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Is everything falling apart?

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#271

Post by jimmygrapes »

aisengard wrote: post #155
bryanlarsen wrote: post #107

We were getting close to a fairly positive future. There are three basic constraints to material and non-material goods: - capital - labour - energy There are other raw materials, but they aren't limiting factors. For example, processed Lithium is in short supply right now, but it's not raw Lithium that's the constraint. We don't have enough Lithium mines and processing facilities. capital/labour/energy, in other wor…

> So a crisis was invented. Are you saying that the millions upon millions who died (not to mention the untold millions who are suffering long-term health problems), didn't actually die? Or that what they died from (a highly contagious and infectious novel virus) was engineered?

A piddling price to pay to regain control of the proles.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#272

Post by bryanlarsen »

aisengard wrote: post #155
bryanlarsen wrote: post #107

We were getting close to a fairly positive future. There are three basic constraints to material and non-material goods: - capital - labour - energy There are other raw materials, but they aren't limiting factors. For example, processed Lithium is in short supply right now, but it's not raw Lithium that's the constraint. We don't have enough Lithium mines and processing facilities. capital/labour/energy, in other wor…

> So a crisis was invented. Are you saying that the millions upon millions who died (not to mention the untold millions who are suffering long-term health problems), didn't actually die? Or that what they died from (a highly contagious and infectious novel virus) was engineered?

The crisis that was invented is the perception that it was government stimulus that caused the inflation. The pretension that millions of deaths didn't cause the economic problems, it was the stimulus that caused the economic problems.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#273

Post by b112 »

boh wrote: post #243

Things collapsing has been a predominant sentiment in every modern generation. It's unprecedented because of our collective amnesia, that regards the familiar as a stable starting point rather than a random moment in a volatile reality. Journalism was a tawdry, un-respectable business since its conception, but experienced a brief period of valor around the mid-twentieth century when industry concentration, Cold War e…

Yes, the 60s was far, far, far more disillusioned than this.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#274

Post by krapp »

fallingknife wrote: post #242
krapp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I’m skeptical that he can fundamentally change the incentives that make social media amplify extremist views over moderate views. I'm skeptical that someone who unironically uses the phrase "woke mindvirus" has any such intent. There's a reason right-wing accounts are flooding the platform now and everyone else is running for the hills, and it isn't because Elon makes both sides equally welcome or unwelcome. He's cl…

Why is it that liberals run from a platform full of conservatives, but conservatives don't run from a platform full of liberals?

What do you think Voat, Gab, Parler, Rumble, WeMe, Truth Social, Gettr and numerous other "alternative" platforms formed in the last few years were all about? Conservative safe spaces are a whole market segment now.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#275

Post by NoGravitas »

throwaway15908 wrote: post #126
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the big reason I'm skeptical is that the group of people who don't like "wokeism" seem to have pretty diverse identities. It's hard for me to see many similarities between irreligious business magnate Elon Musk, vaguely Catholic political blogger Andrew Sullivan, and my full time Baptist preacher cousin-in-law - I'm not sure I could identify any other policy question they all agree on.

I think, you are contrasting your peers to a propagandistic caricature. Or how easy can you fit in that image "moderate" leftists like bernie sanders or noam chomsky? What is the difference between woke and left?

It's fundamentally a difference about the economy and the value of material change vs. cultural change. The left proper wants liberation for all oppressed groups, including the largest, the working class. Leftists recognize that groups that are more marginalized under capitalism/imperialism (national/ethnic minorities, etc.) will benefit disproportionately, but want a rising tide for everyone (except the bourgeoisie). That is to say, leftists have a commitment to intersectionality and the liberation of those with marginalized identities, but the fundamental, sine-qua-non thing that makes one a leftist is anti-capitalism.

The woke "left" is different; it's largely a phenomenon of the petit bourgeoisie, and is not opposed to capitalism, or oppression more generally; the woke instead want representative members of generally marginalized groups to be proportionally represented in the existing power structures, without any significant change to those power structures. The reason the woke come off as so strident and belligerent is that membership in the professional-managerial class (PMC) is increasingly precarious, and US educational/cultural institutions overproduce people with the qualifications for entry into/maintenance of that class position, relative to the dwindling size of that class.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#276

Post by mushbino »

mrits wrote: post #130
ravenstine wrote: post #111

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

I have a much different experience. I have a dozen family members that were part of the auto industry in Michigan. They were on top of the world for decades. It ended with most of them thinking society has collapsed in the 80s and doubting they'd actually get their pension. My grandfather spent the last 30 years of his life in retirement collecting a pay check that he thought might be his last.

So it sounds like you're saying things have just been getting progressively worse. That doesn't sound like much of a different perspective. There was a time when people were optimistic about the future, but granted that was a long time ago.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#277

Post by [deleted] »

ineedasername wrote: post #192
marginalia_nu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, there have been institutions with almost absurd longevity in history. The catholic church has stood largely unchanged for the 1600 odd years between Constantine and Vatican II. Ancient Egypt was already thousands of years old when Socrates harassed aristocrats in Athens. It's very easy to forget that the revolutions of Britain, France, America, Russia; it happened just a few generations ago, and upended most of t…

>The catholic church has stood largely unchanged for the 1600 odd years That's a bit of a myth, thrown around a lot but not quite true. It has existed in some form, but by no means remained changeless. The doctrine is substantially similar but then we can say the same thing about Judaism. Here, we're really talking about the organization, which has many issues: -The East-West schism in 1054 tore the Catholic Church i…

[deleted]

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#278

Post by giantg2 »

refurb wrote: post #255
giantg2 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather worked for the steel mills. Some workers didn't get anything for their pensions. He was one of the lucky ones and got something, like 10 cents on the dollar. I think they even stopped sending them before he died (remember him saying something about that was the last check and complaining about the company).

Pensions are all insured in the US

Do you have a source? I wonder if that covers all pensions or just public pensions? Or if that requirement is newer and didn't exist when the companies went under 50 or so years ago.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#279

Post by paulryanrogers »

Izkata wrote: post #209
paulryanrogers wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the language has evolved to the point that the work needs some translation. Because it strikes me as vague enough to be harmful with folks like Putin aspiring to embody "strong men".

> aspiring to embody Take note of your own phrasing: it automatically excludes him from that group.

The point is I was trying to be neutral. Because depending on who you ask Putin is the definition of true "strong men" or he's a tyrant desecrating the phrase.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#280

Post by shadowgovt »

ravenstine wrote: post #111

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

One of the disadvantages to democracy that Thomas Paine actually highlighted in "Common Sense" is that when things are off the rails in a monarchy, the cause (and remedy) are obvious. In a democracy, far less so.

When Americans elect bad leadership, they ultimately have nobody to blame but themselves, and that damages the public attitude; I suspect one of the reasons "stolen election" conspiracy theories are so popular right now is that the alternative is one must simply be skeptical of the good judgment of one's neighbors, and people don't want to live like that.

This, too, is a pattern we've seen before. The several Presidents elected prior to Lincoln were known as the "Bumbling Generation." When America gets scared of its own shadow, it tends to elect ineffectual leaders because neither side actually wants an empowered Presidency, lest it reward their opponents.

(One major difference between the antebellum period and now is it's a little harder to see precisely what the cleave-line is that has America's hands around its own throat. In hindsight, slavery was obvious. But the battle lines here are not so brightly drawn... Class? Faith-based conservatism vs. modern cosmopolitanism? Tech savviness vs. technophobia? Possibly enough of all three to make a crisis).

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