NoJo posted this awhile back, in a reply:

"I guess the Preppers and doomers inherently lack the insight posessed by the Pollies." In the context, it was tongue-in-cheek.

This bears a comment, I think.

The fundamental insight the pollies have is that LIFE IS CYCLICAL. It's not worth living life in permanent fear of doom REAL SOON NOW. When bad times come, we'll muddle through, and good times will return, if a few thousand years of civilization proves anything. Economies go in cycles along with everything else (oil supply; gold prices; governmental regulatation; yada yada yada). The term "polly" IS used by doomers as shorthand, but generally speaking it is also used as a pejorative, carrying with it the implication that those not buying into fearmongering and doom are burying their heads in the sand.

Generally speaking, the average citizen in this country has more wealth--not just money, but stuff like healthcare, parks, shelter, education--than any population in the history of the world. We have access to more than kings of old. Generally speaking, within the broad ebb and flow of economic cycles, pollies believe this will continue.

Posters on this board determined that doom is just around the corner are living lives in fear, cynicism, isolation, and doubt. They take to the extreme the motto, "Be prepared". It's one thing to save money; it's quite another to die a wealthy miser who has never enjoyed what the money will buy himself or others. It's one thing to prepare for a hurricaine; it's another to remain in a bunker at forty feet.

I post on this board to make my little contribution in bringing some balance. It has become the board of BAD NEWS to a ridiculous extent, and without any balance it serves to perpetuate the narrow living that so many were confined to pre-Y2K. That's unfortunate. Y2K, at MOST is scattered computer glitches that will not cause the average person to suffer.

Better to live life to the full than to live it so "safely" that you never really lived at all. Come on out kids; the water is fine. I'm not going to guarantee no one will ever drown, but life on the shore isn't worth it.

-- ImSo (lame@prepped.com), January 28, 2000

Answers

That's one way of looking at it - a skewed way.

Another way of looking at why some people didn't prepare and protested that there was no reason to fear was that there was, in fact, no reason to fear. Someone somewhere figured it out before it happened. And they were right.

There's no need for flood insurance on the moon.

There was no need for preparation for an event that was not going to take place.

-- I am (LMAO2@pathetic.idiots), January 28, 2000.

I'm So, if this is the board of bad news, it's also the board of REAL news.

Yes, the water's fine, we've all jumped in (along with our preps). We are ready to tread, paddle, or do whatever it takes to keep ourselves afloat come Y2K or not.

You don't have to stay here to provide "balance". IMHO, too many of your posts have a real "trollish" ring to them.

-- TrollStomper (DoomersUnited@TB2000.Net), January 28, 2000.

Polly insight? The two words seem to contradict one another. The Polly "insight" was that things would go on as usual because they had to. The Doomer insight was that they didn't have to, that there are points in history at which there is a discontinuity. That Y2K was not one of them is a matter of dumb luck or hard work, take your pick.

I do not credit the pollies with being "right." For them, it was happenstance that the dime turned where they believed it would. Doomers are not gloomers. We are watching trends with the knowledge that nothing is definite.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 28, 2000.

11:30 EST. DOW and NASDAQ dropping fast. Platinum up to $470. Won't be long now.

-- We'll see (blindman@eyes.com.), January 28, 2000.

Yep. Got to add "Polly insight" to my list of oxymorons. :)

-- justwondering (justwondering@polliesareunsound.com), January 28, 2000.

Yes, you are so lame.

That may be the biggest bunch of BS I've seen posted here.

Reality is *NOT* an ever exponentially increasing market. It includes counter trends, such as the years 1929-39. And, as with most who intellectualize what they can't visualize, you miss the point......few have been the 'doomers' who have postulated the end of mankind. So, when you make statements such as "we'll muddle through, and good times will return," you've erected a minor straw man and avoided any semblance of real discussion.

The attitude you've presented is one of "stick your head in the sand and ignore history." History tells us that government regulation is not cyclical -- within a government. It increases until the government decays. What happens then is not pleasant, witness the fall of the Roman empire.

And yes, mankind got through it. But again, no one has given pretense that we won't. Mankind also got through the Black Death, too, but at the cost of the loss of 1/3 of western humanity.

So, ImSoLame, everything you say is BS because it attacks the straw man position that the alternate to an ever increasing stock market is the wipe out of mankind.

You claim that the term "polly" is used as a pejorative, but neglect to recognize that the term "doomer" is used the same way, only to present the idea that those not buying into cinderella-land must not consider all the good things we have today. Oh, yes, we have much more than kings of 2000 years ago -- so what. Do you want to go back that span of time, or even 1000 years, and live as mankind did then? This is another specious and illogical spewing forth of garbage.

But, then.......that's all that you contribute. Good grief, what a boring and worhtless life you must lead.

-- rocky (rknolls@no.spam), January 28, 2000.

Pollies are collectivists.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), January 28, 2000.

Pollies are stupid worthless morons.

-- (brett@miklos.org), January 28, 2000.

Perhaps when we are at the end of our lives we will have the opportunity to reflect back and see whether the richest overall living went to those who saw hope, and who said, "We can" or to those who saw gloom, and who said, "We are about to fail".

In history, there HAVE been massive, civilization-ending failures. Perhaps some doomers out there would like to come forward now and state whether or not that is what they are predicting now, or is it just the case that they are perseverating on bad news to save face, but have secretly moved on with their lives?

-- Imso (lame@prepped.com), January 28, 2000.

Pollies want a cracker. They want a cracker without expending the effort to get a cracker. In fact, they want YOUR cracker, for whence will it come otherwise? Oh, they'll lick the boots of whomever will use the obscene force of an unaccountable government to get your cracker, but that's about it. Then there'll be no crackers, only boots, and all the squawking in the world won't produce for them a single cracker.

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), January 28, 2000.

Not everyone who is optimistic is willing to lick anyone's boots. To say that mankind will get through hard times is, to me, a most joyful opinion of mankind. Man, through technology, created the Y2K problem and then, through herculean effort solved it. To say that if you have faith in mankind's ability to solve problems you are a collectivist is most illogical.

-- liu (lookitup@dictionary.com), January 28, 2000.

liu,

The Polly mindset is at least partly responsible in creating and sustaining most of mankind's current and future problems. In a effort to not upset their perception of the status quo, they parrot and defend the status quo rhetoric. Since the status quo is rapidly moving to a decidedly anti-freedom, collectivist orientation, that would make all pollies essentially, though perhaps inadvertently, collectivist.

Heaven forefend anyone pointing out the inherent flaws in the economic, political, social, and technological paths that the world is being led down. Ignoring problems and dissociating cause and effect and then wishing away the results or placing unwarranted "faith" in techno-based, nick-of-time future solutions to intractable self-made situations isn't exactly logical either, now is it?

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), January 28, 2000.