Except for the Singularity trashing, this talk feels like a rehash of reading your average Reddit political thread. I really wanted more than that. I think the political left viewed dialectical materialism as their futurism and now that that's gone with the fall of communism there's just doom. Global warming doom. Hyper-capitalism doom. Race war doom. Overpopulation doom. Evil AI overlord doom. They can't see the fut…
I guess it is the result of younger generations (in the West) discovering they are going to be worse off than their parents in many ways. Whereas China is still on an upward trajectory, for now.
Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
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Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
communism didn't really exist to fall in the first place Come on, we can do better here than the tired old “not real communism” argument. it just means that we didn't have the right data, or perhaps we need a new analysis Ah yes, always followed by “it will be different next time”. How many millions more have to die?
It is an old argument because communism can mean different things. What you mean with communism I would rather call more precisely real socialism [1] Now those real socialist states had as their goal, or at least said so to achieve communism: "the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, mo…
Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a common misconception : Capitalism isn’t as ambitious as communism in that matter. It doesn’t aim at making the world a just or better place, just more economicaly efficient one. Communism is not only an economical system, but it also aims at solving the unfairness that it attributes to capitalism, and then invents all kinds of counter measure ( one of them being the revolution, and « temporary » dictactorshi…
> Capitalism [...] doesn’t aim at making the world a just or better place I didn't say it did. I pointed out that if you're going to insist that mass murder under a few decades of communist regimes = real communism, then mass murder (and genocide and slavery) under centuries of capitalist regimes = real capitalism. > Communism [...] invents all kinds of counter measure ( one of them being the revolution, and « tempor…
Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
#74Some comments as watching video... Corporation as AI is good analogy. But as with many, he stops short and repeatedly just says corporations. Please, every large group entity - governmental bodies, unions, non-profits - is an AI. And with/in those groups (and corporations) are also competing AIs. Comments about weaponized social media: It is odd that we in the West don't want to acknowledge / know / accept the US gov…
Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is something in what you say. I have to say I think this conflation of altright and neonazi is lazy in the extreme. By the media and most posters here. Democratic socialism has overlapping territory with communism but we wouldn't say Sweden == Soviet Union. > those ideologies have at their core the idea of resisting cultural and civilizational decline. I personally think their scapegoats, theories, and solution…
There are some very good criticisms from the alt-right. There are also great criticisms from the left and from the conventional right. It's easy to criticize. I always skip to "what's your solution?" The solution offered by the alt-right is neo-monarchism and race nationalism. No thanks. Not only are these irrelevant and backward-looking but the latter is morally evil. Ironically it represents a rejection of the core…
Would you prefer to live in Japan? Like most, I consider the "alt right" to be on the margins but I also think it's healthy to challenge conventional wisdom.
Japan is not nor does it strive to be diverse and they do not have a lot of the problems the US has.
Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Millions fewer than died under centuries of global slavery and imperialism, which I'm sure you're not going to now claim is "not real capitalism".
It just doesn't ring true. Both slavery and imperialism have had a long history before capitalism. Capitalism exists in circumstances with no plausible relationship to slavery or imperialism. It annoys me because this dialectic is so obviously wrong.
Are you even disagreeing with me?
Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some very good criticisms from the alt-right. There are also great criticisms from the left and from the conventional right. It's easy to criticize. I always skip to "what's your solution?" The solution offered by the alt-right is neo-monarchism and race nationalism. No thanks. Not only are these irrelevant and backward-looking but the latter is morally evil. Ironically it represents a rejection of the core…
> America has a lot of problems but I would not prefer to live in Russia or Saudi Arabia. Would you prefer to live in Japan? Like most, I consider the "alt right" to be on the margins but I also think it's healthy to challenge conventional wisdom. Japan is not nor does it strive to be diverse and they do not have a lot of the problems the US has.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori
The latter seems a direct refutation of the alt-right's contention that racial uniformity promotes social engagement and unity. The Japanese are so alienated they barely even have sex anymore. A recent trend in Japanese restaurant design centers around making sure patrons never see another human being, not even a server.
In addition to moral reasons a big reason I can't take the alt-right's racism seriously is that I live in a very racially diverse area (Los Angeles/OC area). Being white I might even be in the minority, or nearly so. My neighbors are more often than not hispanic, asian, or black. Our kids play together, and my daughter's best friends are pretty close to a random sampling of the planet's genetic diversity.
If anything I've found the more recent immigrants to the USA to be more friendly, more socially engaged, harder working, and even more patriotic than multi-generational American natives.
Last year I witnessed the spectacle of a bunch of first and second generation immigrants actually celebrating the Fourth of July. Like really celebrating it. I've seldom seen white Americans genuinely celebrate their country like that. I'd say a good half the white Americans I know are depressed, cynical, and disengaged. This is true on both sides of the usual political divides.
Japan's problem might actually be too much isolation. At the very least some immigration probably would have prevented three decades of economic stagnation.
The neo-racist thesis is bullshit. There is no "white genocide," though there might be a bit of self-inflicted white suicide. Sometimes I think white Americans suffer from the same problems as native Japanese, namely the social diseases that stem from multiple generations of extreme wealth. Wealth promotes social alienation, laziness, a sense of entitlement, and generally taking things for granted.
I've long wondered if the cycle of civilizational rise and fall is caused by wealth. Civilizations rise on a tide of innovation, cooperation, and optimism, but then they get rich and succumb to the social diseases that result from wealth and power.
Edit: Yes there are racially segregated high-crime ghettoes in the LA/OC area, but this seems to happen when you have racial isolation combined with poverty and criminal enterprises like illegal drug trafficking. The entire metro area is incredibly diverse and the majority of it is pretty safe. The area I live in is extremely diverse and has among the lowest crime rates in the state.
Edit #2: If I didn't live in the USA I'd probably want to live in the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. I'd like to add the UK too since I love a lot of their culture, but the UK's government seems just as insane and dysfunctional as ours.
Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is something in what you say. I have to say I think this conflation of altright and neonazi is lazy in the extreme. By the media and most posters here. Democratic socialism has overlapping territory with communism but we wouldn't say Sweden == Soviet Union. > those ideologies have at their core the idea of resisting cultural and civilizational decline. I personally think their scapegoats, theories, and solution…
There are some very good criticisms from the alt-right. There are also great criticisms from the left and from the conventional right. It's easy to criticize. I always skip to "what's your solution?" The solution offered by the alt-right is neo-monarchism and race nationalism. No thanks. Not only are these irrelevant and backward-looking but the latter is morally evil. Ironically it represents a rejection of the core…
Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m pretty sure anyone who ever studied Marxist theory even at high school levels knows what that means.
IDK. I'm amazed at how many people I've met who claim to be Marxist but haven't ever read Hegel.
But I would agree with your statement I never met a self proclaimed Marxist that actually read the entire body of works behind it; those who do are usually so terrified of the potential outcomes that they would not consider Marxism as an option.
Re: Dude, You Broke the Future [video]
#80(My comment will get buried because I'm flagged but whatever) I had drinks with a bunch of Hugo award winners and candidates a couple of years back (2015?) and we started talking about near-future stuff. Mainly that I was looking for more of it. (Diamond Age fans out there?) A funny thing came up: It's getting harder and harder to predict near-future stuff for some authors. I don't understand why. Is it that technolo…