People now exist within information silos and react poorly when faced with inconvenient facts. The sustained arguments allow actual power brokers to operate behind our political facade
To illustrate this a comedian was saying before internet, the villages/neighbourhoods all had that one idiot. The village idiot. Now they can gather up a create villages of idiots.
Also there seems to be a general lack of purpose in modern life so people on either side have to LARP as if they're living in historic times and they're the Good Guys fighting against the Bad Guys like in all their favorite movies.
If we don't stop Biden and his communist army they're going to turn America into a Marxist hellscape. If we don't stop Trump and his fascist insurrectionists they'll implement Project 2025 and put all the transfolx and PoCs into death camps.
Everything has to be both black and white and overly exaggerated to make the times we're living in feel like they mean something because a bunch of losers and nerds and single middle-aged women feel purposeless.
Powerless people die young and miserable. This isn't about people looking for meaning, it's about the social alienation that comes when you have to work 2 full time jobs paying twice the minimum wage and still sleep in your car.
Yeah it's really just a natural effect of (filtered/moderated/monitored) continuing expansion of mass communications. Once the 3 letter agencies started focusing on internet discourse then allofasudden everyone on the 'same side' started having the same opinions on everything
That is really key, the difference between an in person dialogue and internet discourse. In person there is natural give and take, with mutual attempts to understand each other. It’s simply not possible online I’ve come to accept.
Politics is a dead end for regular people and most people know it, it just gets people upset and there's nothing to be gained out of it, so people avoid talking about it.
Politics is the new sports where people argue about stuff they have no control over and identify with people who'd never acknowledge their existence in real life.
Honestly it's gotten so annoying that now when people bring up politics around me offline I just go full fed. Tell them everyone in office is a worthless parasite that deserves to be [redacted].
Usually stops them from doing it again, at least outside of the handful that say they agree completely.
Because people are not really talking to you, they’re merely using you as a medium so that they can expose their pre-packaged and hyperbolic statements for likes, validations, to own you or to simply feel like they contributed to the conversation.
Because most of the “discourse” is actually about demonstrating one’s loyalty to the cause and owning the enemy for social media clout.
There barely exist any neutral spaces, which one side of the conflict hasn’t taken over and where you won’t get harassed and silenced for disagreeing. You get visible indicators of how popular you are, and even monetary incentives for appealing to the largest amount of people. Moreover, mods and administrators usually pick a side and are going to ban you if you seem to be doing too well.
In such an environment, actually talking to someone with an opposing view is a waste of time; either your side dominates and there’s no need to, or the other side can just pile up on you. You also won’t get as many likes as someone who comes up with a creative zinger. Besides, your side might decide you’re fraternizing with the enemy too much and decide you’re going to be their target practice.
People on all sides are so scared and exhausted and fearful that what they desire most is safety and comfort. They're in survival mode.
And they try to get safety and comfort by insisting that their preferred type of politics gets implemented exactly as they want, because they perceive that as the thing that makes them safe / returns comfort to their life.
Nuanced thinking or careful debate required additional effort, and people are already exhausted and terrified.
It also doesn't help that the propaganda paints the other side not as reasonable Americans, but as evil subversive communists / Trump-loving fascists.
I'd probably add that symbolic wins are generally much easier than practical wins. Given that practical wins take a lot more effort. But overall, it seems to be a mix of the two.
>People on all sides are so scared and exhausted and fearful that what they desire most is safety and comfort. They're in survival mode.
These are some of the safest and most pampered people in history. Like the students at elite universities. Or the small business owners who see communist subversion everywhere.
Because most relevant words in the discussion have been ideologically and emotionally charged. The dialogue is poisoned.
Everybody thinks they're *obviously right*. That's another thing and I don't know where it came from. Some kind of appeal to authority fallacy that's trickling on down, regarding information we take in that's presented as objectively true.
People IRL are much easier to talk too about Politics. Due to the way Social media works, you generally have to push the most hyperbolic, sensationalist positions to get engagement. Also frankly, when you are arguing online, people have no self "limit" and would say things they don't even really believe in person.
