Serious The Politics Thread

[Anchor9]

Chou Toshio
You’ve given a very broad range of what you consider Democratics and basically lumped any Republican with Fascists. Basically what your post is saying is that all Republicans are evil and any Republicans that aren’t are really just conservative Democrats, which isn’t true. Republicans have just as diverse views as Democrats do within their own group. The problem is the loudest voices are usually the ones with more extreme and controversial views.

TheMantyke
Thanks for the response! I don’t really have any strong thoughts on Global Warming and would have to research that more. To be fair, wind turbines do kill a lot of birds. Whether you think that’s a problem is another matter. I don’t have anything to say about the border as I’m sure you’ve researched that much better than I have. About Evolution vs. Creationism, I wouldn’t say that was bad faith. Evolution isn’t a complete fact. It is still a theory. To start, science doesn’t prove anything. It only makes one thing more plausible than another. A single experiment can take down a past law of science. Micro-evolution is very real and observable. Macro-evolution seems like a pretty reasonable jump on paper, but there are problems with it such as genes only being able to evolve something so much. The only way for an animal to greatly change is a mutation, which is rare and nearly always more harmful than good. There is also a lack of missing links to show this process develop. There have been bones that look like missing links for chimps to humans, but they have either been disproven or aren’t solid enough to be proof. The Big Bang Theory seems quite impossible to come about (absolute chaos creating everything beautiful in this world?), and there still isn’t any clarification of where that one point of concentrated matter even came from. I’ll never understand so called Christians who say they don’t believe the Genesis account. If you can’t believe the first words of the Bible, how can you believe anything else that book says? If you snap the first golden link, everything else comes tumbling down. Don’t have much to say about everything else though. Thanks for the response! Hope you have a great day (or night!)

 

[Chou Toshio]

I’m saying that this is not exiling right-leaning minded people—

I’m saying that if you have any substantive commitment to civil society, to the ideas of a Republic for free people— you’ve had more than your fair share of time to choose a side, to break ties with Trump’s GOP.

From Jan 6th until now we’ve seen the last of the party’s strength, the last drizzles of valor committed to the Republic dry up in face of Trump’s total take over— and even those that resisted like McCain or whoever voted with the fascist like on basically everything. The so called “moderates” of the party essentially identical on policy view.

All resistance dried up. Nothing remains.

Those still voting Trump either are fascists or are too cowardly, or too selfishly greedy to oppose them.

So it’s not a question of whether or not “they are” conservatives voting Democrat— but that at this point “they should be.” And not being so deserves moral judgement.

And you’ve yet to name even a single consequential policy issue where the good faith substantive debate exists between a conservative Dem and the GOP, instead of between Dem factions.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Evolution isn’t a complete fact. It is still a theory. To start, science doesn’t prove anything.

Like I said, not all arguments are created equal.

 

[Anchor9]

Like I said, not all arguments are created equal.

Can you please expand on that?

 

[Divine Retribution]

Can you please expand on that?

Certainly. At least for a couple posts, I'm not going to sit here and debate evolution vs. creationism in a fucking 2024 politics thread considering one side of that debate lost resolutely over a decade ago.

To start, science doesn’t prove anything.

This is correct. It also means that this...

Evolution isn’t a complete fact. It is still a theory.

... and pretty much everything that comes after it is an utterly meaningless and self-defeating argument.

No scientific fact ever graduates from being "just a theory". Gravity is still "just a theory". The heliocentric model of the solar system is still "just a theory". This argument holds no water and unlike most people who make it, you go ahead and tell us exactly why in the very next sentence, which honestly just takes an extra layer of ignorance.

 

[Anchor9]

Certainly. At least for a couple posts, I'm not going to sit here and debate evolution vs. creationism in a fucking 2024 politics thread considering one side of that debate lost resolutely over a decade ago.



This is correct. It also means that this...



... and pretty much everything that comes after it is an utterly meaningless and self-defeating argument.

No scientific fact ever graduates from being "just a theory". Gravity is still "just a theory". The heliocentric model of the solar system is still "just a theory". This argument holds no water and unlike most people who make it, you go ahead and tell us exactly why in the very next sentence, which honestly just takes an extra layer of ignorance.

