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Is everything falling apart?

nonzero.substack.com

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#231
post #91

Quoted post unavailable.

So for you Trans-People are a sign that the end is near? If that's your biggest worry I'd really like to be in your situation.

I know nothing about this topic, and I never looked into this topic, but for some specialists, yes https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5mjz54/does_...

Note: No, reddit isn't a good source, but It was the first one that i found. Searching for Camille Paglia and transgender you will find more information about it..

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#232
post #124

It's easy to lament polarization, but the reason it's not going away is that there are important differences in how people view the world, and calls for unity are really closer to "It would be so peaceful if we could eliminate the opposing viewpoint once and for all".

I’d just be happy if we could agree on basic facts. I don’t expect everyone to agree on the right way to solve a problem, but it seems increasingly difficult to even come to a common understanding of what’s true and what’s not.

You would think cold hard data would be lead everyone to the same truth of a situation, but the problem is that in reality, data can be tortured to confess to anything. Data is constantly weaponized by everyone to push the narrative they want to believe, whether the data is about guns, violence, education, covid, racism, drugs, etc, data can be tortured to tell nearly any story by people wanting a specific narrative.

How often do people see a graph or something on twitter, and the data seems to go against what they believe, so they examine it and conclude that the graph is misleading and that actually the data says the opposite? Nearly every graph posted on twitter experiences this phenomenon.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#233
I've had some thoughts lately that these issues are closely linked with physical borders.

In the old days, people with similar ideals would gather in physical proximity. Eventually, their common values would form nations.

In today's world, it is trivial to find people who share similar values - but they might be on the opposite side of the world.

We are doing nation building in a virtual space, but we are unable to realize them because we reside within physical borders that we did not draw, cannot change, with mismatched governance.

The values of everyone around us have changed - and we are stuck in some type of twisted hell of a prison where we can't escape those we don't share values with. Your neighbours are now on the Internet. Some of those people might be your physical neighbour, but many aren't.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#234
post #135

It's not that things are falling apart, it's that things are not being put back together. Complex societies have systems and mechanisms in them that require people to do a.) do their job and b.) hold others accountable. We're a uniquely distracted and lethargic generation obsessed with titillation, fantasy, and procrastination. Yet a lot of things require sober, deliberate work, and enforcing the rules. With the leve…

"coupled with the seeming inability of elected officials to accomplish overwhelmingly popular policy changes," I feel like this is always a hot button. What are the overwhelming popular policy changes, and just how popular are they? I'm wondering if there's a list somewhere that will show the top ones with the percent of support.

There are tons of them, so long as you poll for them carefully such that each person surveyed can imagine that it's the version of the proposal that they support.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see numbers backing it up either way. I'm center left leaning and I largely distrust journalism these days. I don't consistently read any news source and assume appropriately relevant and significant information will filter it's way to me from my network. It's worked well so far and I've managed to keep my biases moderate. It also let's me more easily filter out bs since I'm not consistently immersed in i…

Absolutely. I'm very center, perhaps slightly left. But aside from Rachel Maddow, I don't trust what I hear.

>But aside from Rachel Maddow

Ha, is that a joke? One person?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#236
post #6

Quoted post unavailable.

Could you tell me, what gender a person with male physique and female brain structure has? What actually happend is the break up of over archaic role models and scientific progress. Some people today, have a decent answer to that question.

Could you explain precisely what you mean by a "female brain structure", and how you would determine that a male has such a brain structure?

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#237
Modern America is thoroughly a product of capitalism -- the belief that economic growth is a) the solution to all problems and b) easy to achieve (just deregulate and let the market figure things out!)

Neither of those are true anymore. So yeah, things are falling apart because their foundation is rotten.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#238
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Certainly there have been some parts of the world that didn’t have that peace or that prosperity, but it was widespread. > Former colonies threw off their colonial yokes. While I don’t disagree that decolonization was progress, it ironically came at the cost of the peace that had been imposed on the colonies by their former colonial masters. Many of the world’s most conflict-stricken areas today are ex-colonies sti…

> While I don’t disagree that decolonization was progress, it ironically came at the cost of the peace that had been imposed on the colonies by their former colonial masters. What is this "peace" you speak of? I think you want to take a closer look at the oppression that was endemic to colonization and occupation of foreign lands. One of the worse examples is Belgium's colonization of the Congo: https://www.nationalg…

Yes, I know this. This is why I view decolonization as progress. I am distinguishing such oppression from war.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#239
post #91

Quoted post unavailable.

So for you Trans-People are a sign that the end is near? If that's your biggest worry I'd really like to be in your situation.

No, gender dysphoria has existed since like forever. But it's certainly not a good sign when our institutions try to indoctrinate us with gender ideology. [1]

The day it really becomes "the science" is the day I will lose hope in the rest of the apparatus. Lysenkoism [2] be damned.

[1]: And by that I mean believing that we should behave as if there are no differences between biological females and MTF, or that it's all just a "social construct", or that we have a moral duty to "deconstruct" all social constructs which interfere with some ideology.

[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#240
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody has internalized the idea that if you ask for twice what you really want, meeting in the middle will give you the thing you actually wanted. So if you notice that the other side is doing the same thing, you double it again...

They never read Never Split The Difference . Negotiations are supposed to be value based and each side should listen to the true concerns of the other. That said, I don't think the political sides are really asking for twice what they want. It seems very clear on most subjects that they really do want all that they are asking for, but will occasionally accept less and continuing to press for the rest in the long run.

Thinking about it, I think you're right that the political sides aren't doing that. The Culture-War wedge issues that are the most polarizing don't really have a halfway; we've seen that with abortion, for example, for decades. All the halfway positions are unsatisfying to everyone, and the issue is still there.
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