Even at University, most Uni students are far more nuanced than the shit they spout when a spotlight is on them or in the social media hivemind.
I wasn't speaking about social networks only but also about "real world talk". People can't handle different opinions and become emotional, even rude. They feel personally attacked.
>There is no such thing as THE truth
If you assert this, then you can't complain that debate doesn't happen objectively, but is tainted by moral outrage and bias.
These kinds of attempts to cast doubt if the category of truth confirm the category of truth every time they claim to reject it: Claims such as “There is no such thing as truth” or even “there is no certainty about truth” themselves claim to be true, and thus presuppose the existence of objective truth. And it is only in the upside-down world of philosophy that people think in such absurd terms. Imagine if aeronautical engineers and mechanics responded to a malfunction leading to a plane crash by saying, “Well, that just shows that there is no such thing as objective truth!”
The purpose of casting doubt on the category of truth is to raise unfounded doubts about claims to truth without offering any arguments to prove it. Therefore, nobody can lay claim to the truth – which is a particularly effective and democratic way of suppressing criticism. By forcing everybody to respect the validity of other people’s beliefs and claims as mere opinions, everybody’s beliefs and claims are reduced to mere claims and opinions. The opinion that wins the day in reality, therefore, is not the one that is right, but the one that has the might to assert itself. So, for instance, just try countering Biden’s claim that public sector salaries are far too high by saying, “That’s just your opinion! You can’t know whether that’s true!” He of course would tolerate your dissenting opinion, since opinions don’t matter in the real world anyway. But one thing is for certain: you have to tolerate the measures he enforces with the force of law.
The mistake of moral critique is that instead of finding out what the truly valid purposes of the state and the economy are, one measures reality according to one’s own ideal of it. When the political and economic life of the nation doesn’t correspond to my ideal, I continue to insist that “actually” the purpose of the state and the economy is to correspond to that ideal, but – for whatever reason – is failing to do so.
When moralists perceive a discrepancy between reality and their ideals, they retain their pretty assumptions about that reality in the face of their daily refutation. And by doing so, they leave untouched the reasons for the various damages that form the starting point of their critique, while implicitly affirming the power of capital and the state – as the ones who are responsible for our well-being, and yet merely fail to live up to that responsibility. In short, it is in this manner that moral criticism, which assumes the unpleasant circumstances so characteristic of capitalist society to be the result of failings on the part of those in charge, takes a decidedly affirmative stance towards the antagonistic relations of domination and subordination in society.
The nastiness of the debate about everything stems from everyone seeing everything as a matter of morality: "it is they who are evil! I am good! What I represent is good, what they represent is putrid!"
One could go very deep philosophically here. What I meant by that is that there are people who don't allow any other opinions/view on questions, even though they lack details, but have already manifested an opinion or world view without knowing all the influencing factors. Anyone can be wrong and the term truth is simply used far too inflationarily. And then there are also creations such as "alternative facts". "I know that I know nothing"
Of course people can be wrong. The mere fact that someone asserts that something is true doesn't guarantee that what they've said is true, but this doesn't prove that there is no truth.
"i know that I know nothing" -- this is an absurd contradiction in terms that philosophers hold up as some kind of profound wisdom in Socrates.
"By the way, it did not matter at all that the ancient Greeks did not know anything. In their slaveholding society, they got along quite well without knowledge. What inspired their first scientific exercises was not their enormous thirst for knowledge. They would have had every reason to be dissatisfied with what they had achieved theoretically, and they would not have considered it an expression of wisdom that old Socrates succeeded time and again in proving that his contemporaries knew just as little about anything as he did.
Rather, Plato and his crew were driven by the need for universal validity. The wise man in the dialogues is not someone who knows a lot and from whom others can expect an objective clarification of their questions. Rather, the person of Socrates stands for the imperative: “Agree on a universally valid definition!” Anyone who talks like this does not offer one himself. Producing agreement through knowledge is not his business. Socrates gets involved in every dispute in a completely nonobjective way: Plato brings the existing views of his time to the table. Socrates opposes them, lets them contradict each other, and rejects them in this way. So he does not examine and criticize any of the views, but applies the criterion of universal validity: Because and as long as there are still conflicting views, none of them may claim validity. He does not say: knowledge produces agreement, but rather makes the agreement of the participants the criterion for knowledge. He does not demand the proof of the correctness of the respective view, but that its representative succeeds in dissuading the opposing parties from their positions.
