Deep Thoughts. Or Thots. Whatever.

[jamil]

So, das ist alles? Politics

Was kind of hoping we'd go deeper. Like one of the things I might eventually thrash out with T. Lex (once we get done arguing about whether trend lines actually are allowed to indicate trends and sufficiency of interval length)
is:

Given the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why does energy seem predisposed to condense into matter

I’m open to having this thread moved to the break room. I thought about starting it there but then so many of our side discussions revolve around politics it seemed it’s best place is here. But please feel free to argue with TLex about any side issue here. I don’t think it matters how many side-issue discussions happen in a thread for side issues. People know how to scroll past posts which don’t ding their bell.

 

[jamil]

Yeah. This.

I've typed and deleted about half a dozen responses. At the extremes, both sides of the political spectrum have an unhealthy obsession with race. I think your Overton Window metaphor is applicable here, as it moves further to one side more extreme views become exposed. At the middle, some of these ideas may begin to normalize a bit, but at the other end of the spectrum, these things have a great power to disgust, offend, and motivate.

I keep coming back to violence. That seems the best place to draw the line on either end. Disgusting ideas are disgusting but, in a marketplace of ideas, should be relatively easy to counter with more attractive alternatives. Violence begets violence, and once that cat's loose it's really hard to contain again. Along those same lines, I think it is important to draw a line between the presented ideas and the people presenting them. I mention this, because racially-charged political rhetoric is often used (with some effect) as a way to dehumanize their political opponent, attempting to reduce them from an intellectual challenger to a martial enemy.

...and what about bad actors? Those who enter into the discussion for sinister purposes? Ideological and rhetorical boundaries are only really useful to those looking to reduce division between subgroups. Some people use those divisions for their own profit, greater social consequences be damned.

I don't know. It's a great question, jamil.

The last part is the purpose. There are groups at the extremes and they’re not going to like the boundaries I chose because it exposes them as the miscreants. It’s for the sane people to use as an indicator for when their side of the political spectrum goes awry, for them to objectively see past their tribal instinct to protect their side, even when it’s wrong. We see that on the left and the right. And it disables people’s ability to criticize dangerous ideas.

I see people on the left reluctant to call out radical groups like Antifa-instead they act like they’re heroes. They don’t call out these insane professors who are against free speech.

I see people on the right reluctant to call out the alt-right, sort of allowing a loose allied relationship in the arena of free speech. The alt right doesn’t give a **** about free speech. They’re just using free speech advocacy subversively for their own gain. And it’s really hard to tell the difference between the sane Trumpers and alt-right Trumpers because they sound the same sometimes. I think they need to draw a clear distinction.

And I’m not talking about something close to the left’s obsession with disavowal-signaling, a subset of virtue-signaling. I don’t need to hear people disavow an idea before I can permit them to disconnect from the bad idea. That’s kinda ****ty politics. “Ahah! You didn’t disavow as strongly as me, so therefor you’re literally Hitler!”

I’m thinking that it’s more of a heuristic to help people figure out when someone’s ideas are dangerous. Regardless where the idea comes from, your tribe, their tribe. Whereever. You start advocating for stuff that helps you at other people’s expense, that’s just out of bounds. That’s not compatible with free societies. And if you don’t want free societies, then you’re out of bounds.

 

[Mark 1911]

I have heard that there are certain species of mushrooms that can help.

 

[OakRiver]

So the thing I wanted to ask about is something Jordan Peterson has been talking about lately.

The way he puts it, people on the right have a pretty clear place to know when right-wing ideas start to go over the line. He asserts that it's at the point where people start talking about racial superiority. But, then on the left, there doesn't seem to be a clear boundary where the left can police itself for harmful ideas.

Okay, I agree with the idea that there needs to be boundaries. We should know when to start saying, whoa, you're going too far there, so knock that **** off. I also agree that the left doesn't really have a boundary. They were right there promoting "punch a Nazi", then calling everyone who disagrees with them "Nazis". That's clearly something that should be out of bounds, but the left just seems to think if it's "progressive" it's okay, if it's not, then it's a Nazi. Punch it.

Where I disagree with Peterson is a few points. First, with the idea that racial superiority is a right wing idea. Nazism, skin heads, today's White Nationalists, the fascism of the early half of the 20th century, yeah, those were arguably right wing ideas. But racial superiority in itself is not a right wing idea. Plenty of progressives believe in superiority of some races over others. So that's an inadequate boundary for that reason. Are we only going to call out right wing people for racists?

