FRN During Lockdowns

[nuduke]

Phew, what a lot of scepticism and cynicism!
When I was a corporate executive and later moved in management consulting circles I was amazed by the levels of cynicism exhibited by some CEOS and directors and senior consultants.  These guys had power and riches (well, relative to me anyway!) and did not stop at manipulative practices and the sort of risk taking on behalf of profit and against the common good that Jbee alludes to in his driver anecdote.
However, my experience the work of these people did was that it tended to foster some good, benefit or positive outcome and I think that that more benign philosophy has propelled the academics and corporations in the search for a cure for Covid.  i.e. they are genuine in the quest to find a cure with the spin off of profit being simply a natural consequence of that.  What I never experienced in my career was a genuine conspiracy to extract profit against the broad public good.  I'm not saying it doesn't happen but I believe that most ceos' companies' and politicians' motives are for the common good not wholly at the expense of good for the gain of profit.  Things like thalidomide were a mistake but I will perfectly happily recognise that the action to withdraw it might have come after a long period of denial about the evidence (compare Trump's current position!) or not acting until sufficient evidence was available to override their prior findings and trials.  The fact is that a company defending and trying to sell a product that creates an evil will soon be foiled as people won't buy it.  Aha! I hear you say, what about DDT and plastic straws?  Well I don't think the life of those products could have been some sort of conspiracy to blind the world's population to the evil they did because they did huge amount of good for a long time before the adverse effects of them became clear.
I'm not defending greed or megalomania - there are many examples of corporations blindly chasing the growth of profit with insufficient regard for the adverse consequences of their business ethic - take Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Macdonalds and numerous oil companies and clothing companies as examples.  But I disagree to the extent that Jbee, Ric and Bob seem to project the political and corporate worlds as one big, evil exploitative conspiracy. 
John

[ric]

Thursday elon musk took 4 rapid covid tests.... 2 positive 2 negative.    Not been widely reported by mainstream media , but Google it and the reports are out there.
I've seen a report that since he's had several pcr tests but still waiting for results.

Also Google threw up some person I'd never heard of but I assume an actress that tested pos in one nostril and neg in the other

[Greenbare Woods]

What I never experienced in my career was a genuine conspiracy to extract profit against the broad public good.
John

Yes, John, thanks for sharing your experience.  A fundamental flaw in the anti-corporation rhetoric always ignores the unbreakable requirement for businesses to serve their customers in order to make any profits at all, and in order to stay in business. Corporations that succeed in serving customers thrive, while those who "put profits first" are soon dismissed by consumers.  That's the big difference between a free market corporation and a government provided anything.  The free market has to provide more service than their total cost plus profit in order to survive.  Government provided anything has no incentive ever to provide good service or even to provide what is wanted.  That's why we wait an hour or more at MVD for a car license, but we can get "fast food" in a minute. 

It is really government that puts power and greed ahead of public good, and never goes out of business no matter how bad they get.

[Greenbare Woods]

Thursday elon musk took 4 rapid covid tests.... 2 positive 2 negative.    Not been widely reported by mainstream media , but Google it and the reports are out there.
I've seen a report that since he's had several pcr tests but still waiting for results.

The guy who invented the PCR test has said that the PCR test cannot produce accurate results for Covid.  You can probably google that.  The PCR test just doesn't work like that.  It gets any results that the operator wants to produce.  Its all a fiction.   You would do just as well flipping a coin, and often would get more accurate results.  It is not a surprise that Musk got 2 heads and 2 tails in 4 flips (a.k.a. tests). 

[jbeegoode]

"But I disagree to the extent that Jbee, Ric and Bob seem to project the political and corporate worlds as one big, evil exploitative conspiracy.
John"

It isn't a conspiracy, it is out in the open, or business as usual, particularly at the higher levels, lobbying, etc. In the USA and multinational world.

Look at the Pentagon procurement and the military industrial complex. Look at the Iraq war. Look at the way royalty treated peasants back when, or the way people are exploited in the third world. There are people who don't care about people, who accept that this is the way it is, or just don't care about "lesser" people. There are others that feel the need to be top dog in the perceived dog eat dog world. There is greed and dishonesty.

 Of course not everyone in a corporation is evil, but at the top the rules are the rules. I had a very fun personable conversation with a higher up CEO and leader of the national organization of timber industry. I told him of my cousin who was creating wood substitute from left over straw in the feilds. I asked. He thought it over very concerned and seriously. "It will never succeed. We are too powerful." I really enjoyed the guy's company, he is a nice guy, he believes in good, but....

Cattle industry, also bad. It has been since the days of Billy the Kid.