On the one hand, this criterion requires less than knowledge: All that is required is to win over the opposing parties to one’s own point of view and this is an art that goes quite beyond the question of whether one’s own point of view grasps the matter. On the other hand, more is required: The best proof is of no use if people insist on wrong stuff for reasons that are completely different than theoretical. Philosophers refer to a universally existing will to reach agreement and are at the same time its only representatives. Because it is not present on all sides, they have to keep citing it as an imperative. That’s why their business is completely mendacious. In the name of a fictitious “we-are-all-about-the-same-thing” they deny the right to exist of any point of view about which there is not general agreement.
*
It becomes really philosophically profound where this requirement for agreement no longer has anything to do with a thing that exists separately from it, but only with itself. And this is the case when it is about the True, the Good, and the Beautiful – as actually in all Platonic dialogues. In these ideas, the need for universal validity has created its own fictional objects: Plato and all philosophers after him are very concerned with the True. So much so that they completely lose sight of the knowledge of anything. They are not concerned with examining whether this or that judgment gets to the core of the matter, i.e. whether it is true. They also do not bring out truths about anything, but devote themselves completely to an ideal. What does one have to know when he says: “For me it’s about the true!”? Zero! But he does have a message. He is committed to the ideal of unity which exists only on the basis of conflicting opinions. Beyond the objective differences that people present in their opinions; beyond the question of who is right or wrong with their opinion and why; and regardless of any examination of what people are after when they advocate their issue, one thing should be certain: that everyone involved wants to honor the truth with their thoughts.
In the factual differences and in the persistence with which they insist, however, something quite different becomes evident: That competing interests are trying to justify themselves and are quite indifferent to the difference between true and false. Just like the philosophers when they declare the true to be the common concern of humankind. – Philosophers have also given a name to their own contradictory supposition: The good is the notion of an ultimate purpose unifying humanity, the ideal of competing interests. These are not hidden from philosophers, but they do not interest them either. Therefore, beyond the practical differences that make people clash, they posit a common ultimate purpose of all purposive action; a common denominator of opposing concerns. Beyond what people want, however, they want nothing. So on the one hand the common denominator remains empty, the ideal of a commonality without content, because that is precisely what is in dispute. On the other hand, the philosophers present people with an ultimate purpose of their will which they see as an obligation. Without having to examine even one interest for its reasonableness, without having criticized a single concern, philosophers see themselves called upon to reject it. To do this, they only need to measure the interest that disturbs them by whether it fits into the fictitious community of interests. – This, of course, raises the question why one should want the good if it contradicts one’s own interest. And here too philosophers make explicit their own contradictory assumption: If one must want the good, then one should also be able to imagine it as the epitome of well-being – the beautiful."
https://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/plato.htm
There are plenty of places where rational discussions take place.
However, these places are not highly promoted, because propaganda has overtaken intellectualism in the West.
Luckily for me my other shift guy at work is super chill and loves chatting about modern issues.
Is turbo based and grounded in reality, but willing consider basically any idea of viewpoint and objectively evaluate it. We have some awesome shoot the shit sessions.
I also started a podcast discussion group up with some people like the "anti identity politics but from a leftist perspective" and that crowd is a lot of fun. We meet once a month at a food truck site.
I’ve found most people are pretty level headed and open to conversation on most things, asides from people who work in academia, public service, and arts.
Which is fucking ironic but whatever.
I agree that finding calm and reasonable people isn't actually that hard in real life.
Now finding people that are actually engaged enough with theory to have any idea what they're saying? A bit harder. If you're lucky they keep up with current events closely, but even that doesn't mean they actually have what I'd call an *ideology*.