Another point, it's also an inadequate boundary because that's not the only idea that the right gets wrong. This isn't about that so I'm not going get into it here. Anyway, I think Peterson's right wing boundary is too precise to be completely useful.

He suggests that a boundary for the left might be the point where they advocate equality of outcome. I get why he uses that, given his dire warnings about repeating the mass murders of the 20th century. But it's also too specific. It would certainly cause them to call out Marxists, which would be a positive, but the far left also has other worrisome ideas that I won't detail here. So equality of outcome is also inadequate.

Alright. So what should be the boundaries for when ideas go too far? Well, as a starting suggestion I'd say we could sort of borrow a concept from Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Similar to Non-aggression Principle. This concept I'd call "preferential harm". If an idea proposes to harm some in society, against their will, for the betterment of some other group or the whole, the idea goes too far.

Using preferential harm as a boundary, ideas like white nationalism, forced human experimentation, any form of slavery, Nazism, Marxism/communism, equal outcomes, eugenics, pretty much all the bad things humans can force on other humans are out of bounds. You start dreaming up some utopian **** that forces harm on part of society for the sake of another part of society, you get figuratively, publicly flogged.

I'd like to hear some other ideas on this. It just solves some of the issues I have with Peterson's boundaries.

More of a hit and run quick thought; can any community which places inclusion and tolerance at the pinnacle of its values truly police itself effectively? Surely to effectively police oneself you must place other values above inclusion and tolerance. Otherwise we would not see left leaning sites provide sympathetic coverage of terrorists (like Rolling Stones did with one of the Boston Bombers) or provide sympathetic coverage of pedophilia (as Salon has).

Any community with these values as sacrosanct would create internal conflicts by policing themselves as the community may deem such actions unwelcoming and against the core values.

 

[Birds Away]

This is Elizabeth Turner. I've had some pretty deep thoughts about her.

A beautiful young lady.

 

[Leadeye]

People always work in their own self interest, whether that's for something material or just feeling good about themselves. When self interests try to occupy the same space, you get conflict. Once you get past that, it's just a comfortable illusion.

An interesting book titled "Winning through Intimidation" by Robert Ringer teaches a lot about how things work even though it's a 70s era self help business book.

There are three types of people.

Those who act in their own self interest and don't conceal it.

Those who act in their own self interest and conceal it in order to deceive others.

Those who act in their own self interest and deceive themselves first that they aren't, then go on to deceive others.

 

[KG1]

This is Elizabeth Turner. I've had some pretty deep thoughts about her.

This post dinged my bell.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

You start advocating for stuff that helps you at other people’s expense, that’s just out of bounds. That’s not compatible with free societies. And if you don’t want free societies, then you’re out of bounds.

Even that isn't absolute. It reminds me of a guy that I used to work with, whose family farm now mostly lies under I-465. That farm, owned and operated for generations, was taken by force (albeit administrative force), and led to the dissolution of a once solid extended family. And my friend's experience undoubtedly played out over and over and over as the American Interstate System was built.

I, for one, am thoroughly glad that the interstate highway system exists, and I enjoy using it often. But, was it not constructed at other people's expense?

Or.......if you want a free society............one where you can get from Indy to Miami in 22 hours, then you might want to flex a bit on what's out of bounds and what's not.


ALSO:

I have a philosophical problem with talking about boundaries when it comes to ideas and speech.

I'm much more comfortable with talking about boundaries in regards to actions.

 

[Kutnupe14]

A beautiful young lady.

She reminds me of Lindsay Lohan... pre-drug/alcohol fueled mania

 

[red_zr24x4]

I keep coming in here to steal a peek of her, and Mama keeps catching me

 

[OakRiver]

Yeah. This.

I've typed and deleted about half a dozen responses. At the extremes, both sides of the political spectrum have an unhealthy obsession with race. I think your Overton Window metaphor is applicable here, as it moves further to one side more extreme views become exposed. At the middle, some of these ideas may begin to normalize a bit, but at the other end of the spectrum, these things have a great power to disgust, offend, and motivate.

I keep coming back to violence. That seems the best place to draw the line on either end. Disgusting ideas are disgusting but, in a marketplace of ideas, should be relatively easy to counter with more attractive alternatives. Violence begets violence, and once that cat's loose it's really hard to contain again. Along those same lines, I think it is important to draw a line between the presented ideas and the people presenting them. I mention this, because racially-charged political rhetoric is often used (with some effect) as a way to dehumanize their political opponent, attempting to reduce them from an intellectual challenger to a martial enemy.