Bob, since you brought it up. We were getting great MVD service, until Republican government cutbacks crippled the process. When government cut backs on funding of funding for services, like the Postal Service, it tanks it out. Government performs better and more honorably than the big competition. It is big business that pushes for the less tax, which just puts money in their pockets. It isn't the government interference making problems, its the people controlling the government for profit instead of for people. Government does a great job, until greed gets in the way. The cost of healthcare is a tax, by a private industry. It cost way more than other universal care systems. The system works poorly, the care sucks, the decisions are made by death squads for profit.

This whole government can't do anything right is a hoax perpetrated by the funding of the Koch's etc. Why? for profit, deregulation, to exploit us all. The biggest expense of our local school district was trying to pay for health insurance increases to private companies, so the quality of education dissipated. The forest service used to do an incredible job, now there is neglect.

There is too much government, but then there is corporate meddling, by fat pigs.

The Free market system philosophy is unbridled capitalism. It always ends up the same, less competition, controlled by a few. It doesn't police itself by the nature of the game. That is a lie that started with the John Birch Society, but all promoted by pigs with hundreds of millions of dollars to influence.

Please, be more careful to not interject political non-naturist content into the conversation. I have to respond.
Jbee

[jbeegoode]

Uh oh, here I go again. Yes, we get fast food in a minute, but it is hardly worthy of being called food, if we define it as nutrition instead of "just edible" "good for us" or create the illusion that just feeling full is having eaten. 
Jbee

[Greenbare Woods]

Cattle industry, also bad. It has been since the days of Billy the Kid.

When I was a teenager I worked summers on my uncle's ranch.  I still have cousins in the cattle industry.   I buy beef from local ranches.   YUM!. 

You have your opinion Jbee, but painting the cattle industry or any other industry with such a broad brush is seriously mistaken and ignorant. 

Bob, since you brought it up. We were getting great MVD service,

Where I've lived, in New Mexico and Washington state, the MVD got so bad (3 hour lines) they turned it over to PRIVATE BUSINESS, and it's a whole lot better.  I won't go to their state MVD any more, and haven't gone there since. I gladly pay the extra $5 service fee because the Private Business contractors do much better at customer service. 

There is too much government, but then there is corporate meddling, by fat pigs.

Fat pigs make good eating.  The political bullshit about the Covid Plan-demic has disrupted our supply of pork more than once. 

This thread is getting way to political.  We disagree on politics but I'm not going to participate in further political argument in this forum.

[jbeegoode]

Wholly agreed. You and I are most often on respectfully two opposite sides of the political spectrum. This is a naturism site and we at least want to attempt to not wander off the topic too much. One reason I come here is to escape the common banter of political expression and newbies probably don't need to get the idea that that is what we are about.

I can comment on the MVD within that guideline. In Arizona, they tried selling our information to private groups to make up for funding, or the head of division got a kickback, but here was big uproar. Back in the late sixties, we used to have to wait well over an hour on hardwood train station benches, which was cruel and unusual punishment. No air conditioning.

It was running very smoothly for a couple of years, then, the cutbacks hit, it is so bad with covid that I haven't gone to report my change of address, which could be hours. The legislature likes to hit the rest stops, the MVD, the State Parks department, etc. first. The stuff that we the people are affected by first.

The relevant news is that they are attempting to do online service, which allows me to take care of much of the chores in the nude. The site has been a headache however. I don't want private contractors with access to my stuff and little public oversight, AND the expense of a middleman. I think that sitting naked in my warm home, taking care of all but title transfers will ultimately be the best solution and cheaper.
Jbee

[Peter S]

We’ve had all our motor vehicle licensing etc online for years in the U.K. works very well. As the various agencies involved are all government there’s no issue over data selling - in any case, that’s already handled by insurance companies!

[ric]

The online tax and test checkers are handy too.    When buying a used car you only need the reg no. To get all the test results  and see what it's failed on and had repaired in past years.

[jbeegoode]

The emissions tests are done at centers, the serial numbers have to be checked to match and also when buying a car, or trailer. Drivers tests are done at the center for cheating issues and photos. There is no particular dress code for this, but state law. The rest, I think, can be done without clothing.

There has been an option, because of the ineptitude and blatant stripping of funds for MVD, a business developed which sends a surrogate for you to register your car, etc. You pay something like $30 plus bucks extra to avoid the mess. I suppose that the service requires some cloth between the car and finalizing. Carnuding up to the surrogate office is more comfortable, because the MVD center is right next door to the police station. You don't have to wait at the office for them to do what they do. They go in and out of business, with the ebb and flow of funding. It is kind of like an extra tax. It is something that the poor can't have.