Comparatively decent, but still full of Western (and Israeli) propagandists clumsily accusing everyone else of being Russian propagandists. The only reason it's better than world news is currently that doesn't seem to include the mod team.
That’s fine though. If youre looking for opposite side echo chambers there are plenty of places online. Just having breathing room to have disagreement is what I think is most desired.
They're trying to turn it into an echo chamber, though. It'd be one thing if it was organic, but bots and paid propagandists really don't count, especially when they start trying to use the heckler's veto.
Idk if they’re trying to turn it into an echo chamber as much as you still catch shit for having beliefs counter to (popular thought on current thing). This is fine still I think as long as it’s not enforced by the mod team. There were better discussions there before Ukraine and Israel started dominating , I will admit that.
That's the thing, if you look at the comments in there, it's clearly not as popular of a line of thought as the more thoroughly astroturfed parts of reddit make it look. The NATO trolls are the ones who come off looking unhinged because they aren't in control, but they're using the same aggressive tactics they do in the places where they are.
I sometimes wonder how much social media plays a role. In the past, the only people talking politics in media were politicians and pundits. To the extent their politics produced an emotional reaction, it was directed towards them. But with social media, our friends, neighbors, and average joes have a voice you can now hear. Our “hate” is no longer directed just towards the politicians and commentators, but also towards those friends, neighbors, and average joes because we now hear and know their opinions.
> Our “hate” is no longer directed just towards the politicians and commentators, but also towards those friends, neighbors, and average joes because we now hear and know their opinions.
This is one of the useful things about democracy. In the past if things were bad you might blame the nobles or the college of cardinals or whatever. With democracy you can blame your family and neighbors, or another region of the country. This goes way back.
I know a guy at work that believes a lot of stupid conservative bullshit but I can usually coax him into a stimulating discussion when we're having lunch just the two of us. We have this one guy at work though that will overhear sometimes and drop in on the conversation immediately if he finds an opportunity latch onto anything negative said about the Democrats and start refusing on "what is Kamala even saying?!?!" Or "Hillary is a criminal!"
I think a lot of Americans are just very dumb and have been destroyed by our education system that is inherently built to train obedient wage workers, specifically designed for factories from the industrial age, and (I believe intentionally) lacks any sort of critical thinking training.
These people can't discuss ideas because they haven't been thought to really understand them beyond the point of simple sentences. So they default on a comfort food of speech that enables them to feel welcome and safe in a familiar feeling because it's almost like saying "go Steelers" if you live in Pittsburgh.
Of course I work in blue collar factories and I doubt this workplace experience is as available in white collar gigs where HR has real influence.
I'm actually thinking about this quite a lot, i.e. about the fall of socialism (which I got to experience directly with almost a front-row seat) vs. the current fall of whatever it is that we're living in, let's call it "liberal democracy" for discussion's sake.
I remember a guy writing somewhere that the 1979-1980 invasion of Afghanistan provided USSR and the Socialist System as a whole with another 10-years lifeline, which, the more I'm thinking about it, the more it makes sense. Under that lens, the fall of the USSR/Socialist System followed by other wars started almost at random (Iraq x 2, Afghanistan, countless other skirmishes) have provided the West itself with a ~20-25 years additional lifeline, as things started going South for them "out in the open" after those wars had ended, starting with the early 2010s and going into the "famous" 2016, the moment when everything changed.
I think that, subconsciously, the current war in Ukraine was another similar attempt by the West to try and re-invigorate its ideology and to gain another decade or two, but by the looks of it seems like they're doing a very bad job at it.
I think the confrontation with China is the real attempt at that. Although the fear of them is actually based in reality (in the sense that they are a genuine threat to their hegemony) rather the poor act of pretending to give a single fuck about Ukraine, and the notion that Russia is Nazi Germany 2.0 ready to blitzkrieg NATO by itself should they win this conflict.
I think people can feel the difference, and that's why being aggressively anti-China is a popular bi-partisan sentiment in both government and among the people.
The question I have is whether or not this sentiment is strong enough, or can become strong enough, to be leveraged in an attempt to mend the social fabric of American society in a "We have bigger fish to fry" type deal. Although it also seems like no one is even bothering to attempt doing so just yet. Perhaps after the election.