Alright. Will try to answer you to the best of my ability. Gravity isn’t a theory. It’s a law. Which means it has withstood the test of time to show that it’s reliable. A theory starts as a hypothesis, then it is experimented on. If a hypothesis is able to explain the experiments over and over and over again reliably over time, it becomes a theory. If the hypothesis is, however, disproven by the experiments, it is either scrapped or reworked. Evolution has been completely reworked over and over again once new evidence comes to light to cast doubt on it over and over again. Why don’t we see macro-evolution now around us? “It takes too long to happen” But as the years past, missing links can’t be found. If evolution takes as long as claimed there should be plenty of missing links in the ground. So evolution had to adjust again with the sudden mutation that happens quickly but only comes up every millions of years. Evolution hasn’t been confirmed over and over again by missing links. It hasn’t been able to withstand the test of time. My arguments in my first post about gene limitations are very valid. Evolution has to have an answer to that since theories must answer evidence that seems to contradict it. In fact, Evolution has had to adjust around the evidence. A good scientific theory should be confirmed by the evidence and need minimal adjustment. If you have to change the story every time new evidence comes to light, maybe your story isn’t reliable or true. If I told you that the Coca-Cola can first came about as a single atom that slowly built itself randomly with atoms around it until it formed an aluminum shell that was randomly painted red with the Coca-Cola symbol, you’d call me crazy. The Coca-Cola can was created by an intelligent human being and not by a spontaneous process. Similarly, how could the beauty of nature come about by insane chance and chaos? Pretty sure that breaks a law of Thermodynamics, where things will only get more chaotic (I think Entropy was the term) if there is no intervention.

Creationism does not need to be confirmed by science, although science does support it such as the amount of salt within the oceans. Why? Because it’s not about science. Either an all-powerful intelligent being created everything intelligently, or He didn’t. All other questions are answered by His mere existence. Hope this helped!

 

[juoean]

Chou Toshio
You’ve given a very broad range of what you consider Democratics and basically lumped any Republican with Fascists. Basically what your post is saying is that all Republicans are evil and any Republicans that aren’t are really just conservative Democrats, which isn’t true. Republicans have just as diverse views as Democrats do within their own group. The problem is the loudest voices are usually the ones with more extreme and controversial views.

TheMantyke
Thanks for the response! I don’t really have any strong thoughts on Global Warming and would have to research that more. To be fair, wind turbines do kill a lot of birds. Whether you think that’s a problem is another matter. I don’t have anything to say about the border as I’m sure you’ve researched that much better than I have. About Evolution vs. Creationism, I wouldn’t say that was bad faith. Evolution isn’t a complete fact. It is still a theory. To start, science doesn’t prove anything. It only makes one thing more plausible than another. A single experiment can take down a past law of science. Micro-evolution is very real and observable. Macro-evolution seems like a pretty reasonable jump on paper, but there are problems with it such as genes only being able to evolve something so much. The only way for an animal to greatly change is a mutation, which is rare and nearly always more harmful than good. There is also a lack of missing links to show this process develop. There have been bones that look like missing links for chimps to humans, but they have either been disproven or aren’t solid enough to be proof. The Big Bang Theory seems quite impossible to come about (absolute chaos creating everything beautiful in this world?), and there still isn’t any clarification of where that one point of concentrated matter even came from. I’ll never understand so called Christians who say they don’t believe the Genesis account. If you can’t believe the first words of the Bible, how can you believe anything else that book says? If you snap the first golden link, everything else comes tumbling down. Don’t have much to say about everything else though. Thanks for the response! Hope you have a great day (or night!)

on the last point, i actually 'agree' somewhat in that the only version of evolution that is taught in schools, the theory of "natural selection" as the primary mechanism of evolution, is not evidence-based and to my knowledge does not even have a significant presence within applicable scientific communities anymore. it has been well demonstrated that evolutionary 'jumps' are negatively correlated with resource scarcity, in accordance with eg the orientation of peter kropotkin and in opposition to what is the fundamental assumption of the 'theory' of natural selection.
"natural selection" is not taught because it corresponds to reality, it is taught because it corresponds to the imperial-capitalist ideology that 'individualistic competition results in social progress' etc, and because it provides a foundation for eugencist theories such as those of Thomas Malthus that are taught in schools alongside 'darwinism.'
*neither* darwinism nor creationism is a scientific or evidence-based theory, they each are part of propaganda systems promoted for specific purposes.

pretty much everything put out by the GOP (as a party, not necessarily alw true of every individual within it but when it comes to centralized messaging etc) is propaganda and is not coming from a genuine place of 'mutual exchange of ideas' or whatever; but neither is most of what is put out by the democratic party. for example, the Biden administration repeatedly made public statements against Title 42 at the same time that they were appealing to the courts to continue it. obviously a public statement against a policy that they themselves were doing everything they could continue is purely performative and has nothing to do with differences of belief etc. and on the right wing side u can look at examples such as fox news tv people who were texting each other about how stupid the rigged-election claims were at the same time that they were themselves promoting it on air, all the republican politicians who initially spoke against the rigged-elections claims or opposed trump at other moments and then changed their tunes shortly afterward (jd vance included). electoral politics is very performative in general and both parties understand this, with pretty much any propaganda put out by either party the primary intention is the performative aspect to try to be perceived in a certain way etc regardless of whether that corresponds to reality. and so as mantyke said we all have observed these fierce rhetorical wars between the parties on issues such as immigration but the biden administrations rhetoric clearly has not corresponded to its immigration policies during this term and ofc during trump's term before that there were certain claims such as making mexico pay for border wall construction etc that was performative rhetoric and never intended to be actual policy. and then u also can observe this theme in stuff like GOP politicians bringing out charts about critical race theory during justice jackson's confirmation hearings when it obviously had nothing to do with the hearing its j performance for the tv cameras.
tbc rhetoric absolutely matters and the gop's fascist rhetoric on immigration is extremely dangerous even if it does not turn out to precisely correspond to specific State policies in the short term, the point is just that its primary function is propaganda, not policy and certainly not a 'mutual exchange of ideas'.

