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Thread: “Boomsday”

  1. #1
    Proximal is offline Banned
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    “Boomsday”

    A book that came out in 2007.

    I’ll start with a fantastic movie - great satire & funnier than hell called “Thank You For Smoking”. It’s about a professional PR guy whose job it is to protect the tobacco industry. The author that wrote the book that became that movie also wrote “Boomsday”. I read it about 10 years ago.

    A blogger satirically promotes financial incentives for baby-boomers to kill themselves at 70, thus not financially draining the younger generations. The idea catches on and it actually becomes the platform for a presidential candidate.

    Just thought it had interesting parallels to this current situation (no, I am NOT referring to the president or anything political, just the idea).

    I wonder if the elderly that voluntarily refuse healthcare for this virus with the idea that they are saving the medical profession (by allowing it to treat those that won’t likely die from this) could or should be compensated (or their families). Looking at CDC statistics it still appears that it is primarily the elderly that are dying.

    That way, the fear factor can drop considerably because the health care industry will not be as overwhelmed, those younger that are infected will very likely survive (just like the flu) and we can go onto business as usual.

    Just ordered the book to re-read it, but trust me, if haven’t seen “Thank You for Smoking” it’s a guaranteed winner and will make you laugh.
    Last edited by Proximal; 04-04-2020 at 09:56 AM.
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    Proximal is offline Banned
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    I’ll go out this way, don’t even need to be paid, lol.

    https://youtu.be/xUTvYqQvpYg
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    Same here.
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    There are 3 loves in my life: my wife, my English mastiffs, and my weightlifting....Man, my wife gets really pissed when I get the 3 confused...
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    I think the most humanizing thing you can do is hold a newborn baby in your arms. Because it makes you realize what a precious gift that life is, and you're absolutely dazzled by the thought that you were in that same place once.

    The second most humanizing thing you can do is care for an elder who is so near to the end of their life that they can taste it. Because it makes you realize that they're in the exact same place you're headed to, in time, and it makes you realize what a precious gift the time is that stands between you and them.

    You need those reminders so you don't become so jaded and hard-hearted. The elderly are a priceless resource specifically because they are a living reminder of what awaits us. That life is precious. Nothing so evidences a society's true humanity more than how it treats its most helpless, those whose life is just beginning, and those who are rushing headlong to its end.

    Do you know why the Samurai of feudal Japan wore that funny haircut with the top of their head shaved? It was a symbol of their reverence for the aged. Even a people as cutthroat as the Samurai got it.


    As for Boomsday, I've long thought that's what they should do with condemned inmates on death row. Offer them $10,000 for every year between their current age and 72, to be paid to their designated beneficiary upon execution of sentence.

    I read recently about a prison inmate who had been on death row since 1985 for shanking a fellow inmate while already serving a life sentence for murdering his grandmother. Filmed on CCTV and with about a hundred witnesses. Yet he managed to drag out his appeals for a quarter of a century. And I'm sure that those 25 years of incarceration cost his state the better part of a million bucks. My plan would have paid his beneficiary $390,000 (saving the state about half a mil) and he'd have been rotting in the ground since 1985.

    Our government sanctions the killing of millions of unborn every year, most of whom are killed entirely for the convenience of their mother. I see absolutely nothing inconsistent with providing someone who is so far from innocent as to have been found guilty of a capital crime with a cash incentive to allow the sentence to be carried out, when both the state and his/her beneficiary stand to profit so much from it.
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    Proximal is offline Banned
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    Quote Originally Posted by cylon357 View Post
    But I hadn't seen that live version before, so that was cool.

    Well, it would have been cooler if they didn't keep showing Lemmy. All those near naked ladies dancing with fire and I have to see his face randomly popup? That's no good lol

    Mötorhead is the very definition of NOT politically correct (which is cool with me)
    Yeah, he doesn’t have the most photogenic of looks, lol. Love Motörhead, that song and those young ladies!
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  6. #6
    Proximal is offline Banned
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    Quote Originally Posted by Beetlegeuse View Post
    I think the most humanizing thing you can do is hold a newborn baby in your arms. Because it makes you realize what a precious gift that life is, and you're absolutely dazzled by the thought that you were in that same place once.

    The second most humanizing thing you can do is care for an elder who is so near to the end of their life that they can taste it. Because it makes you realize that they're in the exact same place you're headed to, in time, and it makes you realize what a precious gift the time is that stands between you and them.

    You need those reminders so you don't become so jaded and hard-hearted. The elderly are a priceless resource specifically because they are a living reminder of what awaits us. That life is precious. Nothing so evidences a society's true humanity more than how it treats its most helpless, those whose life is just beginning, and those who are rushing headlong to its end.

    Do you know why the Samurai of feudal Japan wore that funny haircut with the top of their head shaved? It was a symbol of their reverence for the aged. Even a people as cutthroat as the Samurai got it.


    As for Boomsday, I've long thought that's what they should do with condemned inmates on death row. Offer them $10,000 for every year between their current age and 72, to be paid to their designated beneficiary upon execution of sentence.

    I read recently about a prison inmate who had been on death row since 1985 for shanking a fellow inmate while already serving a life sentence for murdering his grandmother. Filmed on CCTV and with about a hundred witnesses. Yet he managed to drag out his appeals for a quarter of a century. And I'm sure that those 25 years of incarceration cost his state the better part of a million bucks. My plan would have paid his beneficiary $390,000 (saving the state about half a mil) and he'd have been rotting in the ground since 1985.

    Our government sanctions the killing of millions of unborn every year, most of whom are killed entirely for the convenience of their mother. I see absolutely nothing inconsistent with providing someone who is so far from innocent as to have been found guilty of a capital crime with a cash incentive to allow the sentence to be carried out, when both the state and his/her beneficiary stand to profit so much from it.
    I’ve worked with the elderly, but to this day have never held a child.

    I’m in full agreement with your idea and would extend it to anyone with a life sentence personally.

    Regarding the book and it’s premise, I Hope society keeps its compassion, but will be interesting to see when things get really bad economically.

    Damn, what some of those really old folks put up with in their lives. It would be tough ending your years knowing that other generations scorn you & would prefer you just get the virus already, shut up & disappear.

    With that said, I more than understand those that are suffering and having their livelihoods jeopardized. I’m not passing judgements, just speaking my mind.

    I’m finishing a great book now on the Eugenics movement in the early 1900’s in this country. They had already started sterilization of the “feeble minded”, “imbeciles” & those in asylums (and would move on to prisons). Now on a chapter where they are thinking of a gas chamber that was used & started in England (late 1800’s) for unwanted dogs & animals and a movement is being made to extend that to unwanted humans that are a drag on society.

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