...and what about bad actors? Those who enter into the discussion for sinister purposes? Ideological and rhetorical boundaries are only really useful to those looking to reduce division between subgroups. Some people use those divisions for their own profit, greater social consequences be damned.

I don't know. It's a great question, jamil.

Another aspect which may complicate this is the insistence from some individuals that speech of which they disapprove is violence against them, and that the use of force is now a viable reaction to this speech.

 

[jamil]

Carried over from the TAXES thread.

Does your use of the word "solves" imply that accepts the premise that wealth distribution or income inequality are actual problems in need of a solution?

I'm headed the same direction, I think, as Rhino here.

The ideal, perfect, nirvana "solution" to this "problem" is for everyone to have, and for everyone to earn, exactly the same amount as everyone else. At that point, both wealth distribution and income equality are the "best" that they can be.

I believe the moniker "comrade" typically goes hand-in-hand with this "ideal" solution, lol!

Okay. So yes, I accept that income inequality is a problem. But the problem does not imply forced wealth redistribution as a solution. Actually, right now there really isn't a solution. Because of math, the uber-productive people will accumulate massively more wealth than the least productive people. It's also a nuanced problem because it's not like the people on the bottom haven't increased their wealth as the uber-productive have increased theirs. World poverty is lower than it's been in like forever, and it's because of liberty that it's done that, not forced redistribution. It's improved because of better opportunities.

So as far as what problem income inequality causes, there's plenty of research that shows disparities in wealth between people in close proximity has a causal relationship with higher rates of violence. The Gini coefficient is a measure of that wealth disparity. So as the Gini coefficent decreases, so does violence.

This is actually useful information for countering arguments on gun control. Zealots often claim that lower murder rates in countries with stricter gun laws proves the effectiveness of strict gun laws making societies safer. Okay. But correlation between murder rates and gun laws by country is almost zero. And I'm not going to claim it's zero because it's hard to have a consistent measurement for gun strictness to reliably calculate correlation. But, it looks to be pretty damn close to zero if it's not zero.

Okay, so then look at the correlation between Gini coefficient and murder rates and it approaches 1. Rank order countries by murder rates, then by Gini coefficient, and other than some countries trading spots close to other countries, they're roughly the same order.

So. Solve the problem that makes income inequality correlate so closely with violence and to the extent you solve that, you roughly solve violence.

Can we solve poverty? No. Not and still remain free. A free society requires a merit based economy. Capitalism. A merit based economy (forget corruption for now) means people with more competence will achieve more, but people with hyper competence will achieve a **** TON more. Corruption cancels because corruption has an oppressive effect no matter the system.


The research suggests that the reason violence is hither in areas with wide disparities in wealth is lack of hope in upward mobility. Johnathon Haidt talks about the psychology of this a little in one of his lectures about what happens with young males when the feel like they have no path to higher status. We see this played out in inner cities.

To me, this understanding doesn't imply that Marxism is the solution. We know that doesn't work. It doesn't imply any form of socialism, or wealth redistribution. That doesn't work either; the uber-competent people at the top still end up with more. Poor people like their iPhones too.

I've said that world poverty is at the lowest point ever. It's increased global opportunity that's caused this. It's not the solution, but it's made it better. Certainly welfare hasn't made it better. It keeps people in despair.

 

[jamil]

Another aspect which may complicate this is the insistence from some individuals that speech of which they disapprove is violence against them, and that the use of force is now a viable reaction to this speech.

This is clearly a result of deconstructionist nonsense.

Deconstruction: a secret decoder ring which seeks to subvert rational ideas by making facile assertions sound deep and rational to virtue-vulnerable people.

The "speech is violence" claim is easily beaten by rational people. Violence is not a logical conclusion of any kind of speech.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

This is clearly a result of deconstructionist nonsense.

Deconstruction: a secret decoder ring which seeks to subvert rational ideas by making facile assertions sound deep and rational to virtue-vulnerable people.

The "speech is violence" claim is easily beaten by rational people. Violence is not a logical conclusion of any kind of speech.

Dem's fightin' words!

 

[jamil]

Dem's fightin' words!

It’s a conclusion. It’s not a logical one.

 

[jamil]

This is a side discussion, so I thought I'd move it hear.

That was a good faith stab. You are saying that schools are teaching anti-capitalism, "capitalism is evil", you reiterated it in the very next post, although you downgraded it to a "likely" source among many. The one thing I am certainly not clear on is what evidence there is that supports that.