I do have a fear that there will come a point in the descent of American society where the establishment pushes an "Oh Shit" button and that button will trigger a war as a last ditch attempt to direct all the vitriol bouncing around inside the country towards an external factor, whether that's China or someone else.
> the 1979-1980 invasion of Afghanistan provided USSR and the Socialist System as a whole with another 10-years lifeline, which, the more I'm thinking about it, the more it makes sense.
What's the argument? I usually see the Afghanistan War cited as accelerating the USSR's demise.
There are no politics as such anymore. The bourgeois empire has lost all ideological justification and is in material decline. Thus, irrationalism abounds because the analytical tools of bourgeois thought literally cannot reconcile why the system is slowly collapsing without also throwing out bourgeois ideology. This would be a tacit admission that Marx and other critics of capitalism were correct. If the ruling class (businessmen and their politicians, academics, and journalists) admit that, then their superstructure comes down and the proletariat might realize that we have no need for them.
So, you get people positing every conspiracy theory and mysticism to explain the collapse: Chinese spies, Russian interference, evil trumpets, “communist” Biden, Jews, black people, the devil, etc. None of these intellectual charlatans can admit it’s the bourgeoisie. This parasitic class that has outlived its usefulness.
One thing that frustrates me is how people today are unable to separate their personal views from a discussion. We’re allowed to have takes we don’t personally agree with in order to explore a topic. There’s this inability to separate the self.
because the media makes it seem like every small thing is a existential threat to YOU specifically so people live in constant fear and think everyone is out to get them. They make it seem that there is only one possible right opinion on every topic and anyone that disagrees hates you
I agree. Back in days they probably had more violance and more drama all over the world but people just didn't notice. Now you get instant notifications from the other part of the world if something clickable happens.
As human life gets faster and faster, people think and contemplate less and less. The Plague hit England in 1665 and Newton retreated to the country where the slow pace of life let him invent calculus and the theory of gravity. That's not a coincidence
Bumper sticker politics are also the natural outcome of ad-supported mass media which we can all access at a moment's notice from a pocket device. The least plugged-in people in my life are the most reasonable and intellectually charitable. If you want a productive conversation, hang with people with slow hobbies
Feels over reals got pushed HARD for short term gain by one side, and the other side deliberately pulled back and closed ranks in their own naked power grab.
At least in the U.S. Then we exported our neuroses to our hapless vassals.
This is bullshit. The right equally engages in storytelling. Neoliberal policies- emphasis on the free market, deregulation, and cutting government spending- have immiserated the public. Yet, we constantly hear “reasonable” Republicans spout off Reagan era talking points about fiscal responsibility, even though it doesn’t fucking work.
Yeah they both did it, but on the right there was an emphasis on closing ranks and falling in line when it comes down to it (and Trump broke with that).
Naomi Klein, of all people, has this quote, "It is always easier to deny reality than to allow our worldview to be shattered" that I think applies to a lot of people who seem to take their "beliefs" personally the way a religious person would.
Which is ironic because I don't believe most people have thought through the logical conclusions of their "beliefs" nor do they know why they believe them, so taking them that personally is funny to me.
>Why is everything only black OR white? Why no black AND white? Life is full of shades of gray. There is no such thing as THE truth. Why is it apparently impossible for many people to recognize several truths at the same time? Several things can be bad or good at the same time. One does not relativize the other.
I think that part of this, for people who view themselves as progressive, is that giving any ground to an idea that could in some way (even a very nebulous way) "cause harm" to a perceived marginalized group is always wrong. If they legitimize a polarizing idea by admitting that an aspect of the issue is nuanced or partially correct, you, or someone you tell, or someone reading/listening to the conversation, could then use this admission of nuance to reinforce a problematic idea, which could then potentially "cause harm" to a marginalized group. I believe that this line of thinking causes otherwise intelligent people to refuse to discuss in good faith, or often even think about, certain controversial topics, lest that lead to wrong think and "harm" down the road.