now as far as individual people u interact with wherever who say things that might align with propaganda of one or both parties, yes that is far more likely to be 'genuinely' people expressing what they believe. ofc our ideas are always influenced by various propaganda systems of the society we live within, that is why i put genuine in quotes because we are all ~compromised in our thoughts beliefs etc by the total moral corruption of a society that justifies and continuously perpetrates colonialism/imperialism and the countless genocides that are a direct consequence of such; nonetheless 'genuine' individual beliefs no matter how tainted by societal moral corruption, still at least have some room for being able to discuss each view and collectively come to a new analysis, whereas performative propaganda from electoral politics does not have that capacity since it isnt even subjectively believed by the people putting it out.

 

[juoean]

Alright. Will try to answer you to the best of my ability. Gravity isn’t a theory. It’s a law. Which means it has withstood the test of time to show that it’s reliable. A theory starts as a hypothesis, then it is experimented on. If a hypothesis is able to explain the experiments over and over and over again reliably over time, it becomes a theory. If the hypothesis is, however, disproven by the experiments, it is either scrapped or reworked. Evolution has been completely reworked over and over again once new evidence comes to light to cast doubt on it over and over again. Why don’t we see macro-evolution now around us? “It takes too long to happen” But as the years past, missing links can’t be found. If evolution takes as long as claimed there should be plenty of missing links in the ground. So evolution had to adjust again with the sudden mutation that happens quickly but only comes up every millions of years. Evolution hasn’t been confirmed over and over again by missing links. It hasn’t been able to withstand the test of time. My arguments in my first post about gene limitations are very valid. Evolution has to have an answer to that since theories must answer evidence that seems to contradict it. In fact, Evolution has had to adjust around the evidence. A good scientific theory should be confirmed by the evidence and need minimal adjustment. If you have to change the story every time new evidence comes to light, maybe your story isn’t reliable or true. If I told you that the Coca-Cola can first came about as a single atom that slowly built itself randomly with atoms around it until it formed an aluminum shell that was randomly painted red with the Coca-Cola symbol, you’d call me crazy. The Coca-Cola can was created by an intelligent human being and not by a spontaneous process. Similarly, how could the beauty of nature come about by insane chance and chaos? Pretty sure that breaks a law of Thermodynamics, where things will only get more chaotic (I think Entropy was the term) if there is no intervention.

Creationism does not need to be confirmed by science, although science does support it such as the amount of salt within the oceans. Why? Because it’s not about science. Either an all-powerful intelligent being created everything intelligently, or He didn’t. All other questions are answered by His mere existence. Hope this helped!

to make sure i have been clear, eg thousands of new species of insects are 'discovered' every year, and obv there are also countless documented examples of extinction. idk how one could ever prove that a specific 'newly discovered' species never existed anywhere else for all time but regardless, im not sure what 'evidence of evolution' you are referring to as lacking. also i have no idea what "missing links" means.
you can look at like any detailed analysis of any ecosystem and there will be discussion of the continuous changes in the ecosystem including emergence of new species extinctions of old ones etc.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Alright. Will try to answer you to the best of my ability. Gravity isn’t a theory. It’s a law.

Well you're wrong right out of the gate, and you could have cleared that up with a simple google search. It's both; these terms are not mutually incompatible in the scientific sense and the fact that you don't understand this really makes me not want to continue this conversation any further. It would be like trying to explain differential equations to someone who hasn't figured out basic arithmetic yet. Laws are analytic, theories are explanative. Gravity is both.

A theory starts as a hypothesis, then it is experimented on. If a hypothesis is able to explain the experiments over and over and over again reliably over time, it becomes a theory. If the hypothesis is, however, disproven by the experiments, it is either scrapped or reworked. Evolution has been completely reworked over and over again once new evidence comes to light to cast doubt on it over and over again.

So has gravity, most notably when we switched from a purely Newtonian model of gravity to Einstein's theory of general relativity. Did you not learn this in school? Being "reworked" doesn't mean you throw an entire theory out, that's literally how science works. We make a model, we find problems in that model, we find explanations for those problems, we rework the model to reflect that. Science is iterative in every case and always has been.