I'm happy to drop the whole thing, we obviously aren't going to convince each other of anything. The one thing I am not willing to drop is the accusation that I was being disingenuous. I simply stated your arguments in favor of your position as I understand them, with evident sarcasm, but as well as I could make any sense of it. If I have misunderstood something, then I am sorry. I apologize for the sarcasm.

My excuse is that it simply burns my britches to see people constantly complain about schools. I have worked in the government, private industry, and schools. People have no concept of just how much harder teachers work than what the average person does. They are so busy that simply going to the bathroom is a challenge, with some days known as "no pee days" due to the schedule. They arrive home utterly exhausted, then spend their evenings grading papers and preparing lessons. They are then accused of having it easy and teaching all manner of nefarious things. It's tiresome. My sarcasm was unwarranted, but that is where it comes from.

I'm fine with dropping the topic, but your restatement of my position didn't accurately depict what I think or especially why I think it. It just appeared to me as a bad-faith reinterpretation.

And I get the professional defensiveness. I think if I thought someone was saying something that disparages all software engineers, I'd be like, hey, software engineers are individuals, so please isolate the thinking or behavior you don't like, rather than assuming it represents the whole group. I can see how you might think that I applied it to all teachers. I said it in an ambiguous way, which could easily be interpreted that way. But C'mon. When I clarify it for you, please take my word for it rather than accusing me of "downgrading". Give me a chance not to be the devil you imagined. I don't think, nor never have thought, that all or even most teachers are pro-socialism. Some of them are though.

We can argue about how many. But something is causing young people to say very inaccurate things against capitalism and in favor of socialism/communism. Where's that coming from? In a prior post to someone else, I listed several likely sources. Schools are one. And that's not the fault of the teaching profession as a whole.

The people in a community choose the school boards. In the districts more prone to progressive ideals, the people choose the more progressive board members. The board members appoint the more progressive administrators. Progressive administrators would tend to hire more progressive teachers. The more progressive the district, the more likely activist teachers will find a home friendly to allowing them to include their biases in their teaching. I would be shocked to find a viral video of a teacher (figuratively) ****ting on the constitution, or capitalism, in a rural Indiana public school. But it's become more common to come across those kinds of videos on social media, from the population dense jungles of progressive utopias.

Teachers aren't an ideological bloc. They're individuals, as much as we'd find in any profession. They span the spectrum of ideological beliefs, including the extremes, but, it seems that they tend to be more liberal than conservative. There isn't anything special about teaching that immunizes that profession against ideologues, though I can see why ideologues might be drawn to that profession. Saying that is not disparaging teachers.

 

[rob63]

This is a side discussion, so I thought I'd move it hear.



I'm fine with dropping the topic, but your restatement of my position didn't accurately depict what I think or especially why I think it. It just appeared to me as a bad-faith reinterpretation.

And I get the professional defensiveness. I think if I thought someone was saying something that disparages all software engineers, I'd be like, hey, software engineers are individuals, so please isolate the thinking or behavior you don't like, rather than assuming it represents the whole group. I can see how you might think that I applied it to all teachers. I said it in an ambiguous way, which could easily be interpreted that way. But C'mon. When I clarify it for you, please take my word for it rather than accusing me of "downgrading". Give me a chance not to be the devil you imagined. I don't think, nor never have thought, that all or even most teachers are pro-socialism. Some of them are though.

We can argue about how many. But something is causing young people to say very inaccurate things against capitalism and in favor of socialism/communism. Where's that coming from? In a prior post to someone else, I listed several likely sources. Schools are one. And that's not the fault of the teaching profession as a whole.

The people in a community choose the school boards. In the districts more prone to progressive ideals, the people choose the more progressive board members. The board members appoint the more progressive administrators. Progressive administrators would tend to hire more progressive teachers. The more progressive the district, the more likely activist teachers will find a home friendly to allowing them to include their biases in their teaching. I would be shocked to find a viral video of a teacher (figuratively) ****ting on the constitution, or capitalism, in a rural Indiana public school. But it's become more common to come across those kinds of videos on social media, from the population dense jungles of progressive utopias.

Teachers aren't an ideological bloc. They're individuals, as much as we'd find in any profession. They span the spectrum of ideological beliefs, including the extremes, but, it seems that they tend to be more liberal than conservative. There isn't anything special about teaching that immunizes that profession against ideologues, though I can see why ideologues might be drawn to that profession. Saying that is not disparaging teachers.