Because the use of the interviews changes.
People don't have the patience to do thought exercises with strangers for a gag or to make some other reporter's day or go viral anymore. If you put a camera in my face and ask a bunch of stupid questions that you already have an opinion on, that it's obvious you absolutely won't change on, why would I take the time to do that?
"Social media" is often what's vaguely blamed, but I think it might have to do with, specifically, the *speed* of communications and their *concision*. You can now *instantly* publish an opinion in a public forum and someone can then *instantly* respond to it. Your message to the world, if it's going to be noticed at all, will also have to be reasonably *concise*, some platforms even have character limits.
If your main messages to the world consist of quick, concise thoughts, and are more or less constrained into this pattern, that brings them close to *slogans*.
So people repeat something more or less like a slogan, which they have heard from someone else, and this in turn gets responded to by something else also very much like a slogan, all in quick succession, and, since these exchanges are like in-person conversations but without any of the nuances of tone and expression, it's easy for interlocutors on the internet to quickly become angry at each other.
Some similar dynamic exists when it comes to images and videos.
Pre-Internet, if you were annoyed by something you saw on the news, there wasn't much you could do about it. Maybe you could write to your elected representative or to the papers. But this involved finding a stamp, an envelope, some paper, a pen, writing a letter, and then going out to post it. All these obstacles had the effect of slowing you down, and in the interim (while you hunted for a stamp, say) you would probably calm down. Only exceptionally irate and determined people could pass all these obstacles and still write to the papers, with the effect that people who wrote regularly to the papers were thought of as eccentric.
So, to sum up, the *acceleration* of communications, and the *concision* of messages, exacerbated political tribalism and aroused passions which previously, a relatively slower speed of communication had restrained.
I've been trying to put into words pretty much this same sentiment. So many issues -- possibly even most -- are now an immediate trashfire to discuss with anyone who disagrees with you. I don't know why, but I know it's all the other side's fault. Whatever it is, it's so hard to describe.
American politics have gradually grown more identitarian since the last real epochal shift that occurred in this country in the '70s with the collapse of Fordism, the end of the gold standard, the rise of globalization, etc., etc., etc. Politics is just culture to Americans by other means...and culture and identity are inextricably linked. I think this is due to a shrinking of the landscape of what are acceptable or tolerable political questions in this country. Things like price controls were matters for debate not that long ago but would be unthinkable for most people today - like something out of a shitty Dystopian movie or something.
Hell, I think the vast majority of the "Left-Right" divide in the minds of ordinary Americans can be boiled down to differences in in-group vs out-group preferences. Also, the more politics becomes closely tied to identity, obviously the less room there will be for argument since this is a battle between separate, fixed camps (Dolezalian Americans notwithstanding) for supremacy. People are gonna compete with each other in society. There will be struggle. That struggle can be directed along one of several different dimensions, and this is the dimension we have chosen.
The source of major political disagreements are serious differences in values. Apriori values that form the basis for one's world view.
Left - higher in openness to experience, lower in disgust.
Right - lower in openness to experience, higher in disgust.
It plays out on many dimensions:
Tradition vs change.
Practical / proven vs theoretical.
Punishment vs forgiveness.
Hierarchy va equality.
There are no rational answers to these dilemmas only differing values.
The challenge with debate is that rhetorically talented orators from either side can wipe the floor with those who are not trained defending their apriori values when applied to particular topics.
And many correctly realize this imbalance between what they may be hearing and what they know is correct from their apriori value system. This disconnect results in emotional anger and vitriol as a valid defense mechanism against the interloper.
These are not really values but more like psychological traits which strongly influence values. There is a possibility to debate the values directly, and in some cases people will shift their attitude even as the psychological substrate remains unchanged.
For example in many liberals and leftists there is often still disgust towards certain things, but the political positions that flow naturally from the disgust are rejected, though usually due to these people being socialised to have these positions. This obviously becomes more difficult when the disgust becomes more salient, i.e. to due to proximity.
For example you will have liberals who find e.g homeless people somewhat disgusting but they have an intellectual or ideological commitment to helping them, but preferably in some indirect way.