Evolution has to have an answer to that since theories must answer evidence that seems to contradict it. In fact, Evolution has had to adjust around the evidence. A good scientific theory should be confirmed by the evidence and need minimal adjustment. If you have to change the story every time new evidence comes to light, maybe your story isn’t reliable or true.

This is utter nonsense and simply not true for reasons I just explained in the previous post.

I'm not touching the clockmaker's argument right now because I genuinely have better things to do, but the TL:DR version is you're a puddle asking why the hole you're in is perfectly suited for you. You are a product of the conditions of the universe; that is why they seem fine-tined from your perspective.

All other questions are answered by His mere existence. Hope this helped!

It didn't. I'll never recover the brain cells I wasted reading the same tired 2008-era creationist arguments that have been shot down time and time again, but that's the thing is that people like you with an ideological commitment never admit that you're wrong. You ignore the evidence and the counterarguments and continue marching to the beat of your own drum, no matter how out of tune it is. Every single thing you just said could have been debunked by googling it, but why would you do that? You're not interested in the truth, you're interested in what you already believe being right. There's no other way to arrive at where you are.

on the last point, i actually 'agree' somewhat in that the only version of evolution that is taught in schools, the theory of "natural selection" as the primary mechanism of evolution, is not evidence-based and to my knowledge does not even have a significant presence within applicable scientific communities anymore. it has been well demonstrated that evolutionary 'jumps' are negatively correlated with resource scarcity, in accordance with eg the orientation of peter kropotkin and in opposition to what is the fundamental assumption of the 'theory' of natural selection.
"natural selection" is not taught because it corresponds to reality, it is taught because it corresponds to the imperial-capitalist ideology that 'individualistic competition results in social progress' etc, and because it provides a foundation for eugencist theories such as those of Thomas Malthus that are taught in schools alongside 'darwinism.'
*neither* darwinism nor creationism is a scientific or evidence-based theory, they each are part of propaganda systems promoted for specific purposes.

This is actually pretty based, definitely recommend reading Mutual Aid to the intellectually honest people ITT.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Just underscoring because there’s been ample time: seems we can confirm there ARE NO policy issues where the societally good faith fault line runs between the parties, between conservative Dem vs GOP.

Therefore the point stands— everything worth debating in good faith is a debate you’d have intra Democrats+The Left.

 

[Anchor9]

to make sure i have been clear, eg thousands of new species of insects are 'discovered' every year, and obv there are also countless documented examples of extinction. idk how one could ever prove that a specific 'newly discovered' species never existed anywhere else for all time but regardless, im not sure what 'evidence of evolution' you are referring to as lacking. also i have no idea what "missing links" means.
you can look at like any detailed analysis of any ecosystem and there will be discussion of the continuous changes in the ecosystem including emergence of new species extinctions of old ones etc.

Yes. That’s micro-evolution making this world interesting and new species discovery always happening. That’s not people discovering a half-whale half-hippo creature. It’s macro-evolution that I disagree with. A missing link is basically the in-between of an evolution process. Like if you discovered something that looked like a cross between a monkey and a human. The belief of Natural Selection also opens the door to a lot of disgusting racism.

Divine Retribution

I don’t quite understand why you say I don’t admit that I’m wrong. I’ve admitted I’ve been wrong or misunderstood plenty of things in this thread. You know Google also holds Creationist sites, so a simple Google search can provide a good counter argument for anything you say. I’m here to learn and share my opinions. You don’t have to be absolutely toxic about it. I’ve tried my best be as kind and open as possible on this thread. And you’ve rewarded it by insulting me, my still developing ideology, and even my own family at every turn. I wish the best for you but I can’t keep posting on this thread if you’re going to treat me like this. It’s bad for my mental health and my self-confidence. See you later.

 

[adjectivenoun]

on the last point, i actually 'agree' somewhat in that the only version of evolution that is taught in schools, the theory of "natural selection" as the primary mechanism of evolution, is not evidence-based and to my knowledge does not even have a significant presence within applicable scientific communities anymore. it has been well demonstrated that evolutionary 'jumps' are negatively correlated with resource scarcity, in accordance with eg the orientation of peter kropotkin and in opposition to what is the fundamental assumption of the 'theory' of natural selection.
"natural selection" is not taught because it corresponds to reality, it is taught because it corresponds to the imperial-capitalist ideology that 'individualistic competition results in social progress' etc, and because it provides a foundation for eugencist theories such as those of Thomas Malthus that are taught in schools alongside 'darwinism.'
*neither* darwinism nor creationism is a scientific or evidence-based theory, they each are part of propaganda systems promoted for specific purposes.

