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Talkin’ about a Revolution

drb.ie

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Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#211

Post by abathologist »

keiferski wrote: post #82
paganel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always interesting how the Anglo world never really got into Hegel, I guess it's their lack of real philosophical spirit that explains it. They never really got passed Hume's empiricist reflexes.

They did get into Hegel for a bit, but the subsequent developments in math, language, etc. (what is now called Analytic Philosophy) kind of wiped out the interest in them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_idealism But yeah, you could probably argue that the empiricist approach never quite went away. Even today, analytic philosophy (which is predominantly an Anglo-American phenomenon) is notoriously uninterested…

There are important exceptions, such as C.S. Peirce, Whitehead, and currently Robert Brandom.

William Lawvere is also a post-hegelian.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#212

Post by 9rx »

nozzlegear wrote: post #148
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.

I have no comment on what your professor said, but reading the replies here just confirms to me that cynicism, pessimism and doomerism are certainly the mood of the current zeitgeist. Optimistic outlooks are too often met with a kind of reflexive dismissal or despair in a "I feel like things are really bad right now, have never been this bad before, and thus can never improve" diatribe. There's a pervasive sense in o…

> but reading the replies here just confirms to me that cynicism, pessimism and doomerism are certainly the mood of the current zeitgeist.

Isn't that the human condition? Historically, it was no doubt an evolutionary advantage to always think that a lion is about to pounce, so to speak. That doesn't just go away. The instincts still need something to work with even after all the real threats are gone.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#213

Post by 9rx »

alabastervlog wrote: post #196
grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great news is we can break the internet if needed. It will be torn down and chopped up into moderated walled gardens, it's inevitable. Algorithmic rage bait and echo chambers are incompatible with a functioning society.

> It will be torn down and chopped up into moderated walled gardens, it's inevitable. Algorithmic rage bait and echo chambers are incompatible with a functioning society. I've reckoned a free global Internet's incompatible with functioning democracy (or most other forms of government) for about a decade now. I figure our "great firewall" will be in the form of cryptographically origin-attributed routing, and making p…

> I've reckoned a free global Internet's incompatible with functioning democracy (or most other forms of government) for about a decade now.

Alternatively, the internet enables "true" democracy and we're finding out that we don't really like it. There is probably a good reason why our formal "democracies" are more like semi-frequently refreshed dictatorships.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#214

Post by alabastervlog »

9rx wrote: post #213
alabastervlog wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will be torn down and chopped up into moderated walled gardens, it's inevitable. Algorithmic rage bait and echo chambers are incompatible with a functioning society. I've reckoned a free global Internet's incompatible with functioning democracy (or most other forms of government) for about a decade now. I figure our "great firewall" will be in the form of cryptographically origin-attributed routing, and making p…

> I've reckoned a free global Internet's incompatible with functioning democracy (or most other forms of government) for about a decade now. Alternatively, the internet enables "true" democracy and we're finding out that we don't really like it. There is probably a good reason why our formal "democracies" are more like semi-frequently refreshed dictatorships.

Political scientists just call what we have democracy, same as everyone else. It's a common use of the term by experts in the field.

I don't really see how the Internet has changed how our voting works or the structure of our government, anyway.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#215

Post by facile3232 »

jddj wrote: post #92
facile3232 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "technological singularity" is just the rapture for people who listen to sam harris

Not to take anything away from this witty comment, but I think Harris is more on the doomer side? Maybe that's what you meant after all.

You're quite right; I think the "rationalists" tend to be a little more cynical (or realistic, as most would probably put it).

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#216

Post by nradov »

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…

That's a non sequitur. Just because human societies have been getting more and more complex doesn't necessarily mean we need more and more complex governance. We might be better off with radically less governance, and just accept the consequences that sometimes bad things will happen due to lack of governance.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#217

Post by nradov »

hedora wrote: post #169
dachworker wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 neces…

The things that people really want will always be scarce. Even lower energy prices or better political leaders can't change that reality.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#219

Post by kelipso »

bloomingeek wrote: post #207
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…

Your quoted sentence is an example of a group of people who have no idea of how to run a country. They are using the uneducated voter to support an agenda that is mostly unconstitutional. We Americans, just like other countries with a rule of law, determine our own culture within those laws. To use federal power to reshape our culture is both arrogant and, since Project 2025 is how they want to do the reshaping, is a…

This doesn't really make sense. The Democrats mainly, but also Republicans, have been reshaping our culture using federal funding for many many years now, using rules associated with federal funding, decisions for where federal funding goes to (one clear example being museum and arts funding), policies handed down from Department of Education and other federal organizations and departments, etc etc.

I guess more people notice it now that Republicans are doing this so openly but the use of federal power to reshape our culture is a well established process.

Also what does live and let live get them, especially with the other side pushing so hard? A slippery slope to an immoral society.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#220

Post by wormlord »

dudefeliciano wrote: post #204
wormlord wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This site is mostly wealthy and older who have benefitted from the neoliberal status quo. It's why many commenters can shrug off the insane shit happening like opaque deportations of random people to a fucking concentration camp in El Salvador, it only affects people on the margins who they think they are very far removed from. In wealthy urban areas there are a lot of liberals who don't have a materialist basis for…

> I'm not sure what it would take for the older and wealthier folks on here to open their eyes. I think there are plenty of wealthy folks who understand the benfits of living in a more equal society, and that would gladly pay their fair share to live in such a society. The problem is they are not enough, and worse yet the middle class and what remains of the working class are actively pushing propaganda that goes dir…

Of course wealthy or "petit bourgeois" can be leftists or Marxists or whatever, they have typically made up the intelligentsia of most left-wing revolutions historically.

But the material interests of the wealthy align with the status quo that allowed them to acquire their wealth. This becomes less true as the "polycrisis" of climate change intensifies, since at some point there will be no future to enjoy, regardless of how much money you have.

Also I will argue that the reactionary propaganda comes from the top-down, not the bottom-up.

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