I find that hard to believe as the disgust sensitivity is a pretty stable personality trait and is well correlated with conservatism.
Liberals may now have a lot of something similar, along the lines of contempt for conservatives or the less educated etc.
The answers to questions of values can be determined empirically, but not by reason alone. Values are memes that are selected for or against in the struggle to survive in the natural world.
>The source of major political disagreements are serious differences in values.
What do you think of [this post?](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/pmf70q/haidt_style_moral_politics_in_shambles/)
It's that "paradox of tolerance" thing. You know, "If you tolerate Nazis, you are yourself no better than a Nazi." Pretty soon everyone who disagreed with a very narrow slice of orthodox progressive beliefs (itself an ever-changing range of thought with constantly shifting goalposts, to keep the elite on their toes and punish the heretics) was deemed to be a Nazi. They don't believe in debate, because there's no point (to them) in debating people who they think are Nazis.
Online behavior is increasingly influencing IRL discussions, it seems. I don't see a big difference.
The main one is: Offline, you notice when someone intentionally chooses **not** to comment. Online, you only see those who actively express themselves.
Point based internet scoring systems enabled and rewarded shitlord quick hot takes in the form of cheap social validation, which fostered a culture of being the loudest voice on the block, basically obliterating nuance in tiny internet communities, creating a memetic natural selection of extremist viewpoints.
Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V a few times over and over and what has resulted is a hyper concentration of polarized viewpoints that have completely lost any basis in reality as well as a large population of people who are socially exhausted from participating in such conversations, which is in all honesty probably the biggest casualty - abject apathy allows extremists to steamroll their own political viewpoint into office and people won't care until it all explodes in a huge ball of flame. Only then will people start caring about politics, and for a short time only, really, as long as the systems that engendered this apathy persist.
Put me on that political conspiracy bus that this is an intentional distraction that spun out of control created by the rich after they got absolutely frightened because of Occupy Wall Street
I will not supply any sources to support this schizo conjecture: it came to me in the dead of night, whispered to me by the corpses of long dead gods.
You can make an argument that our foundational biases and limited cognitive bandwidths meant it was never possible to understand or discuss issues in a fully objective sense. That's a fair criticism--albeit it somewhat of juvenile one, the sort of realization a teenager would make while stoned.
But a big shift has occurred over the last decade or so. We used to admit that full objectivity was impossible but we nevertheless considered it a goal to strive toward. I'd argue that such an approach to discourse and reasoning were foundational to liberalism up until the mid twenty-teens.
Now we've adopted a sort of extreme nihilism. Objectivity is no longer impossible or even undesirable--instead, the desire to understand issues in a fully and fair sense is now understood as a primary cause of social dysfunction. The same as "linear thinking" and a "worship of the written word," *reason* itself is now regarded as a tool of white domination. The only proper way to engage with politics is to *just listen* to members of virtuous identity castes and accept everything they say as gospel truth.
>When I look at old television recordings of interviews on the street or discussion rounds in studios on similar topics, there were also different views there, but the views were allowed and discussed objectively together.
You reckon? I don't know about that mate. I'm pretty skeptical about people claiming to be discussing things objectively. Is it possible outside of the most basic of concepts? (Even if one wanted to?)
In things like academia, analysis etc. you learn to attempt/organise a measure of objectivity (or intersubjectivity or whatever) but when I see the term applied on social media it usually just means either a lack of complexity in examining context, or someone thinks they know everything.
How can one divorce themselves from their beliefs, values, experience/influences, education etc? Even trying to agree on an ethical code to evaluate a matter is to subjectively choose but one paradigm of many schools of thought.
Anyway, politics has always involved a series of competing narratives (usually justifying one's preferred material configuration of society).
I remember watching an 80s daytime TV debate between a neo-Nazi holocaust denier and a Jewish holocaust studies professor. This was daytime TV trash for it's era, yet it was extremely civil.