I initially balked at this, and an (admittedly brief) investigation leads me to conclude that you've worded this exceedingly poorly. Kropotkin's writings don't seem to dispute the idea that natural selection is the driving force behind evolution; rather, he posits that natural selection favors those organisms that cooperate with each other to endure nature, rather than those organisms that compete with each other for resources. He still rebuts Darwinism in the sense that he disputes the idea of ruthless competition as the driving force behind natural selection, but his ideas seem perfectly compatible with the concept of natural selection itself. Not that it particularly matters: I've never met a social Darwinist who understands Darwinism itself, let alone the anarcho-communist rebuttal of Darwinism.

 

[koista12]

on the last point, i actually 'agree' somewhat in that the only version of evolution that is taught in schools, the theory of "natural selection" as the primary mechanism of evolution, is not evidence-based and to my knowledge does not even have a significant presence within applicable scientific communities anymore. it has been well demonstrated that evolutionary 'jumps' are negatively correlated with resource scarcity, in accordance with eg the orientation of peter kropotkin and in opposition to what is the fundamental assumption of the 'theory' of natural selection.
"natural selection" is not taught because it corresponds to reality, it is taught because it corresponds to the imperial-capitalist ideology that 'individualistic competition results in social progress' etc, and because it provides a foundation for eugencist theories such as those of Thomas Malthus that are taught in schools alongside 'darwinism.'
*neither* darwinism nor creationism is a scientific or evidence-based theory, they each are part of propaganda systems promoted for specific purposes.

You do know that theories of cooperation and altruism can fit neatly into our concept of natural selection, right? In a population where altruistic behavior has a positive effect on reproductive fitness, non-altruistic individuals will be less fit and die out. Theories of altruism and cooperation were well-integrated into our understanding of natural selection by the 90s. I'm no expert, but if you have the time, The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins has multiple sections on the evolution of altruism, as well as eusociality. Claiming that natural selection is a dead concept originally made up by imperialists is quite the take.

Edit: Adjectivenoun put it well. Natural selection is not some one dimensional idea where organisms must either violently fight to the death over resources or live together peacefully and happily share resources with no in-between.

 

[Chou Toshio]

So Anchor9 since you have no rebuttle let’s settle on this conclusion:

-When only the Democrats’ management is still committed to civil society, to free society, to representative/democratic principles and people have had ample time to abandon the GOP

-and when the entire policy parameters of what could be considered good faith policy disagreements also exists intra the Democrats

That also points you to clearly understand why neither side is continuing to try to have good faith debate with the other. It’s settled that that’s only possible between factions amongst the Democrats.

 

[Anchor9]

So Anchor9 since you have no rebuttle let’s settle on this conclusion:

-When only the Democrats’ management is still committed to civil society, to free society, to representative/democratic principles and people have had ample time to abandon the GOP

-and when the entire policy parameters of what could be considered good faith policy disagreements also exists intra the Democrats

That also points you to clearly understand why neither side is continuing to try to have good faith debate with the other. It’s settled that that’s only possible between factions amongst the Democrats.

I already responded to you about this. You’re heavily generalizing Republicans. Not all Republicans completely agree with Trump, and I’m seeing not all Democrats agree with Biden completely. You can’t automatically group people who don’t completely agree with Trump as conservative Democrats just as you can’t call people disagreeing with Biden as liberal Republicans.

Also this:
Debates Within the Democrats:
Owner Rights vs. Labor Rights (aka Capitalism vs. Socialism)
Steward Global Hegemony vs. Steward Global Development/Peace (Aka War vs. Peace)
Energy Interests vs. Environmentalism (aka how much should we do to save the future for human life on Earth? How can we do it while trying to maintain standards of living?)
For-Profit Healthcare vs. Healthcare as a Right
Business Friendly Taxes vs. Progressive Taxes
De-regulation vs. Consumer & Worker Protections
Maintain Representative Republic vs. Increase mechanisms of Direct Democracy
Maintain legal bribery & insider trading vs. Public Finance Reform/anti-corruption enforcement
Support Monopoly vs. Inforce Antitrust and support market competition
Expand Punitive Immigration Policy vs. More robust roads to citizenship/residency rights

can easily be debates between conservatives Democrats and liberal Republicans. The far left and far right cannot debate with eachother as they have no common absolute truth. There cannot be a good faith argument there. The closer you get to centralism, the more similarities there are between Democrats and Republicans. I would say that the majority of Americans are around this ground. The division seems so large because Media loves the controversial figures. But you can’t say the only good and reasonable humans on earth are Democrats.

 

[Adeleine]

So Anchor9 since you have no rebuttle let’s settle on this conclusion:

-When only the Democrats’ management is still committed to civil society, to free society, to representative/democratic principles and people have had ample time to abandon the GOP

-and when the entire policy parameters of what could be considered good faith policy disagreements also exists intra the Democrats

That also points you to clearly understand why neither side is continuing to try to have good faith debate with the other. It’s settled that that’s only possible between factions amongst the Democrats.

