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Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

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Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#171

Post by Mountain_Skies »

grapeskin wrote: post #162
rossdavidh wrote: post #97

While I am a big fan of Jonathan Haidt, and have read several of his books, I can't help but feel that this is written from a point of view that is entirely too impressed with (if also afraid of) technology. Peter Turchin predicted escalating levels of polarization in the US, reaching a peak around 2020, without any need to look at social media. The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the la…

> The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the late 1850's. I know this is in the context of the build up to the civil war, but how much were neighbors at each other’s necks? I don’t know much about that period aside from the obvious events that followed (slavery being the huge and obvious motivator for the war), so I’m not sure how divided everybody was. But it seems like in the US today, th…

That Trump's pleas for his supporters to take the vaccine fell on deaf ears appears to indicate things aren't quite that clear cut. Perhaps some groups are more inclined to force compliance with all of their views than other groups.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#172

Post by redmen »

smackeyacky wrote: post #40
mathlover2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why pardon the Jan 6th people? Just because one's been mislead by misinformation to believe something false doesn't mean that they are blameless for flagrantly breaking the law in response.

I think the idea is to paint Jan 6 as an aberration for which the participants were deliberately mislead by a foreign power and therefore somehow less responsible for their actions. IMHO its a dangerous step to take. The rule of law is the founding bedrock of civil society where justice needs not only to be done, but seen to be done. The US hasn't helped itself by having two justice systems, one for the elites and on…

It's not my fault, it's society's fault. Society put those ideas in my head lol

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#173

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

barry-cotter wrote: post #169
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I see missing from Haidt's analysis is increased federalism and localism as a solution. I'm theoretically in favor of this, but ... one of the reasons we need a bigger, more powerful federal government is to have a governmental entity that can take on the massively more powerful private entities (corporations) that exist. No state government can take on Walmart or Amazon. The federal government can (or could,…

> No state government can take on Walmart or Amazon Why not? You can’t ban a specific company from operating but if you want them to act or stop acting in a certain way pass a law. If Australia can make Amazon pay Goods and Services Tax so can any of the states. Oh wait, they did that already. If they want to target a specific company for actions or inactions that are not generally illegal they can amend the constitu…

> Why not?

Because the value of a large company, rich in either jobs or donatable cash or both, is too significant to most states to risk losing, and going up against them does risk that loss.

By contrast, large US-founded companies are extremely unlikely to quit operating in the USA if the federal government takes actions they do not like.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#174

Post by Mountain_Skies »

jkhdigital wrote: post #84
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I see missing from Haidt's analysis is increased federalism and localism as a solution. I'm theoretically in favor of this, but ... one of the reasons we need a bigger, more powerful federal government is to have a governmental entity that can take on the massively more powerful private entities (corporations) that exist. No state government can take on Walmart or Amazon. The federal government can (or could,…

> No state government can take on Walmart or Amazon. An alternative theory posits that these massive corporations in fact depend upon the centralization of governmental regulatory and fiscal powers for their very existence. Regulatory capture is much easier to pull off when there’s only one central authority that needs to be captured.

When I worked as a consultant at Home Depot's headquarters, they often sent out emails from the "Orange Voice" pushing employees to lobby their members of Congress on various bits of legislation and issues. What was very clear was that Home Depot absolutely hated each state having its own set of laws. Even worse were local laws. They wanted there to be just one government for them to lobby for their issues and when one state requires them to have some operational quirk such as customer accessible price scanners with printers attached, the first instinct is to find a way to get the feds to find a way to make that state requirement go away.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#175

Post by chrisbrandow »

grapeskin wrote: post #162
rossdavidh wrote: post #97

While I am a big fan of Jonathan Haidt, and have read several of his books, I can't help but feel that this is written from a point of view that is entirely too impressed with (if also afraid of) technology. Peter Turchin predicted escalating levels of polarization in the US, reaching a peak around 2020, without any need to look at social media. The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the la…

> The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the late 1850's. I know this is in the context of the build up to the civil war, but how much were neighbors at each other’s necks? I don’t know much about that period aside from the obvious events that followed (slavery being the huge and obvious motivator for the war), so I’m not sure how divided everybody was. But it seems like in the US today, th…

It seems clear that the central issue of slavery transformed over 50 years from a general agreement that it was less than ideal and would go away in its own, to a deeply polarized issue which half the country thought it an abomination that should be immediately eliminated and the other half began to to think of it as a positive good for the slaveholder and slave.

