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On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

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Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#81

Post by Spooky23 »

microtonal wrote: post #61
hojofpodge wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business owners turn fascist over economic anxiety. Hitler's funders were afraid they would be irrelevant in an international context. The people have real grievances but tend to follow any * hole who has been the visible problem all along but can say the problem is that they were blocked from creating the ultimate vision of a perfect **hole. I don't know the answer to representational democracy but I think there is…

Business owners turn fascist over economic anxiety. The grandparent said billionaires though. Some of them may have economic anxiety (not being in the government's graces might damage your company), but it seems most see a possibility of operating in an environment where they are not constrained by 'pesky' rules. E.g. leveraging Trump's wrath to pressure the EU into dropping laws like the DMA/DSA that protects citize…

They have alot of anxiety. More money, more problems as they say.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#82

Post by antman »

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #14
grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

IMO the issue is not propaganda at all, but real physical problems that are not being addressed. Western governments have been mostly incapable of building housing and infrastructure. We have a severe housing shortage, barely improved public transport since the 80s, a lack of energy production (in Europe), lack of reservoirs, an aging population and increased international competition, etc. And this all creates a hug…

I will agree but rephrase, they were not incapable limiting supply of housing or chinese imports or international information channels is the model. Artificial barriers, ethical redefinitions, rag pulling, tollboothing have been the way to divide and conquer to channel the decaying international and domestic market share to political affiliates. Most political , maga, lgbt, policing, race etc issues are highlighted and disproportionately promoted to noise out discourse about money. If money and safety is considered as a key factor of historical actions and current events, then countries grievances are eastbti explain. When I hear for the other side the media to claim “they went crazy”, “they are barbarian subhumans” I know I am being manipulated.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#83

Post by _heimdall »

microtonal wrote: post #78
_heimdall wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion these types of problems always boil down to fear. When a person or people are afraid they act erratically. At a large scale it often leads to the wrong type of leader stepping up to use that fear for their own gain, in many cases they pull the majority together by pointing at a smaller group and claiming they're the cause of all the problems. The only reliable solution I know to that is for people to be…

The only reliable solution I know to that is for people to be principled. ...and educated. Today it seems like we've lost that almost entirely. We replaced it by egoism. Through decades of neoliberalism we are taught to only care about ourselves, not our communities. Making money and buying things became our main philosophy. It does not matter if you are actually well-off, everyone is in a race with everyone else. As…

For sure, I agree education helps and could be considered a prerequisite to someone really be principled to begin with. It takes wisdom to learn what matters to you and to see patterns behind any particular topic of the day, and wisdom only comes about through education and experience.

I am always torn a bit on education as a goal though. I don't like centralized education, it makes it much to easy to lead to similar problems we have today when any small group of people can decide what and how every person is required to be taught.

We need people educated by their own choice, going down whatever paths they find interesting and learning from that journey. Its my belief that people are generally good, and given the time and space to find their own core principles, and a Democratic type of system where our voices can be heard, things will generally work out for the best in the end. I'll always take the collective opinion of principled individuals over the strongly held views of the small few in power at the time.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#84

Post by jijijijij »

voxleone wrote: post #6

Helping, in Rogaway’s sense, means refusing both neutrality and despair. Collapse is not an excuse for nihilism; there are still objective ways to help, even if they’re costly and uncertain. That looks like rejecting work that accelerates surveillance, extraction, or environmental damage; pushing back inside institutions; redirecting skills toward public-interest, climate, or civic work; and engaging politically rath…

I concur and want to add a realization I had some time ago: Considering the state of dysthymia and feeling depressed as one end of a spectrum and a fulfilling, content "happy life" as the other, the sole determining metric is the degree of experiencing self-efficacy.

The experience of self-efficacy is witnessing your willing satisfy your desires and needs through your own working. And self-efficacy is a basic, most important human need, completely independent of grand ideological or intellectual nesting. You may experience it when putting on your pants, going for a run, or building a house; a successful hunt and finding shelter; you may or may not experience it through work. Doing something you deeply don't care about, lacking intrinsic motivation, luck and wealth alone do not grant you the experience of self-efficacy. It's not abstract power, but concrete evidence of you qualitatively changing your world for the better.

Seeking to increase this metric is not a basis for ethics, but guidance for finding lasting satisfaction in life, even under adversarial circumstances. Nihilism, or defeatism is learned helplessness, or depression made religion.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#85

Post by pousada »

rsp1984 wrote: post #57
grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

The boring but true answer is that the only thing people should be protesting for is a change of the electoral law. Everything else is downstream of that. In the US, it's a de-facto duopoly on power, held up by a number of "winner-takes-all" rules. Politicians of either party will do everything in their power to keep "outsiders" (i.e. people/parties that are not entrenched in the two-party system and might actually d…

IMO the 5% rule is pretty good.

Otherwise we would have loonies like the Grey Panthers (old people party), the “Spiritual Party”, or the extreme right-wing “Republicans” (AFD is moderate compared to those) being able to vote on laws etc.

Of course that also cuts out some parties that I have supported in the past, but the system allows a lot of parties to participate that aren’t _that_ populist (e.g. the Greens, the Left, the Pirates (I think they managed to get a seat or two in the past))

Of course it’s not perfect, but I still think it’s one of the best flawed systems we came up with so far. We should keep iterating on it but very slowly and carefully.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#87

Post by Spooky23 »

goatlover wrote: post #17
grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

Who is responsible for these sustained propaganda campaigns? Some of it is foreign interference looking to destabilize, but a lot of it is sponsored by wealthy individuals whose interests are a lot different than the average person, and whose opinions are sheltered from the realities of ordinary life.

The core are reactionary people who control resource extraction businesses. The Koch’s, Waltons, etc.

Now there are many players. The useful idiots have enriched themselves enough that they are a force unto themselves,

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#88

Post by jhbadger »

bell-cot wrote: post #58
AlecSchueler wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Western governments have been mostly incapable of building housing and infrastructure. The reason we need non stop housing construction is because the underlying issue is capitalism's demand for infinite growth.

Millennia before Adam Smith was born, pretty much every human societies which built "houses" (be they crude tents, igloos, lean-tos, thatched huts, or whatever) made a point of building enough of those to house all their members. Capitalism has financialized housing, and that seems to be a major cause of the "can't actually build housing" problem.

In general, in pre-industrial societies families built their own houses rather than "society" building them for them. Of course this was because 1) many tribal societies had no concept of land ownership so you could just build wherever someone else wasn't using, and often these were temporary for a season or two anyway 2) later feudal societies where there was land ownership had land mostly owned by a nobleman who allowed his serfs to build their cottages on his land.

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#89

Post by hackable_sand »

grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

Then why are you propagating class divide in your very comment? Like what the actual fuck?

Re: On Being a Human Being in the Time of Collapse (2022) [pdf]

#90

Post by SCdF »

grunder_advice wrote: post #9

Pretty much all western countries are experiencing a crisis of democracy. It seems to me that the biggest contributor to this is the vulnerability of the electorate. It seems to me that it has become possible to hijack the minds of individuals with sustained propaganda campaigns. You have individuals who at best completely a BSc in Business Studies, and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change. That b…

> and you are asking them to decide on COVID or climate change

In case you didn't mean this, do you agree that the propaganda you're referencing above is the "you" in this sentence? eg the propaganda is the thing that is asking them to decide on covid or climate change.

I don't think anyone who is genuine expects the public to have expertise in these topics. The propaganda seems centred around a constant war against intellectualism and expertise, such that people think they should have an opinion on things they are woefully unqualified to have opinions on, and politicians just align themselves to what they think will get votes.

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