Anchor isn’t ready for having a good discussion here, which is valid to get upset about, but they’re making motions to pull out of the thread, and i don’t think pulling them in with a “everything you say is wrong and my position is right” post is productive; let them go. Having been in propaganda holes like this myself (obligatory “we are still not immune to propaganda”), angry internet strangers, even justly angry ones, only could go so far in getting me out. They’ve been exposed to enough competing information and emotion to nurse doubts and get themselves out. Beyond that, at least in the present moment, all we’ll end up doing is creating antagonism. Nobody is agreeing with their posts either, so we don’t need to sway some external audience here either.

(Your actual post is a bit overgeneralized / imprecise but like i get the point: my negative reaction is about the above part, not your argument)

 

[Chou Toshio]

I already responded to you about this. You’re heavily generalizing Republicans. Not all Republicans completely agree with Trump, and I’m seeing not all Democrats agree with Biden completely. You can’t automatically group people who don’t completely agree with Trump as conservative Democrats just as you can’t call people disagreeing with Biden as liberal Republicans.

All Republicans have know-towed to Trump. There is essentially zero remaining opposition to his agenda in the party, in politics or policy.

Of course Democrats don’t agree with Biden— the point of what I’ve underscored is that the ideological diversity in the Democrats is massive and we’re always at each other’s throats.

Also this:
Debates Within the Democrats:
Owner Rights vs. Labor Rights (aka Capitalism vs. Socialism)
Steward Global Hegemony vs. Steward Global Development/Peace (Aka War vs. Peace)
Energy Interests vs. Environmentalism (aka how much should we do to save the future for human life on Earth? How can we do it while trying to maintain standards of living?)
For-Profit Healthcare vs. Healthcare as a Right
Business Friendly Taxes vs. Progressive Taxes
De-regulation vs. Consumer & Worker Protections
Maintain Representative Republic vs. Increase mechanisms of Direct Democracy
Maintain legal bribery & insider trading vs. Public Finance Reform/anti-corruption enforcement
Support Monopoly vs. Inforce Antitrust and support market competition
Expand Punitive Immigration Policy vs. More robust roads to citizenship/residency rights

can easily be debates between conservatives Democrats and liberal Republicans. The far left and far right cannot debate with eachother as they have no common absolute truth. There cannot be a good faith argument there. The closer you get to centralism, the more similarities there are between Democrats and Republicans. I would say that the majority of Americans are around this ground. The division seems so large because Media loves the controversial figures. But you can’t say the only good and reasonable humans on earth are Democrats.

Again you missed the point— these would never be debated between factions INSIDE the Republicans.

And generally conservative Dems properly rep all the conservative positions here, with the GOP being even more radical.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Anchor isn’t ready for having a good discussion here, which is valid to get upset about, but they’re making motions to pull out of the thread, and i don’t think pulling them in with a “everything you say is wrong and my position is right” post is productive; let them go. Having been in propaganda holes like this myself (obligatory “we are still not immune to propaganda”), angry internet strangers, even justly angry ones, only could go so far in getting me out. They’ve been exposed to enough competing information and emotion to nurse doubts and get themselves out. Beyond that, at least in the present moment, all we’ll end up doing is creating antagonism. Nobody is agreeing with their posts either, so we don’t need to sway some external audience here either.

(Your actual post is a bit overgeneralized / imprecise but like i get the point: my negative reaction is about the above part, not your argument)

Fair enough.

 

[juoean]

I initially balked at this, and an (admittedly brief) investigation leads me to conclude that you've worded this exceedingly poorly. Kropotkin's writings don't seem to dispute the idea that natural selection is the driving force behind evolution; rather, he posits that natural selection favors those organisms that cooperate with each other to endure nature, rather than those organisms that compete with each other for resources. He still rebuts Darwinism in the sense that he disputes the idea of ruthless competition as the driving force behind natural selection, but his ideas seem perfectly compatible with the concept of natural selection itself. Not that it particularly matters: I've never met a social Darwinist who understands Darwinism itself, let alone the anarcho-communist rebuttal of Darwinism.

this might just be a wording thing but the concept of natural selection is/was selection through individual competition. if you want to use the phrase "natural selection" to describe ecosystemic evolution that is neither individual nor competitive then u can do that i guess but its directly in opposition to the entire substance of "the origin of species" etc and seems very confusing for no reason.

You do know that theories of cooperation and altruism can fit neatly into our concept of natural selection, right? In a population where altruistic behavior has a positive effect on reproductive fitness, non-altruistic individuals will be less fit and die out. Theories of altruism and cooperation were well-integrated into our understanding of natural selection by the 90s. I'm no expert, but if you have the time, The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins has multiple sections on the evolution of altruism, as well as eusociality. Claiming that natural selection is a dead concept originally made up by imperialists is quite the take.