It was more regional than our current disputes which are almost fractal in their geography

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#176

Post by titzer »

rossdavidh wrote: post #97

While I am a big fan of Jonathan Haidt, and have read several of his books, I can't help but feel that this is written from a point of view that is entirely too impressed with (if also afraid of) technology. Peter Turchin predicted escalating levels of polarization in the US, reaching a peak around 2020, without any need to look at social media. The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the la…

I feel like Alvin Toffler was already onto something in Future Shock (1970). The modern world is just too interconnected and things are changing too fast. We're constantly thrust into ambiguous situations, exposed to a flood of information beyond our capacity to process, and grievances of the historical past pile up and rub against each other because there are no borders, no boundaries. Careers, ways of life, communities, everything just rent asunder.

Overall, I think our ape reflexes are overwhelmed. No wonder so many of us start to descend into madness in our private, demon-haunted worlds, that Sagan wrote about. All of us are completely overcome by this never-ending torrent. There is no peace.

On top of that, we've had a simmering culture war since before I was born. The volume on it has just got turned up all the way. People are, frankly, traumatized at every turn.

And then, on top of that, technology is just shoveling this pile in your face constantly. Trying to get in every second of every day and get a slice of that sweet, sweet, attention economy. So they can dose it up with some advertising steroids to get you to buy, buy, watch, watch.

Is it any wonder we are all nuts? We're being driven nuts!

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#177

Post by nradov »

grapeskin wrote: post #162
rossdavidh wrote: post #97

While I am a big fan of Jonathan Haidt, and have read several of his books, I can't help but feel that this is written from a point of view that is entirely too impressed with (if also afraid of) technology. Peter Turchin predicted escalating levels of polarization in the US, reaching a peak around 2020, without any need to look at social media. The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the la…

> The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the late 1850's. I know this is in the context of the build up to the civil war, but how much were neighbors at each other’s necks? I don’t know much about that period aside from the obvious events that followed (slavery being the huge and obvious motivator for the war), so I’m not sure how divided everybody was. But it seems like in the US today, th…

You would only believe that if you don't actually talk to your neighbors. In the real world (i.e. not the corporate media) most people have more moderate and nuanced viewpoints. Demonizing and alienating those people is not a winning political strategy.

This is, by the way, one reason why the Joe Rogan Experience podcast has been so amazingly popular. The host comes across as a moderate leftist, but he has guests from across the political spectrum and gives them a chance to fully explain their views instead of shouting at them. The corporate media are naturally horrified by this since it undermines their ability to drive ratings by pushing a false "red versus blue" narrative.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#179

Post by redmen »

mardifoufs wrote: post #122
lioeters wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you mention the Mohawk tribe and their protest, I just learned about it earlier today from watching the film Beans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beans_(2020_film)

Yeah and even when there was literally hundreds of armed men and a confrontation against the Canadian army... the Canadian government still did not invoke the emergency measure act. They were also blocking crucial bridges into montreal for weeks, killed a police officer and set up a no man's land... yet after multiple weeks they still negotiated a peaceful settlement and kept talking to Mohawk Leaders. Just goes to s…

I think we are all a little anxious, and trigger happy. Our police, our politicians.

It's like as soon as something remotely similar to a movie they've seen happens everyone thinks, "omg it's happening!" Civil war is happening, just like in the movies. Time to invoke the emergency act.

People seem to have little patience these days to actually think things through. You have people like Trudeau running away and pretending to be sick instead of dealing with issues head on. Either they're out of touch, or something worse.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#180

Post by titzer »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #171
grapeskin wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the late 1850's. I know this is in the context of the build up to the civil war, but how much were neighbors at each other’s necks? I don’t know much about that period aside from the obvious events that followed (slavery being the huge and obvious motivator for the war), so I’m not sure how divided everybody was. But it seems like in the US today, th…

That Trump's pleas for his supporters to take the vaccine fell on deaf ears appears to indicate things aren't quite that clear cut. Perhaps some groups are more inclined to force compliance with all of their views than other groups.

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