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Talkin’ about a Revolution

drb.ie

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Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#221

Post by bilbo0s »

hagbard_c wrote: post #201
bilbo0s wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while educational institutions should stop pushing books which promote the destructive aspects of Hegel's thoughts Well, I mean, you are kind of less educated if you only learn from books that are.. um.. "consistent with scripture" so to speak.

There is a difference between 'pushing' those books and taking their message into account in the curriculum. I did not call for a ban on such books - just before the part you quoted I said No books need to be burned, more books need to be published and read - but they should not be the leading voices. > you are kind of less educated if you only learn from books that are.. [..] "consistent with scripture" so to speak.…

They have been used extensively for decades while educational outcomes have plummeted which proves the veracity of your claim

I'm confused?

That seems to prove exactly what I was saying. That if you only allow kids to read the books that are "consistent with scripture" they are less educated. I'll take this opportunity to add that making any "scripture" the leading voices, leads to less educated kids.

Your ideas will lead to the "dumbing down" of a society. I mean, maybe it will be a society sufficiently dumb enough to accept the doctrinal import of your preferred scriptures? But it'd still be a pretty dumb society.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#222

Post by MPSFounder »

baxtr wrote: post #55
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…

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.

There is a problem with this though. It is the price paid in exchange for democracy. Take Syria for example. It took huge human loss to free itself from Assad, Iran and Russian influence. Is the price justified? Of course in the long run autocracies fail. The lifespan of the ruler is one duration we can associate (Putin is on the verge of death). But the damage can often be very significant and take generation to undo. Just to be clear, I was very much in favor of removing those murderers. I just wonder if there were ways to mitigate this (here, EU and US should have stepped in, which they failed to do. However, they are doing it in Ukraine, which is great)

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#223

Post by kelipso »

jjice wrote: post #159
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have certainly heard people say that they couldn't support Harris because the Biden administration was too close to Israel, so instead didn't vote at all. I know it doesn't make sense to hand the election to somebody objectively worse on an issue they claim to care about, but there it is. I suspect that whole thing was driven by some clever folks trying to get Trump into power.

I have multiple people in my life that followed this mindset as well, to offer some more anecdata. I never got a rationale when asked, which still perplexes me considering these people weren’t fans of the republicans in this past race.

Whether Trump would continue it was an unknown. Whether the Democrats would continue it was a known. And they wanted to punish people who were supporting a genocide. It's a fairly rational choice. My entire family didn't vote because of this and the friendliness with Cheney and neocons.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#224

Post by s1artibartfast »

aaaja wrote: post #202
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The pushback against trans rights advocacy is quite interesting because unlike with same-sex marriage, there are several distinct groups opposing it for fundamentally different reasons. Religious conservatives are one group. Radical feminists, female athletes, medical whistleblowers are others. And almost everyone draws a firm line against accepting gender identity beliefs in their romantic and sexual lives. Trying t…

I think trans advocacy is interesting and different from gay rights because it goes beyond "live and let live" and is also an ontological battle. That is to say, it is a battle not just for equal rights, but over what people think, believe, and desire.

It ask is not just for the right to exist, but to be placed within the gender heterosexuals are attracted to and accepted as no different. In this way, it lacks the libertarian arguments of gay rights.

The movement is is inherently cultural and poorly suited for adjudication the legal/political sphere. Courts and laws can't make people love, accept, or believe someone is a given gender.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#225

Post by 9rx »

alabastervlog wrote: post #214
9rx wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> It's a common use of the term by experts in the field.

Sure, but it's clearly something different than people assembling in the town square to flesh out their issues with each other, as democracy was originally seen. Semantic arguments are dumb.

In theory, which is why the name is as such, it need not be any different as the elected employees are only supposed to take the message from their local town square to a central meeting place where, with all the other town square results, things are compiled – to be tarred and feathered if the message changes in transit – but in practice nobody shows up in the local town square and leaves it upon the employee to make guesses about their wishes, thus becoming dictators out of necessity.

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

Why would it? As before, it has reminded us of why we resorted to picking (and maybe not even that) employees to tell us what to do in the first place.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#226

Post by grumpy-de-sre »

andrewflnr wrote: post #194
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As someone who grew up in an evangelical environment, this is exactly my read as well. The problem is they might still be able to "win" via a sufficient application of violence, aka state power, despite being wrong and in the minority.

I mean are we talking about the USA here or Iran?

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#227

Post by ckemere »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #150
davedx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that makes sense to me; how do society's moral rules change (slowly) but peoples' moral rules don't/change little? I mean I can think of some isolated examples like pirating video content, but generally a society's moral rules reflect its constituents; where else do those rules come from, if not its people?

Culture. Humans have pretty stable moral intuitions about the basics - fairness, reciprocity, value of life; AFAIK they're consistent throughout time and space as far as history goes[0], and form a common base from which more complex morality stems. In short: "theft is bad" is something people are born with[1]; "pirating media is bad" isn't; the former will be universal wherever you go, the latter depends strongly on…

I think you missed “in group” vs “out group” in this comment?

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#228

Post by jack_h »

kelipso wrote: post #219
bloomingeek wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peop…

Just to add a bit more credence to this post, I'd point to Thomas Sowell's "The Vision of the Anointed" which is 30 years old and discusses the intrusion of the federal government in shaping culture from the perspective of the right over many decades.

I've noticed that left leaning individuals tend to view their philosophies as neutral and when the federal government exerts its power in continuance of these philosophies it is viewed as a neutral application of the constitution. The right currently sees what they are doing in exactly the same way, a neutral application of the constitution.

I actually think we have two conflicting constitutions at this point. The rigid written one we are all familiar with, and a more flexible unwritten one that is based on precedent, regulation, and legislation. The right tends to prefer the former, the left the latter. As an example I think Roe v. Wade, ended up being a part of this unwritten constitution which conflicted with the written constitution. You then saw this culminate in the Dobbs decision where the left thinks a right has been taken away and the right thinks it was never a right according to the constitution.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#229

Post by s1artibartfast »

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…

As always, much of the conflict comes down to what constitutes "your lane".

The government we have is far from a libertarian "live and let live", regulating nearly every aspect of life and taxing one person to give to another.

It decides what children are taught, who can work jobs, what is a crime, and who pays for different services.

Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution

#230

Post by rdm_blackhole »

MPSFounder wrote: post #222
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.

There is a problem with this though. It is the price paid in exchange for democracy. Take Syria for example. It took huge human loss to free itself from Assad, Iran and Russian influence. Is the price justified? Of course in the long run autocracies fail. The lifespan of the ruler is one duration we can associate (Putin is on the verge of death). But the damage can often be very significant and take generation to und…

> Take Syria for example. It took huge human loss to free itself from Assad, Iran and Russian influence.

And then it fell in the hands of radical islamists. Is this the outcome that everyone was hoping for?

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