Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

Navigator wrote: Thu May 23, 2024 9:32 pm It won't be long before we have to deal with the security repercussions of the open borders. Terrorists and CCP agents and agitators are flocking in, blending in with those that come here in hope of a better life, and those who come thinking current Americans should just hand it to them without any effort made on their part. The truly bad guys are just waiting for the signal from their overlords.

Miriam Cates
@miriam_cates

Imagine if our streets were so lawless that children regularly witnessed rapes & beheadings on the way to school & were propositioned daily for sex. This is not a horror movie: it’s the digital world that our children occupy. We must save kids from this online Wild West. A1/16

Since 2010, children’s mental health has collapsed across the West. Rates of teen suicide, self-harm, anxiety, depression & sexual abuse have increased sharply. Education scores have fallen. As @JonHaidt has shown, these trends are caused by smartphones & social media. 2/16

Visual social comparison platforms – TikTok, SnapChat and Instagram – affect girls particularly. And girls are more vulnerable to sexual predation. Self-generated child sexual abuse has rocketed. The camera phone offers predators an open door to little girls’ bedrooms. 3/16

Gaming and pornography are rewiring boys’ brains, superficially fulfilling sexual and physical desires but leaving them lonely, addicted, de-skilled and unable to find enjoyment or stimulation offline. 4/16

Even schools aren’t safe. @Policy_Exchange found just 11% of schools have an effective phone ban. The omnipresence of smartphones and social media provide a constant ‘off ramp’ for a child’s concentration. No wonder PISA scores are down and IQ is falling for the first time. 5/16

Social media is highly addictive. The average child receives 237 notifications a day – that’s a concentration busting, dopamine hit every 4 minutes. As adults we struggle to control our phone use – it’s impossible for children. 6/16

If there were no laws against the sale of tobacco, drugs or alcohol to children, we wouldn’t expect parents to be able to defend their children from these addictive substances. Yet somehow we do expect them to protect their kids from the vested interests of wealthy Big Tech. 7/16

The problems associated with heavy screen use are presenting younger and younger. More and more children are starting primary school unable to communicate and with behavioural and emotional difficulties. This year a quarter of school starters were still in nappies. 8/16

There are huge geopolitical risks too. We spend billions of pounds a year on defence and yet – through the Chinese owned TikTok - we allow our political enemies direct access to our children in their bedrooms with hyper sexualised and anti-Western propaganda. 9/16

The economic costs of this assault on childhood will be devastating. Record numbers of young people are signed off work with anxiety. Our welfare state cannot afford to support mass worklessness amongst the young. 10/16

But the tide is turning. From the US to France, governments are waking up to the dangers of social media for children. In the UK, campaign groups like @DelaySmartphone, @safe_screens & Smartphone Free Childhood have amassed tens of thousands of supporters. 11/16

The polling is decisive. @Moreincommon found 7 in 10 Birts think social media is harming children. @Parentkind found 77% of primary school parents back a ban on smartphones for kids. 72% of @Conservatives voters are in favour of a ban on sale of smartphones to children. 12/16

Government must act. We need effective age verification, no social media for under 16s, a proper phone bans in schools and a crackdown on online porn. Big Tech will fight this tooth & nail because getting kids hooked gives them a revenue stream for life. 13/16

But many well-meaning organisations and children’s charities also oppose banning social media for kids, claiming there are benefits for ‘vulnerable’ children. But this is hopelessly naïve. The more vulnerable the child, the more dangerous the online world. 14/16

We must use the last few months of this Parliament to introduce effective legislation to protect children from a real and present danger.
Indeed, is there any better reason to be in Government than to have the opportunity - and the power - to rescue the next generation? 15/16

You can watch the full speech on my YouTube channel. https://youtu.be/AxMdgxI-euo?si=KJPznGplXbNzQnep 16/16

I remember the news reports minutes after the Oklahoma City bombing. It was reported that (I believe it was two) two men of Middle Eastern descent were thought to have fled the scene of the bombing and that's who was being sought. I was working in an office. I said that I doubted anyone of Middle Eastern descent was responsible; it was probably an American.

Guest wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2024 2:30 am Higgenbotham:

I remember the news reports minutes after the Oklahoma City bombing. It was reported that (I believe it was two) two men of Middle Eastern descent were thought to have fled the scene of the bombing and that's who was being sought. I was working in an office. I said that I doubted anyone of Middle Eastern descent was responsible; it was probably an American.

