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Talkin’ about a Revolution

drb.ie

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Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#161

Post by badpun »

dataflow wrote: post #58
baxtr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to a history professor recently and asked him how he viewed the whole situation. He leaned back, thought for a bit and answered: It’ll be all fine on a 200 years perspective, democracy will continue to increase its footprint, people will lead better lives. It’s the next 30 years I’m worried about. PS: ofc, I have no clue if he’s right or not. But I thought it’s an interesting take to share.

"Fine"? Did the history professor consider anything other than history or politics? The way global warming and our general destruction of nature is going (not just species or climate but also e.g. depletion of groundwater in a lot of heavily populated areas), I'm not sure democracy will be our biggest concern in 200 years' time.

Given predicted decline i global population size, some of these effect will be partially offset by less pressure from the population.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#162

Post by cmrdporcupine »

davedx wrote: post #68
graemep wrote: post #19

The world gets both better and worse. it is something that I regularly get voted down for saying here, but IMO the west is unduly pessimist because it had a golden age from winning the cold war until the late 2000s, took an overly optimistic view of the future and the inevitability of progress (remember "the end of history") and cannot cope with things going back to normal. Things get better, sometimes they get worse…

> People do not change all that much morally This is debatable. In fact, the US culture war is absolutely about what American "morality" should be. It's what a lot of the Project 2025 Manifesto is about: "The document spans a wide range of policy areas, but when it comes to culture, family, and morality, it emphasizes a return to traditional values, a rollback of progressive social policies, and an assertive use of f…

Honestly, the way I see it: The people behind the 2025 stuff etc have been on the "losing" side of the culture war since 1969.

And they're sick of it, they're desperate, and now are just laying their cards on the table.

I grew up in an evangelical church in the 80s-- albeit in Canada -- attending "Focus on the Family" events, Bible studies, etc. that promulgated heavy socially conservative ethos -- so I feel like I have seen this narrative play out over a few decades ...

After the legalization of gay marriage they just collectively lost their shit. They see the stakes as being incredibly high. They see abortion as straight up murder. Winning the 2016 Trump presidency and taking over the US supreme court gave them a taste of blood, and a sense that they can finally reverse what they see as a profound descent into degeneracy. The trans rights stuff over the last few years has them totally incensed, as its a full-on assault (to them) on the ontological reality of family, body, identity, etc. that they consider intrinsic and holy and fundamental.

I think they're full of shit, but that's I think how this world view shakes down. It's a war because they feel the stakes are incredibly high.

People on the right or in boardrooms of various companies that are aligning themselves with these people for what they see are strategic ends are playing with fire.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#163

Post by keiferski »

20after4 wrote: post #151
keiferski wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed and that is a really good, but simple, point that I didn't realize as clearly before: there is no real alternative to the academia vs. industry dichotomy. What is needed might be a third option that allows for exploration without the pressures of profits or publications.

The traditional 3rd option was the patronage by a rich benefactor. The modern version is patreon. It's imperfect but seems to work pretty well for some.

Patreon is still dependent on the creator caring about what their audience wants, what the market wants, etc. This is a distinctly "populist" approach, which does have its downsides: specifically if there is important work that doesn't have a wide audience, or takes years to get any results.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#164

Post by cmrdporcupine »

freeopinion wrote: post #160
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, the culture war started in earnest in the late 60s.

So you weren't around for the 20s? The last 20s?

As old as I am, I wasn't here for the 60s either, though both would have been a total blast

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#165

Post by mardifoufs »

damnitbuilds wrote: post #127
mardifoufs wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Democrats have been historically seen as the party that cared the most about Muslim interests in the US. Just like it is the party that traditionally gets the most support from the black community for example. Again, this complete disregard for Muslim life could've been expected from Bush or whatever. But even he wouldn't have let Israel go this far without some sort of faint condemnation or call for restraints.…

Supporting Muslim interests and also supporting women's rights and gay rights. No conflict of interests there.

The interests of the Muslim community in the US. Not of Islam in general.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#166

Post by sepositus »

js8 wrote: post #125
username332211 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is precisely the opposite. A world where Karl Marx isn't responsible for millions of deaths is a world where the existence of intellectuals is ultimately pointless. There, a wise potentate could send philosophers into labor camps and he'd only benefit from the elimination of waste. If you believe that ideas matter, then you should allow for spectacularly bad ideas to have spectacularly bad real world consequences.

Karl Marx isn't responsible for anything that happened in the 20th century. People have individual responsibility for their actions, it doesn't matter where you got the idea from. Ascribing e.g. crimes of stalinism to Marx is actually terrible idea, it absolves the people who did these crimes of their own moral agency. Ideas do matter (as Gramsci has shown by example), but the moral responsibility is on the implement…

> Everything that exists deserves to perish.

Well, we can start with this problematic statement. Taken to its literal conclusion, it's not surprising to think it could end up with mass graves. Granted, it originated from Mephistopheles, but Marx wasn't being poetic in his recitations.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#168

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

HKH2 wrote: post #107
nonrandomstring wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course ideas matter and have consequences. The mistake is to identify them with individual responsibility. Do you blame Newton every time a vase falls off a shelf?

Newton is not responsible for gravity because he didn't create it.

Nevertheless, as an entity with mass Isaac Newton was complicit in contributing towards gravity’s tyrannical effects. In fact, his corpse continues to exert a gravitational pull to this day. /s

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#169

Post by hedora »

dachworker wrote: post #98
baxtr wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extrapolation from what he knows about history. Things looked very bleak right after the French revolution for example. We see our history as a dot, because we live in it. But people in the future will take a more long-term view and might say: oh this was a difficult phase in history.

I do not think we have enough historical evidence for such an extrapolation. Human societies have been getting more and more complex, necessitating more and more complex governance. We are at a point of crisis, where the electorate is supposed to decide through voting, and our elected politicians are supposed to decide through legislation, on topics that neither the electorate, nor the elected are able to fully under…

Sure we do. Go read H.G. Wells "The World Set Free". It's pre WWII, covers these exact topics, and could have been written yesterday. When it was written none of the problems were new.

The book is a utopia, written in the hope that, with unlimited energy (and therefore, unlimited means of production), government upheaval would finally let us transition to a post-scarcity society.

Humanity has had the technology necessary to do that since the 1950s, but instead focused on things like using more fossil fuels, weaponizing food, spreading disease and ignorance, expanding poverty, etc. Both parties in the US have consistently supported all of the above for my entire life.

We're seeing an acceleration of those things under the current administration.

Hopefully, we'll get decent leadership soon. We're still a democracy.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#170

Post by strontium-90 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #162
davedx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People do not change all that much morally This is debatable. In fact, the US culture war is absolutely about what American "morality" should be. It's what a lot of the Project 2025 Manifesto is about: "The document spans a wide range of policy areas, but when it comes to culture, family, and morality, it emphasizes a return to traditional values, a rollback of progressive social policies, and an assertive use of f…

Honestly, the way I see it: The people behind the 2025 stuff etc have been on the "losing" side of the culture war since 1969. And they're sick of it, they're desperate, and now are just laying their cards on the table. I grew up in an evangelical church in the 80s-- albeit in Canada -- attending "Focus on the Family" events, Bible studies, etc. that promulgated heavy socially conservative ethos -- so I feel like I h…

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