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They Thought They Were Free (1955)

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Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#541
post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people in the world have very little economic agency. They don't "choose" to consume rather than to save, they just can't save. And even if the consumer were allmighty, in most countries the state itself is spending a huge portion of the money ( https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/FRA/JPN/... ), to say nothing about other big institutions. And I doubt those soulless institutions let themselves be…

>I regard any theory based on an allmight homo-economicus as hopeless, disproven times and times over, and mostly an ideological attempt to blame shit on the people and justify privileges. and here we are. this is what I was trying to express. I don't believe you actually don't believe that the sum of human actions is not made up of human actions, that essentially being what you've been trying to argue I think you be…

> I don't believe deep down you actually think this. > you've just got a funny idea about what's offensive or prejudiced that's blocking you from looking at this rationally > I think you believe that it's nicer and less prejudiced, less harsh, to not "blame" people for the actions of their culture, and you're artificially constructing arguments to support that emotional conclusion.

You know what? I value polite discussions, but I value sincerity even more, and your scornful language, even if it were accompanied by brilliant ideas, which it is not, is just unbearable.

It is so easy to picture oneself on top of an argument, and look down on others, when you put words in their mouth and ideas in their heads and refuse to listen to what they say.

So, yes of course everything is the result of people actions which is the result of their mind. Great discovery! But the discussion was about national character, not just culture/personality.

As to who is fantasizing a pleasurable theory for himself, I don't think we are going to agrree either, and we both have better things to do than discuss century old game-theory, about which everything have been written already.

I'm confident than we could have had a nicer face-to-face conversation about it, and maybe get to some mutual understanding, but this is not doable over the internet.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would not. I love Kimmel, but it turns out the story of the gunman is now much more layered and nuanced than "the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them..." In Kimmel's defense, this was a developing story at the time, but it is not untrue, in hindsignt, that Kimmel spread misinformation.

Nothing Kimmel said in the quote you provided is untrue. His statement is about their actions in response to the event, not anything to do with the actual sentiment of the shooter.

I guess you didn't follow updates to the story. I turns out that someone who was a "huge Trump supporter" in 2020 can develop romantic feelings for his trans room mate in the intervening five years since -- and feel a different way on issues.

Only by stretching the facts to distortion can anyone claim the gunman was one of Maga's own in 2025.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#543
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would also remind the short of memory that during covid, the states with the most draconian restrictions were mostly left-leaning, and many were loathe to give up that control. Control of the people comes from all sides This depiction of Covid restrictions (restrictions that were actually relatively permissive given the seriousness of the disease and the unknown nature of the virus at the time) as though they wer…

None of the COVID measures had any effect on public health and yet they were enforced long after that became obvious to anyone watching the graphs the government themselves published. And the nature of the virus was known within weeks of it appearing - there were no real surprises from that point on. It acted very similarly to any other respiratory virus with the only differences being the unusually steep gradient in…

It's well-established scientifically that lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical measures reduced transmission and deaths considerably.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd9338

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.15.21249884v...

https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#544
post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I regard any theory based on an allmight homo-economicus as hopeless, disproven times and times over, and mostly an ideological attempt to blame shit on the people and justify privileges. and here we are. this is what I was trying to express. I don't believe you actually don't believe that the sum of human actions is not made up of human actions, that essentially being what you've been trying to argue I think you be…

> I don't believe deep down you actually think this. > you've just got a funny idea about what's offensive or prejudiced that's blocking you from looking at this rationally > I think you believe that it's nicer and less prejudiced, less harsh, to not "blame" people for the actions of their culture, and you're artificially constructing arguments to support that emotional conclusion. You know what? I value polite discu…

>But the discussion was about national character, not just culture/personality.

what do you think national character is? it's a broad average of people's personalities and traits. personality affects economy and politics and national character is made up of personality. and if you've ever travelled anywhere you can see with your eyes that people from different countries share personality traits

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#545
post #2

Posted here multiple times before: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42943973 (02/2025, 473 comments) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083315 (11/2020, 382 comments) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31042304 (04/2022, 239 comments)

I was reading the comments from the past times this was submitted, and I just wanted a reason to draw attention to this comment from 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25083315#25104589

Wow that was one hell of a read!
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