tGC AMA with Wibbs!

mzungu

If you could own one historical relic, what would it be?

Pat Mustard

mzungu wrote: »

If you could own one historical relic, what would it be?

Sorry, I couldn't resist:



/scurries away quickly

Wibbs

Jobs OXO wrote: »

How much do you earn?

G'way with you.

mzungu wrote: »

If you could own one historical relic, what would it be?

Maybe the Nebra sky disk, or the Lion Man, or the Babylon Ishtar gate, but that would be hard to get into my gaff.

Avatar MIA

You could know the answers to the most profound questions you've ever considered for certain, but 10 random people (not known to you) would die, that would not otherwise die for many decades directly because of you accepting the knowledge - would you accept?

Wibbs

Tempting, but no. Wouldn't be worth people dying, especially because knowing all the answers would leave nothing to wonder about and some of those answers might well be terrifying.

Armchair Andy

Must say Wibbs i love the way you treat all posters with the same respect and courtesy.Also your endeavour to answer all questions with the same zeal and honesty. If i knew more people like you irl id be a happy man.

Wibbs

OOps, missed this one

Solomon Pleasant wrote: »

What's the best piece of advice ever given to you? How has it served you?

Can't actually think of one. More a case of picking stuff up down the years from various sources. Though I do recall my dad advising me to think of others first. Whether friends or enemies. Put yourself on another's headspace is good on a few levels. Too often we filter everthing through ourselves first.

I suppose another would be don't take yourself too seriously. We're all three day wonders, mayflies in the grand scheme of things. Everything that has irritated, worried or pissed you off is mostly forgotten within a lifetime, or should be and will be like mist on the wind beyond it. Not nihilism, more perspective.

That and we always have options and we're a lot more powerful than we think we are as far as exercising them. A single person can change the world. Now 99.99999% won't, but they can change their own local world and their worldview.

If life is always crap and people are always crap towards you, the elephant in the room is that you're the common denominator.

If one person says you smell, ignore, of ten do, buy soap. Or luxuriate in being a smelly bastard.

What is your greatest accomplishment?

Continuing on through life without losing what it is to be me.

Filmer Paradise

Hi Wibbs

Great fan of your posting on here. Tend to agree with you most of the time on things.

Couple of questions for you if I may.

What does your username mean?

Also are/were you an only child & if so what effect do you think it has had on your life?

Wibbs

Filmer Paradise wrote: »

What does your username mean?

Comes from Viz comic's Roger Irrelevant. Sorta.



He would say "wibble" a lot and since I'm wont to wander off on tangents... I used that as a username early on in other forums and shortened to Wibbs here.

Also are/were you an only child & if so what effect do you think it has had on your life?

You get to choose your own "brothers" and "sisters". Plus you get used to your own company and don't flip out if alone for a while like some folks do. Didn't get any extra stuff growing up mind you as my parents were conscious of "only child syndrome" to the point of overdoing that at times. Though even with the best intentions I can have a tendency to be dismissive of others, sometimes, but because I am aware of that failing I work real hard on that.

mzungu

How would you go about alleviating poverty in the developing world?

Wibbs

mzungu wrote: »

How would you go about alleviating poverty in the developing world?

Education and fostering of same. IE where overseas aid is concerned a set percentage must be spent on education or no dice. Medicine and health promoted again by set percentage of overseas aid. Make a serious effort to reduce fertility. There are too many people in the world and this goes quadruple outside the developed world. People have to feel that they don't need the social insurance of a gazillion kids, or expecting to lose a few of them to disease. Stop all military export trade with such nations. If they can afford to spend cash on F15's or MiG 29's they can afford to build hospitals and schools and foster local business. When a gaggle of 40 million quid each jet fighters are taking off and passing over slums with open sewers at the end of the runway somethings is fcuked up.

If I ruled the world... I'd not be far off going into a few hellholes and forcibly removing the ruling classes that are raping their own country of resources and people. That goes for western companies exploiting locals to maximise their profits. I'd also massively restrict immigration to the developed world. For all sorts of practical reasons; current multiculturalism as an experiment is too often a busted flush. What hope for a nation if their best and brightest are leaving in droves. Better to improve lives where they are at home, than import problems elsewhere. Not a popular angle I'll grant you but there it is. Plus as I see it when otherwise more Right wing economic types and left liberal hippie types agree that open borders are a good thing then it's likely a very bad thing indeed for someone, or many someones.