I don't disagree that there is always the possibility, or even probability, that there are a few ideologues in teaching here and there. I just don't think they could possibly have that much of an impact because they just don't reach that many students. The colleges might be a different story, I don't know. Nonetheless, I would look towards individuals that have broader appeal, like the media for example, and the role of social media in providing a form of peer pressure.

I have a nephew (23 years old) that was a Bernie Sanders supporter, absolutely hates Trump with a passion. He went to school in Texas and North Carolina. I just find it hard to believe that he got his opinions from his schools. His parents are both Republicans, so he didn't get it there either.

My daughter (25 years old) is also a Democrat, also raised by parents that are Republicans. She is not as left-wing as my nephew, much more moderate. All of her friends are also Democrats, some of them very left-wing. They all went to school in one of the districts I worked in, so again, I know they didn't get it in school. They live in Hamilton County, so they probably didn't get it from their parents either.

I have talked to both my nephew and daughter about where they got their political ideas, and they both replied that it was from watching the political shows. I asked which political shows, and they both replied Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Is it possible an entire generation learned politics by watching comedy shows?

Social media plays a role in defining which shows they watch, which topics are talked about, and which opinions are shared. Democrats figured out the significance of social media long before the Republicans and this generation was effected by that.

There are other influences, some of which our side it to blame for. Don't forget the great recession of 2008, it had a major impact on their generation. They view it as a failing of capitalism and Republicans. They view Barack Obama and the Democrats as the saviors of the country. Guess which side kept telling them that Obama was a socialist? Is it really that surprising that they developed a positive view of socialists?

Here is the one thing that I think is hopeful. When I talk to them I find that they don't really favor socialism in the true sense. They think more in terms of expanded social programs, like Obamacare or Scandinavia. It is bad, but at least not Venezuela bad. The great danger, in my mind, is that I think they could easily be fooled into supporting true socialism while thinking they are supporting social programs.

Another influence is social issues. All of them are left-leaning on social issues. They view gay rights as the defining moral issue of their generation, akin to civil rights, and they view the Republicans as being on the wrong side of that issue. Again, I don't think they got those views from school, but from the media. Imagine growing up and you keep hearing comparisons between gay rights and civil rights, and you keep hearing from the President that the Republicans are on the wrong side of history on the issue. Is it any wonder that a young mind would associate the Republicans with being the same as the KKK? They don't really know that much about the KKK and civil rights, no personal experience at all, the comparison doesn't sound as ludicrous to them as it does to us.

My son, on the other hand, is much younger (17 years old) and he and his friends are much more neutral on politics. Trump is not a big deal to them, even if they don't support him. The great recession and gay rights are ancient history to them.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. They are not really based upon anything other than observations and anecdotes, so I don't know if there is anything to them or not.

 

[T.Lex]

So, I was going to post this in the General Political/Salma Hayek thread, but then I'd have to drop my newly adopted affectation for that thread.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/opinion/andrei-sakharov-essay-soviet-union.html

Re-visit to the th 1968 Sakharov essay. Which can be found here:
A.Sakharov. Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom | ????????????? ??????????? '???? ???????? ???????'

Warning: it is a long read, and in the format of a scientific paper (sorta), written by a scientist, for a completely different audience than the one which read it in the NY Times in 1968.

But freedom of thought is under a triple threat in modern society—from the deliberate opium of mass culture, from cowardly, egotistic, and philistine ideologies, and from the ossified dogmatism of a bureaucratic oligarchy and its favorite weapon, ideological censorship. Therefore, freedom of thought requires the defense of all thinking and honest people. This is a mission not only for the intelligentsia but for all strata of society, particularly its most active and organized stratum, the working class. The worldwide dangers of war, famine, cults of personality, and bureaucracy—these are perils for all of mankind.

 

[indiucky]

Anyway, Selma pics are always welcome.

 

[indiucky]

Okay. So yes, I accept that income inequality is a problem. But the problem does not imply forced wealth redistribution as a solution. Actually, right now there really isn't a solution. Because of math, the uber-productive people will accumulate massively more wealth than the least productive people. It's also a nuanced problem because it's not like the people on the bottom haven't increased their wealth as the uber-productive have increased theirs. World poverty is lower than it's been in like forever, and it's because of liberty that it's done that, not forced redistribution. It's improved because of better opportunities.

[video=youtube;-XvI6Y5Yq8o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XvI6Y5Yq8o&t=325s[/video]