41–50 of 131 posts
Honestly it seems no one really understands what fascism actually is. What fascism used to be was ultra nationalistic, non democratic, centralised control of people's lives and the economy for the greater good of the state. And I means these to the most extreme you can possibly take these ideas, that's fascism. The word has no meaning when you throw it around against anyone with slightly conservative view points.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Local politicians love to point towards Brussels, though, everytime they fsck something up. When I lived in Europe they did not point towards the EU and say, "we are going to handover much of our lawmaking power to these EU bureaucrats", but, that is exactly what has happened.
There are some quotes by former EK chairman Juncker that touch on this: "We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back." (1999) "If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue'." (On the 2005 French referendum on…
https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/jean-claude-juncker-quot...
As for Brussels not being angels - it's true it's not enough of an immigrant-hating racist and corrupt failing state for some people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe in this perspective. I think most people are sick of it (and would live healthier lives if they were allowed to focus more attention on their immediate surroundings) but that it keeps being refueled by profit desperate news corporations.
I agree. How much not-for-profit, non-state media, non-clout chasing fear mongering content is there? It does exist but the scale is small.
What I would more like is The Case for Resilience. We have a crisis every so often. As a society, we ought to be able to survive it. That might be a pandemic, war, climate change (whether man-made, or from a volcano/asteroid/etc.), nukes, or what-not. Being resilient means: * Some level of economic isolation. Each region ought to be able to produce the bare necessities for themselves, and supply chains shouldn't be b…
With a few debatable exceptions, that's not true of any country on Earth.
And it's certainly not true of the planet as a whole. Which is the level at which it would need to operate to deal with planetary challenges.
The author’s point seems to be that everyone exaggerates in a direction that best serves their desired political outcome. What he misses is the obvious — he exaggerates as well, in the direction of “moderation.” His desired outcome is that we all take a moderate approach, and the rhetorical device used to get there is that ‘crises are all exaggerated.’
His other shtick though is "popularism" which is just that politicians should focusing on doing things that are broadly popular. It is (on my reading at least) not so much that this is "desirable" in a normative sense, but just that it is the only way to actually make progress.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. How much not-for-profit, non-state media, non-clout chasing fear mongering content is there? It does exist but the scale is small.
Honestly I think that there is quite a lot of non-fearmongering media out there. The Economist strikes me as a good example. And in general I think if you read any "respectable" (Economist, NYT, WSJ, WaPo, La Monde, etc.) newspaper as a whole on a day-to-day basis you wouldn't come away from the experience being especially scared or fearful. The problem is that it all gets dumped into the social media slurry and what…
Humans are built to survive adversity. We got so good at it, we took over the planet. Now there's lots of humans who haven't ever faced serious challenges (by previous standards of everyday survival), and they need to feel the drama and triumph humans are programmed for even without the actual life threatening events that used to prompt those feelings. So for many, there's always going to be an imminent apocalypse th…
No, we aren't. Adversity from other humans, but not adversity from nature.
Natural disasters routinely kill huge numbers of people, because we don't know how to deal with them.
Humans are built to survive adversity. We got so good at it, we took over the planet. Now there's lots of humans who haven't ever faced serious challenges (by previous standards of everyday survival), and they need to feel the drama and triumph humans are programmed for even without the actual life threatening events that used to prompt those feelings. So for many, there's always going to be an imminent apocalypse th…
I don't believe in this perspective. I think most people are sick of it (and would live healthier lives if they were allowed to focus more attention on their immediate surroundings) but that it keeps being refueled by profit desperate news corporations.
So you have young people in their 20s with no sense of purpose. Why not LARP on twitter and pretend you're saving the world by trying to ruin the lives of people you don't agree with?
Honestly it seems no one really understands what fascism actually is. What fascism used to be was ultra nationalistic, non democratic, centralised control of people's lives and the economy for the greater good of the state. And I means these to the most extreme you can possibly take these ideas, that's fascism. The word has no meaning when you throw it around against anyone with slightly conservative view points.
What is your opinion on liberals being compared to Soviet and Chinese communists?
Or, are we talking about someone that believes in controlled/regulated speech, a controlled press, speech codes, reductions in private property, Law as a living construct, supports cancel-culture, thinks of the State as the Church, wants massive wealth redistribution, supports violence as a means to change govt, and does not support the constitution?
Humans are built to survive adversity. We got so good at it, we took over the planet. Now there's lots of humans who haven't ever faced serious challenges (by previous standards of everyday survival), and they need to feel the drama and triumph humans are programmed for even without the actual life threatening events that used to prompt those feelings. So for many, there's always going to be an imminent apocalypse th…