Castlebounce wrote: »

Hi Wibbs,

What is your opinion on the minimum wage, do you think it should be eradicated to allow the market to set the price for labour?

No CB and it would go for a lot of other things the market would like to set. Simply because the only thing the "market" is interested in is maximising profit. Never mind that the gap between the richest and the poorest is increasing. For me anyway those who have faith in the market as a governing force are either high up controllers and beneficiaries of same, or those who foolishly think they are, or will be. QV the American Dream idea. Hence you will find many among the great impoverished Have Not America voting against their own best interests because of this kinda belief. One fostered by the Haves. It's a useful belief after all. Wasn't it Steinbeck who remarked "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."*

On the other hand I don't like too much government oversight. Nanny state stuff, where people get hand holding whether they like it or not. Like all opposing ideas the middle path is the way(nicked that from Mr S G Buddha, of 1 Enlightenment Park, Mumbai).



*though I would contend that socialism nor fascism took off in the US(even though both held wide enough appeal at various times. Fascism was seen as a positive in the 1930's as an example) is more because of the notion of America as a society of individuals, rather than a collective so it never gained critical mass. Which is a good thing. Collectivist thinking in a society disturbs me.

DeadHand

Hey, Wibbs.

You're arguably the best poster and inarguably the best mod on the boards. Someone respected on all sides of the many divides which often emerge here in what can be a highly polarised space.

I don't have a question per se, just a request I've contemplated pm'ing you.

I recall a post you made a few years ago, possibly in the paranormal forum, about a mate of yours and his encounter with what may have been a Sasquatch in Canada.

I've searched for it to no avail. Could you, if you're so inclined, dig it up? Or retell the story?

ancapailldorcha

DeadHand wrote: »

I recall a post you made a few years ago, possibly in the paranormal forum, about a mate of yours and his encounter with what may have been a Sasquatch in Canada.

I've searched for it to no avail. Could you, if you're so inclined, dig it up? Or retell the story?

I need to find better things to do with my Saturday nights:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=82276683

Wibbs

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I need to find better things to do with my Saturday nights:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=82276683

Oh thank Christ for AC, on this and other matters. I can't find my arse with both hands and a map. And GPS coordinates for "Arse". Never mind using search on the interwebs. #phewforACD Though the Paris thing I mentioned in that post still remains creepy to me to this day. That and being in Madrid when a local Spaniard who stuck his head in the car window and asked the car full of other Spaniards the way to Toledo and they not knowing, but I did.

Tom Mann Centuria

Hi Wibbs long time reader first time poster.

I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. Do you have one?

Wibbs

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

Hi Wibbs long time reader first time poster.

I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. Do you have one?

You're reading it. Never got into the blog thang. Always felt more than a little self indulgent for me.

ancapailldorcha

What about the future do you find most foreboding and most hopeful?

Wibbs

Increased longevity in people. Automation. They would be two that could very much go either way. Especially the latter. Many middle level jobs will vanish. Already Legal firms in the US are hiring fewer and fewer new interns as one of their jobs was to sift though mountains of data. Now they've an app for that. Or the guy also in the US who wrote a program to do his job and spent his time playing video games. Wasn't spotted for years. The usual response which worked in the past is that new opportunities will arise elsewhere, but this time I'm not so sure. Jobs are becoming ever more specialised and training and retraining can take years all the while the march of the machines is being built to replace you. The Chinese are spending big coin in automation research as they look at how their demographics that built their recent rise in wealth is changing.

I can see a major reset of how the economy of the world works. IMHO we're looking down the barrel of another bigger recession than the last(which never really went away). If it kicks off the fear is nationalism will become more and more popular. We're seeing the seeds of that already. The current western civilisation is looking shaky too. Unlike many I don't see China taking up the mantle anytime soon. They're just as vulnerable. They've gone from having huge cash reserves squirrelled away to going into debt in under a decade. Their historical response in such cases has been to turn inwards again.

Population growth is another concern I'd have.

Most hopeful? We'll see new tech that will take our breath away. More and more diseases that are fatal now easily treatable. We'll learn ever more about the nature of reality. Plus I have faith in humans. Even if the poo hits the fan and only 50,000 are left we'll come back again.