Edit: Adjectivenoun put it well. Natural selection is not some one dimensional idea where organisms must either violently fight to the death over resources or live together peacefully and happily share resources with no in-between.

i strongly disagree with this orientation. to address the theoretical aspect first since thats what u focused on (but many ppl might prefer to skip this paragraph since it is super technical), the issue is that natural selection is a classical-economics based model, and the model is fundamentally flawed. classical-economic models can also incorporate altruism as an 'end' that actors are pursuing, but it still models behavior as 'instrumentally-rational' in pursuit of that end (along with whatever other ends). not only is instrumental-rationality inaccurate to how humans actually behave but the model is also incapable of being disproven because anytime you get a result different from what was predicted, u conclude oh well i was wrong about what the 'ends' were. a model that cant be disproven is incapable of improving and in general j cant explain anything bc its essentially tautologous, you observe xyz and then say oh well then that must mean the actors' goals were abc. natural selection is a fundamentally flawed model/theory for similar reasons. evolution takes place at an ecosystem level, and sure you can post facto interpret each species growth/decline as smthg that happened bc that species had xyz individual desirable or undesirable traits for the ecosystem but thats not helping understand the ecosystem which is ofc what ecologists want to do.

contrary to the propaganda you chose to repeat here, natural selection literally is a concept made up by a colonizer. charles darwin was in fact a colonist and his ecological writings are filled with partial or wholesale justifications of numerous genocides perpetrated by fellow colonists against indigenous peoples in south america and oceania, including that colonization was 'destined' because "the stronger always extirpat[e] the weaker".

the theory of natural selection was and continues to be fundamentally colonial/imperial model. the presumption that the natural world is dominated by organisms instrumentally pursuing their individualistic material interests, and that any organisms not behaving in such an instrumental manner will be wiped out, came directly from darwin's own experience as a bystander/accomplice to colonial genocides while travelling in south america and oceania.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00313220500106170#d1e350 "mr darwin's shooters" provides extensive analysis of this history (which has been suppressed by the Enlightenment-based imperial order that wishes to represent Darwin as one of its founding ideological figures).

 

[adjectivenoun]

this might just be a wording thing but the concept of natural selection is/was selection through individual competition. if you want to use the phrase "natural selection" to describe ecosystemic evolution that is neither individual nor competitive then u can do that i guess but its directly in opposition to the entire substance of "the origin of species" etc and seems very confusing for no reason.

My understanding of natural selection is that it is not at all limited to competition between individual organisms. It may not be what Darwin envisioned, but I stand by my understanding of the term. Anecdotally, it's the definition that I remember being taught in my American public school education, which is where I was most likely to be exposed to the propagandizing definition that you've been focusing on. Furthermore, my understanding of the term is supported by every overview of the topic that a cursory Internet search yields to me; in fact, several of the definitions that I have found specifically mention organisms evolving to better endure their environments, rather than organisms evolving to out-compete others in the same population. I'm not an ecologist or environmental biologist of any sort, so I can't speak with much authority on whether the concept of natural selection continues to persist in the relevant scientific disciplines; but I would be surprised if it's been phased out altogether, even if the contemporary usage runs counter to the original spirit of the term.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

Don't go back a few pages.

I have, trust me it's waaaaaaaaay worse elsewhere.

 

[Medeia]

In Bangladesh there's student protests going on against the countrys dictator Sheik Hasina and the government retaliated with relentless violence that essentially targets any student from big city universities such as the one in the countrys capital Dhaka and the whole population even with 1.000+ people already dead (official Awami League owned sources in Bangladesh downplay the actual death toll), many thousands injured, 2.000+ people arrested aswell as internet connection cut off for 7 days.

The reason for the protests are a quota from 1972 shortly after the country declared independence from Pakistan which many years before declared independence from India and had claimed todays Bangladesh as part of their territory. Bangladesi fought against this oppression successfully and are a souverain country since 1971. After that the government of the new country led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman decided a quota of freedom fighters which was later expanded to social justice and 30% quota for the 3rd generation of those who fought in the independence war.

In 2018 students already protested against this quota, which dictator Hasina uses to give high end jobs to her favorite people and for a reservation system solely based on population and social justice. Today only 0.13% people even officially got status as freedom fighters and that doesn't even begin with how pretty much entire country was involved and helped in many different ways in the independence war against Pakistan.

In 2020 after a commitee was formed and a lot of discussions the quota was removed, but thats not the end of this political story that causes the currently ongoing civil crisis in Bangladesh. On 5th June 2024 a high court reversed Hosinas order and brought the 30% "children of freedom fighters" quota back.

Now if Hasina were serious about her previous decision after a lot of student protests she could have passed a bill to remove the quota again or as quasi dictator easily have done a executive order, but instead her government made a appeal on Bangladesh supreme court which was basically a move to buy time and quell potential countrywide uproar since such appeal on supreme court could take years for a decision.

