looks in that pic... and there's literally almost nothing real about the image in that pic, and certainly nothing worthy of generating that kind of glee.

Fuck this timeline/universe/reality!

 

[InvasionOfPublicity]

Now it's somehow gone topsy turvy... and the riff-raff has all the power on both sides and they neither agree on the goal OR how to get there and fight constantly... meanwhile the checks and balances actually hinder the handful of decent people who actually want to turn things around for everyone. It's pretty fucked up. Like, you wouldn't write a movie with characters this poorly written/developed and storylines so thin and disjointed.

Yes I totally agree 100% I've just recently learned about this Palantir company and how scary it's getting. We truly are in the end times it feels like. Like one thing is having a centralized company with EVERYONE'S data... who signed off on that? and to combine it with AI. give me a break.

Back then, at least the people had a fighting chance at getting what they ultimately wanted. Now its whoever has the biggest bank account, and sadly, it's not looking like it will get any better. ICE raids happening everywhere, technology advancing too fast for our own good, pending-WW3, job shortages... etc. It's just too much.

 

[Dejected 55]

Yes I totally agree 100% I've just recently learned about this Palantir company and how scary it's getting. We truly are in the end times it feels like. Like one thing is having a centralized company with EVERYONE'S data... who signed off on that? and to combine it with AI. give me a break.

Back then, at least the people had a fighting chance at getting what they ultimately wanted. Now its whoever has the biggest bank account, and sadly, it's not looking like it will get any better. ICE raids happening everywhere, technology advancing too fast for our own good, pending-WW3, job shortages... etc. It's just too much.

In olden times, the King or despot or dictator or whatever had his stooges and usually a sizable army loyal to him... but always squeezed a little too hard a little too long and the "peasants" reached the tipping point where they had nothing to lose and then they could, by sheer force of number, could engage the strongest army and out-will them and out-last them to take over. Unfortunately, this often resulted in the next leader eventually finding himself above the new peasants and the cycle repeated.

In modern times corruption evolved. A dictator is fragile even with an army... so they tout "election" and "democracy" and "choice" and convince the peasants that they are choosing the leaders, even though they really aren't. George Carlin had a bunch of stuff about the illusion of choice where we are told we choose from the two parties BUT we have 20 different kinds of bagels to eat. Choice vs illusion of choice. And, over time these "elected" leaders realized that they could get the peasants to fight each other instead of the leaders. IF you are suffering, it isn't because of corrupt government... no... rather, your neighbor is stealing from you when you aren't looking... or the immigrant that just got here is ruining your opportunity and taking your job... your government loves you, fight your neighbors and immigrants instead. There's that cookie graphic I always reference but usually don't have available to post... where the middle class has a plate of cookies with only one cookie left. The upper class guy on the left has 11 cookies on his plate and he is pointing at the guy on the right (the poor) who has merely crumbs from the middle class plate... and the upper class guy is saying "Look, that guy is taking your cookies!"

And people let this happen for so long... when there was still a chance to revolt... because now, in the modern age... with cyber/digital banking and hacking + the advanced weaponry that the military has (and private militia for the wealthy as well)... even if most of the citizens band together, you can't fight off the despot corrupt leadership who can put their thumb on the scale in ways like never before in history and crush you before you start even if you outnumber his people 1000 to 1 or better!

Sadly, the only thing we can hope for is... the current system is unsustainable. Eventually the middle will fall out and it will just be rich and poor... and when that happens, the money the rich has will mean nothing anymore. You won't even have to revolt them, because nobody can buy anything because there will be no money for anyone but the rich... and the rich cannot spend their money because they already eliminated everyone else's jobs so there is nowhere for anyone rich or poor to exchange money. The economy collapses and rich and poor are exactly the same... that's the moment when there will be a window of opportunity for the balance of power to shift when the guards are down and then people have a chance at accessing things that equalize the power structure and we're back to a good old fashioned revolt situation again.

Unfortunately, I have little faith that anyone will have learned anything... and we'll just rebuild the same flawed structures and corruption all over again. People seem determined to not learn what they shouldn't do... only to think they've learned how to not get caught.