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The Art of Negativity

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Re: The Art of Negativity

#51

Post by Nasrudith »

antattack wrote: post #40

Before reading the article I had no idea that so many forms of capitalism existed: late capitalism 21st century capitalism wellness capitalism white patriarchal capitalism

And ironically despite all of the terms betrays a fundamental willful lack of understanding and their prejudice. It homogenizes capitalism in the same way a bigot might say "cartel mexicans", "police mexicans", and "farmer mexicans" and reduces them as adjectives to slap onto interchangeables.

Late capitalist as a bonus is essentially equivalent to a doomsday prophecy of the downfall of infidels. Complete with ignoring all of the past times it was predicted and never came to pass.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#52

Post by Nasrudith »

mrtesthah wrote: post #48
Nasrudith wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where exactly do you get the conclusion that it alloes for renouncing germ theory? What are the facts not acknowledged? Exact proof of something simple as 2+2 is laborious and hilariously disproportionate but one can work with approximations well enough and handle the vast majority of cases in the same way friction and time dillation are often omitted from equations.

feralimal implies that people wearing masks aren't thinking for themselves, when the reality is that masks are in everyone's collective self-interest and the vast majority of people understand this. Widespread mask-wearing is highly correlated with reduced spread of airborne contagion, coronavirus included.

Ah I missed that bit in the paragraphs. Of all of the dumb herd behaviors brought out by the pandemic mask wearing the opposite.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#53

Post by feralimal »

mrtesthah wrote: post #45
feralimal wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mental illness - absolutely. This is exactly what independent thinkers will be diagnosed with. If you don't go along with what consensus calls true, you are mentally ill - its obvious! That person doesn't believe x or y - despite being taught it at school. He or she wants to know and understand for themselves! My, my - that's definitely a crime.

Mental illness is when one ignores basic facts which have been independently validated by scientists around the world, all for the sake of his own narcissism. I have no time or respect for people too intellectually lazy to do basic reading while praising themselves for their own ignorance. The very people who rationalize their ignorance with self-indulgence inevitably end up revealing themselves to be the greatest sl…

The thing is, you believe your basic facts. Believe, not know. But you call it 'knowing'.

Knowing is when you verify facts for yourself. By not checking information, but just accepting whatever is handed to you, you are applying no filter to your reality. You filter only what has been deemed acceptable for you to filter - did Trump say that, did google do that, etc. The basic 'facts' are accepted without contention. Or any verified evidence. All that's needed is for someone to make a claim or show it on TV and that's basically right, right?

Have you ever looked at the replication crisis - where 70% of science studies cannot be reproduced? Or the nature of science funding - its corporations, the government and the military. If we are living in a fascist dictatorship, as I believe is evident, then that is a closed loop. Only what is deemed valuable to those stakeholders is investigated and presented as true.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#54

Post by ibraheemdev »

sn41 wrote: post #15
FriedrichN wrote: post #3

I find the dichotomy of pessimism/optimism and positive/negative not very useful in daily life, I prefer to think of defeatism and naivety. To me realism or (practical) optimism lies between those two. You can't go through life either distrusting everyone and everything, nor can you do the opposite and live a good life. People don't like negativity because it ruins their mood, but you sometimes have to be critical. P…

"Trust in God, but keep your powder dry" - Oliver Cromwell (attributed) [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_in_God_and_keep_your_pow...

“Tie your camel and trust in God.” - Prophet Muhammad

Re: The Art of Negativity

#55

Post by bsenftner »

Nasrudith wrote: post #50
belval wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels a little bit like the author combined two different articles. Both are good (I don't mind anti-capitalist rhetoric), but the tone change and continuity break is hard to miss.

Really it feels like they had a vocabulary list of anticapitalist terms and names to include in a separate assignment. Just dropping all of the communist bits and stating /how/ and /why/ capitalism pushes optimism would give it some intergration. It would at least fit in as a "novel or less commonly listed flaw of capitalism" instead of just including the list of top down beliefs as articles of faith.

The voice in the article is an ordinary every-day frame of reference for Eastern Europeans; you're simply reacting to the lack of an American Capitalist frame of reference and the every-day American talking points.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#56

Post by kar5pt »

comboy wrote: post #31
paulpauper wrote: post #18

I have found that the people who keep pushing optimism are those who are already successful. It is not that being optimistic leads to success but that successful people are more inclined to feel optimistic.

There were many studies that have found the opposite of what you have found: https://escholarship.org/content/qt1k08m32k/qt1k08m32k.pdf

This is measuring happiness, not optimism. There's probably some overlap, but they're not the same thing.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#57

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

bsenftner wrote: post #55
Nasrudith wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really it feels like they had a vocabulary list of anticapitalist terms and names to include in a separate assignment. Just dropping all of the communist bits and stating /how/ and /why/ capitalism pushes optimism would give it some intergration. It would at least fit in as a "novel or less commonly listed flaw of capitalism" instead of just including the list of top down beliefs as articles of faith.

The voice in the article is an ordinary every-day frame of reference for Eastern Europeans; you're simply reacting to the lack of an American Capitalist frame of reference and the every-day American talking points.

In Eastern Europe everyone interjects assertions that don’t follow from any part of the discussion? Because that is the article’s approach to connecting topics of late capitalism and gender/queer issues and structural inequality. They are disjointedly introduced in an unmotivated, ungrounded way that violates basic, universal conventions of successful writing and communication in all nationalities.

I really doubt what you are saying here. Eastern Europeans are just as capable of logical trains of thought supported by compelling writing and evidence as anyone else in the world - which is very different from this article.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#58

Post by mrtesthah »

feralimal wrote: post #53
mrtesthah wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mental illness is when one ignores basic facts which have been independently validated by scientists around the world, all for the sake of his own narcissism. I have no time or respect for people too intellectually lazy to do basic reading while praising themselves for their own ignorance. The very people who rationalize their ignorance with self-indulgence inevitably end up revealing themselves to be the greatest sl…

The thing is, you believe your basic facts. Believe, not know. But you call it 'knowing'. Knowing is when you verify facts for yourself. By not checking information, but just accepting whatever is handed to you, you are applying no filter to your reality. You filter only what has been deemed acceptable for you to filter - did Trump say that, did google do that, etc. The basic 'facts' are accepted without contention.…

>By not checking information but just accepting whatever is handed to you...

>The basic 'facts' are accepted without contention. Or any verified evidence.

>All that's needed is for someone to make a claim or show it on TV and that's basically right, right?

Who exactly are you speaking about here? What gives you the right to presume -- without any evidence -- that others don't verify and critically examine what they read and hear? Do you actually believe that you're the only person who does this?

Your attitude is blatantly condescending and supercilious.

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