It is night and day, between the efficiency and curtousy of a public service that is defunded for political reasons, or the graft of privatization. Still, as much a headache that it is to learn a new system on a computer which should be simple, the convenience of not going to the mass torture buildings, in stuffy uniforms is worth it. I must say that it is more difficult to defund a privatized entity under contract than a government agency.

Emissions checks are privatized. They have no real competition. They are just as dysfunctional as the public ones could ever be. They have a lot of turnover and "always" new trainees who don't know what they are doing, because of the low wages and smog related health issues. Like any for profit outfit, they slash wages and so the quality of service personnel. I have to put on pants no matter who. Which would be the greater threat if I was dressed "inappropriately," a fearful new guy who is frightened to do something wrong, or offend a customer, or an old hand that feels more power in a secured well paying job? I'd have to say probably the former.

I apologize for bias. I have a chip on my shoulder perhaps for being a former school teacher and seeing how education has been handled as political lobbying pressures to privatize are defunding public education to make it look bad. It is just a ton of money to be tempted to get a piece of, by private interests. My Republican representative, head of the education committee, who offered my son a position as a page and for some reason was very friendly and candid with me, informed me of the political pressure on the legislature from this greed.
Jbee

[Peter S]

So many bureaucratic systems, whether public or private, have been reduced to computerised scripts and tick boxes. Computer say yes, computer say no. The operator is then a minimum wage drone with minimal training and no discretion to decide what to do if a square peg won’t go in the round hole, and nowhere to mark it on the computer screen if there was any such discretion. And I’ve no doubt such systems were every bit as bad before computerisation, the inadequacies having been transferred to the screen.

[Greenbare Woods]

The only MONEY to be made in Nudism seems to be 1. resorts. Vacation/fenced compounds, and 2. porn. Providing picture of films of nude bodies. 

Both ways to make MONEY on nude people depends on keeping it illegal for most people to be naked at home or on the street, restricting access to nude freedom and restricting access to the sight of nude people.  Private industry satisfies market demand by providing both nude resorts and nude-sexual imagery.  Private industry says we have  right to be naked "where appropriate," meaning only at their pay-for-play resorts.  Private industry says nude and sexual pictures are not allowed on free public broadcast TV or big free Internet sites like Facebook.

In opposition there are huge profits to be made from requiring clothing, forcing us to buy and use their textile products.  The "fashion" industry makes buckets of money for themselves and for all the print, TV, film, and Internet media.  Those of us who eschew fashion and would rather not purchase their filthy fabric have no money to compete.  We have to compete by large numbers of us demanding public viewing of any kind of nudity, in every place. There is no money to buy politicians and media.   

[jbeegoode]

AHmen, Bob.

Fortunately the legislatures and local bodies are staying away from worsening the damage that they have already done. Nudity has become controversial and the media filled with popular porn and nudity has been too dangerous to lead the masses into heftier regulations.

We're stuck here, except to doing what we can to get the word out and normalize the sight of nude bodies within the mass opinion. Even with all the porn, I think that fewer and fewer people consider it dangerous, or harmful like the olden days.

Now, how to teach the discernment between sex and simple nudity among those masses. Perhaps more normal bodies? People just having fun? Folks showing their butts at monuments? Influential celebs coming out? Standing on street corners passing out leaflets. Attempting to get positive stuff to go viral? Pulling off some extreme stunt that gets everybody's attention and gets them to talking, like Steven Gough? Start hanging out at pay for play and just give up our rights?
Jbee

[Greenbare Woods]

AHmen, Bob.
Now, how to teach the discernment between sex and simple nudity among those masses. Jbee

I'm not sure that is needed or even beneficial to public nudity.   The mantra "nudity is not sexual" has been preached by the "pay-for-play" industry for more than a century while they lobbied to keep public nudity illegal (except behind their fences).  These days there are a lot more people posting their own sexual selfie pictures on Internet sites than going to nudist resorts.  Sexuality is a very powerful motivation for most humans, including many nudists and most people who post nude selfies. 

One of the reasons that single men are unwelcome in many nudist clubs is because they have a hidden sex club (special interest sub group) where too many men would overwhelm the women members.  The AANR group that I was President of for a while had one of those that I didn't know about until my wife divorced me and she got invited to their nude sex parties.  It turned out that about half of the "nudist" AANR club were in it for the sex. 

Perhaps the cause of nude freedom would be easier to promote if nudists stopped pretending that naked people are not sexual.  Nobody pretends that silly mantra about clothed people. Babes in thong bikinis are all about being sexual.  So are men in tights.  None of us get any less sexual by taking it off. 

Seems to me that in addition to nudists showing the flag by being seen naked a lot, we need to get honest and recognize the sexual nature of our bodies and our species.  Hiding our biological sexuality an pretending it doesn't exist hasn't succeeded. 

Bob