These days the suspects are "three white males in MAGA hats"...

We couldn’t find any publicly available, official intelligence community definition of "sleeper cell," and we did not hear back from the CIA or the House Intelligence Committee. But the International Spy Museum, which has board members and advisers from the intelligence community, defines a "sleeper agent" as an "agent living as an ordinary citizen in a foreign country; acts only when a hostile situation develops."

This definition mirrors the image most Americans may have from pop culture: spies or terrorists who embed themselves in another country. These so-called sleeper agents pass themselves off as ordinary citizens as they await a call from their handlers — sometimes years later — with orders to undertake a mission such as sabotage or terrorism.

Experts told PolitiFact they are unaware of any efforts by China or its ruling Communist Party that fit this Hollywood version of a sleeper cell.

However, a looser definition of "sleeper cell" might fit a recent case of Chinese nationals accused of embedding themselves in Manhattan to operate an "illegal overseas police station," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a terrorism expert who founded the security and technology firm Valens Global.

According to the Justice Department’s April 2023 announcement of the charges, the effort was focused on intimidating Chinese dissidents. Like sleeper agents, they are accused of working undercover within an American community while doing the bidding of a foreign government.

But the case also presents differences with the popular conception of sleeper cells. The suspects are accused of targeting Chinese dissidents living in America, not native-born Americans; their endgame does not appear to have been a terrorist act against the U.S.; and the anti-dissident operations might have been ongoing, rather than having to await orders for a specific mission.

Experts told PolitiFact that a Chinese-devised sleeper cell of the Hollywood variety seems far-fetched in today’s environment. They said Stefanik’s framing falls into the long-standing trope of a feared Chinese invasion.

"Stefanik is basically replicating old-school ‘red scare’ stuff, trying to provoke anti-China sentiment," said James J.F. Forest, the director of security studies at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

However, they added, other tactics seem more promising from the Chinese perspective.

"A cyberattack involving hackers that are already present and lurking in our networks is far more likely than a Chinese-directed terrorist campaign involving ‘sleeper cells,’ ” Forest said. "That’s not what China does, nor is it something they’d want or need to do."

Suzanne Ogden, a professor emerita of political science at Northwestern University, agreed.

Ogden said China has "so many thousands of students in scholars and others in this country that they don’t really need so-called sleeper cells. In the age of computers, they can find out everything they want to know without doing what sleeper cells used to do."

The teams assembled in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were classic al-Qaeda sleeper cells.
They were comprised of four divisions: (1) the intelligence section; (2) the administrative
section; (3) the planning and preparation section; and (4) the execution section. This was a tiered
system, in which the chief of intelligence served as the operation’s overall commander. His job
was to conduct target surveillance; identify points of bomb detonation; assign section deputies to
conduct other cell functions; to monitor those functions; and communicate coded messages to al-
Qaeda planners in Afghanistan. The cells operated on a strategy known in the West as leaderless
resistance. Cell members shared information on a need-to-know basis, including information
about one another’s identity. Al-Qaeda’s cell structure therefore limited the potential damage of
betrayal from within, and safeguarded against potential infiltration from without.

Experts told PolitiFact they are unaware of any efforts by China or its ruling Communist Party that fit this Hollywood version of a sleeper cell.

Ogden said China has "so many thousands of students in scholars and others in this country that they don’t really need so-called sleeper cells. In the age of computers, they can find out everything they want to know without doing what sleeper cells used to do."

Tom Mazanec wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2024 7:06 am If we enter a Dark Age, will there be technological regression like in earlier Dark Ages?

aedens wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2024 1:21 pm "I'm tired of having my ancestors compared to today's migrant hordes. Settling an undeveloped land and building a civilization out of it is not comparable with showing up to an aging, post-industrial nation and looting it." The Biden legacy is sealed in stone. Failure.

For what it’s worth, I think most civilizations are clever but not wise — wise cultures don’t become civilizations.

Can you give some examples of wise cultures? And what does it mean that they don’t become civilizations? What’s the difference between culture and civilization?

A civilization is a culture with cities. If you want to see a wise culture, look for one that’s been around in a stable form for several thousand years; they’re out there.