User:PatriotismOverProfits/Sandbox

sandbox: "The Bitcher Scale." I think it needs a better name, but nothing is coming to mind.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. -Arthur Schopenhauer (Or not.)

=The Bitcher Scale=

Conservative bitching follows a cyclical pattern, by observing their current talking points we can measure how much progress has been made on various issues and problems, and to predict what future debates will be about.

Because the data source is people bitching, I call it "The Bitcher Scale". (You know, like the Richter Scale, only having nothing in common with it. Suggestions for alternative names are welcome.)

Progress = trading big problems for small ones

First, understand that each problem is a solution to an earlier, bigger problem. Progress consists of trading bigger problems for smaller problems.

How the number works

Each generation of problem is the whole number, while the stage of arguments on the subject is the decimal. 1.1 is always a caveman.

That probably didn't make any sense, so please, bear with me.

Stages of Argument

 * .1: Out of context problem: Conservatives don't understand the concept.
 * .2: Denial: Conservatives understand the concept, deny there's a problem.
 * .3: Misrepresenting solutions: Conservatives don't talk about the problem, when pressed they minimize it, claim people who want to solve it want to go back to the previous problem.
 * .4: Delaying tactics: Conservatives don't talk about the problem, when pressed they blame progressives.
 * .5: Scapegoating: Conservatives talk about the problem all the time, using it to bash progressives, while doing nothing to solve the problem.
 * .6: Distraction: Conservatives talk about the problem all the time, using it to bash progressives while proposing something that will either make the problem worse, or replace the problem with a worse problem
 * .7: The problem is solved, that is, a bigger problem has been replaced with a smaller problem
 * .8: Backlash: Conservatives and nit-picking leftists hold up the new problem as "proof of liberal failures", imply that it's worse than the problem it replaced. Conservatives attempt to return to old problem. Leftists idolize foreign conservatives with the old problem, often back many generations with the furthest extreme being primitivists.
 * .9: Historical revisionism: Conservatives claim progressives who solved said problem were actually conservatives.

So the "tree stages of truth" are now 9:

"First, it is ridiculed." (stage .1 to .2) "Second, it is violently opposed." (.3 to .8) "Third, it is accepted as being self-evident" (.9)"

Small Example: Energy Sources
Generations of energy sources:


 * 1.0: Nothing. Shivering for warmth, eating raw meat.
 * 2.0: Firewood. Cutting down forests and choking on smoke
 * 3.0: Coal
 * 4.0: Oil
 * 5.0: Early nuclear energy
 * 6.0: Next-generation nuclear energy, renewable energy
 * 7.0: ???

Notice that each generation of the technology is imperfect, yet better than what came before.


 * 4.1: Coal and Oil are the main sources of energy.
 * 4.2: "Coal smoke is good for your health" (On a cold day: "So much for global warming!")
 * 4.3: "Oh, you don't like oil, so you want to go back to the horse-and-buggy era?"
 * 4.4: Greenwashing. "There's no consensus on climate change".
 * 4.5: Nothing really co-ordinated yet. Election season snipe-and-forget. Accusations that individual environmentalists don't practise what they preach.

So, our energy source debate is "4.3 to 4.5 on the Bitcher Scale" with Peak Oil survivalists at 4.6, blaming the New Deal Era progressives for building highways/the suburbs, and proposing we retool for the horse and buggy era.

What can we predict from this model? Perhaps next the Republicans will flesh out 4.5 by saying climate change is God's revenge for (insert scapegoat of the day).

Full Example: black-white race relations in the USA

 * 1.1: Enslavement of blacks
 * 1.2: "Sambo" stereotypes
 * 1.3: "You're better off here than in Africa"
 * 1.4: "Abolitionists are making the slaves discontented".
 * 1.5: Lead up to the War Between The States, paranoia about abolitionists arming blacks and promoting slave rebellions
 * 1.6: "Compromises" such as the Crittenden Compromise proposed.
 * 1.7: Emancipation. Blacks trade slavery for second-class citizenship, lynchings, Jim Crow.
 * 1.8: Myth of the old south. Back to Africa movement founds Liberia.
 * 1.9: "We're the Party Of Lincoln".

Generation 2:


 * 2.1: Second-class citizenship.
 * 2.2: "Sambo" stereotypes
 * 2.3: "You're better off here than in Africa"
 * 2.4: "Martin Luther King is a Communist, spreading division by making the blacks discontented"
 * 2.5: White flight
 * 2.6: War on drugs
 * 2.7: Civil rights movement succeeds, war on poverty
 * 2.8: "War on poverty is a failure. Welfare queens. Spoiling them has made the blacks discontented". Radical blacks convert to Islam, ignoring the Arab slave trade.
 * 2.9: "Martin Luther King was a conservative", Meanwhile GOP voter suppression, an attempt to return to the old problem, is a reversion to stage 2.8.

Generation 3:


 * 3.1: Relatively subtle forms of racism
 * 3.2: "Quit your whining".
 * 3.3: "I'm color-blind. Blacks benefit from reverse racism"
 * 3,4: "Identity politics are divisive, making the blacks discontented".
 * 3.5: Survivialism, "race war" paranoia, "Obama's thugs" etc.
 * 3.6 "Vote Republican, Michael Steele is off da hook, homie!" - They never got serious about this, but they'll give it another try if the Bitcher Scale has predictive value.

Therefore, US black-white race relations are "2.8 to 3.5 on the Bitcher Scale."