The students didn't buy into this and have no trust in Hasina and her government, the supreme court, police and high courts work under the sole order of her and the ruling socialist Awami League party. So they declared that big protests would start on 1st July if Hasina doesn't take immediate action by then, which of course didn't happen.

This followed with nationwide protests that are so much more than just student protests at this point and relentless violence and censorship from the ruling government, the people of Bangladesh want this dictatorship under nominally socialist constitution gone.
Even before last weeks government violence the economy is still drowning due to Hasinas undemocratic policies, inflation and unemployment is constantly rising, working population and manufacturing jobs decreasing.

Sources are this informational video by a indian political channel, aswell as these sources:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/n...ently-halt-mounting-death-toll-of-protestors/
https://time.com/7003130/bangladesh-student-protests-police-job-quota-hasina-awami-league-razakars/

 

[Chou Toshio]

And then maybe go back and rewatch the whole Rules for Rulers if you’ve forgotten how integral it is for the king to manage his keys to power.

So one topic that I thought would come up but didn’t was “Well Chou, if you believe in the cynical view from ‘Rules for Rulers’ doesn’t that fly in the face of progressive politics? Doesn’t that automatically preclude them?

“The theory outlines power structures in a way that ANY leadership is an oligarchy because any leader will have to eliminate unnecessary keys and serve them loyally.”

My answer would be that I DO believe that this Rules for Rulers analysis gets a lot right and that any progressive ruler also would need to serve their keys— but at least in the CGP Grey video, it answers itself regarding how progressive policy can and does happen.

Not out of the goodness of people’s hearts but— and this is a very classically leftist way to think about it— out of material conditions.

“Democracies are better places to live not because its leaders are better people but because the interests of the rulers happen to align with the greatest number of people. [The government wants more treasure] so it wants greater productivity.

Schools, roads, houses— the things that make the citizens more productive makes their lives better. The rulers want everyone more productive, so everyone gets roads.”

So I buy into the rules for rulers framework—I think that progressives can be guided by moral virtues and pursue strategies informed by ethics—

But if you’re Bernie 2020, pursuing actual leftist power and reform, I think you have to go in knowing that strategically you’re making the case that:

A) You can arbitrage the current dynamics of political power. You’re making a bet that there are untapped/unserved blocks in the citizenry that can be activated to your side with enough loyalty and political power as to overturn the standard quo power dynamic. Young people, marginalized groups, workers, etc. in a leftist campaign you’re proposing that they both have critical untapped potential and that you have the confidence to active it.

B) That doing your policies will make the country richer, and substantially so. Whether that’s by giving workers social program support to be more productive, or orchestrating a development plan that will build up greater efficiencies or generate new value, and/or by locking in greater domestic re-investment by either force of law or by attracting it through your wealthier populace’s increased consumer powers— many ways to do it, but I think any progressive campaign must also be one that is promising to grow the pie such that the key stakeholders in the inevitable managing oligarchy are actually even wealthier (or at least happier) than their predecessors in the conservative regime.

I think a great illustration is actually what you saw when Lula took power. People may scratch their heads at why even as Lula put in many programs to feed people, support the poor, and build roads— he actually made the Brazilian wealthy even wealthier, and did all this through the overall GDP growth he presided over. No matter what, there are inescapable rules for rulers.

A future political descendent of Bernie could certainly make their cabinet as progressive as possible and elevate the power of unions and other left-aligned groups to the point where they are genuinely keys to power— but needing to serve that set of keys AND bigly grow the treasure are matters inescapable to such a regime.

Not to say that Elon or Bezos have to be part of your key stakeholders— you can tax the Billionaires out of existence— but expect that the military, law enforcement, tax collectors and militant Union and activist group heads all get theirs— and you rig the system of governance to giving as much prolonged power as possible to the voting blocks and leftist groups that maintain your power.

In the end Lula did not fail his job of paying his keys to power, but he did incur rich Brazilians’ hatred in that they sometimes had to share airports with less impoverished families of in their eyes lower classes of people. And that’s where social progressivism and progress there is super important.

Because if America’s ruling class are all MSNBC wine moms and not Elon Musk weirdos, progressive social values baked in make it much much easier for any future egalitarian regime to be accepted and maintain power.

Sorry for the long thought spew. If any progressives want to hate on it, or liberals want to call it bleakly naive go for it.

Of course the same rules apply to a more moderate degree to Kamala or any somewhat progressive political project that doesn’t completely bow to dictatorship.

 

[Chlora]

will there ever be a time where sensible people are in power

 

[Pinecoishot]

With the recent events at the capital, the same people who were really angry at Trump for shutting down BLM protests using Police Violence seem to be ok with Police Violence ordered by the Democrats instead. Being a Felon seems to be more attractive than a cop now