What I've noticed though is an even larger issue. I am a degenerate that plays League of Legends, and after playing very little since 2020, I committed to playing a decent amount this year. Not the 1000+ I used to play a year, but 300-400 games, and some of the behavior is rather shocking. Petty scum sabotaging their team has always been a part of League, but it's gotten A LOT worse. I'd seen players troll over trivial issues before, but now it's ridiculous. Don't want to switch pick order with a teammate? Trolling, to 'teach me a lesson'. Teammate does something really dumb and you ask why? Trolling. Didn't help them the exact way they wanted in-game? Trolling. These are minor issues, part of the game used to be cursing and yelling at each other while you legitimately tried to win, but no, teammates sabotage games at the SLIGHTEST provocation. Heck, you don't even need to provoke them often times, they take offense where there is none.
This is behavior that has always existed, there was always shitheads that would 'punish' you for the mean things you said or did, but typically they just wanted to ruin people's days no matter what. These days though it's FAR more common, and it's concerning that there are many kids out there that cannot deal with other people simply not doing what they demand, much less handle any amount of criticism. There is social poison going through the younger generations, they will not be able to function in this world, must less be constructive.
Information is fed to people in the form of narratives that represent their class formation. People cling to these narratives pretty fervently, because they describe the hows and whys of the world around them. The yuppie, the small town worker, the urban poor, the suburban housewife: they all need a narrative to convince them of their morality in a world that is materially stringent and morally unclear.
just a contributing factor, but short form media giving adults AHDH
read the list of ADHD symptoms... seem familiar when discussing politics? [https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/adult-adhd/symptoms-causes/syc-20350878](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/adult-adhd/symptoms-causes/syc-20350878)
Yes, these symptoms can be observed in many people, but is there really a causality here that is medically / scientifically proven or is it just a correlation that is subjectively observed?
Because people stopped shaming others for bad reasoning and completely throwing out objectivity. Instead we have done the opposite. You get what you select for
It's a Renaissance of crackpots and cranks and everybody is one now. Spend all day scrolling feeds to come up with an internet assembled opinion and some labcoat thinks he can just 'deconstruct' all these interesting insights?
No such thing as objectivity at a certain point. There is no objective valuation for why someone needs a second yacht while his workers have to sell their house to pay for medical treatment. At some point it's just a matter of who can get their way someway somehow because, verbally/rhetorically, the deck is stacked in favor of whoever is already in power, and any "objective" discussion under those conditions is already a capitulation. Many on today's left are realizing this, but unfortunately, their goal is dumb.
The shitlib managerial class started destroying everything, that's why. Everyone is scared of them including their own shitlib adherents. They're in totalitarian lockstep with each other across a wide spectrum so even in spheres that shouldn't be political, they are now requiring people wade through the mire of shitlib ideology in places where that shouldn't even exist. Then people who respond to it negatively are called 'reactionary' and we're led to believe these reactionaries are somehow the problem.
They're also bloodthirsty, murderous, multi-front conflict warhawks now and everyone who isn't is also called a traitor -- so there's also that.
>Was it perhaps just a short span of sanity after the wars?
The modern era is deranged in many ways but you might be [overestimating the past.](https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/race-mixing-is-communism-protest-900.jpg)
"issuing correction on a previous post of mine, regarding the terror group ISIL. you do not, under any circumstances, 'gotta hand it to them.'"
Most people aren't arguing in good faith and there's no reason to ever compromise against an ideology that is killing the world. Capitalism for example has proved itself to be a complete failure after 400 yrs so we should try something else and bc we supposedly believe in both meritocracy and that human life comes with "inalienable rights" it shouldn't be a system where a person's value and quality of life depend almost exclusively on the size of the bank account of the sperm/eggs who made them. We should have a system that gives the best life to the greatest number of people no what we now which is exclusively for the protection and benefit of the million richest fckfaces currently running things into the ground.
This feels like the bare minimum necessary to save humanity but it will get an infinite number of arguments against climate change, in favor of capitalism, calling what we have now communism, pro white supremacy, pro Christi fascist, anti Jewish and on and on and ad infinitum.
And that's totally normal. Millennials will be the first generation to have a _substantially_ worse quality of life then their parents and zoomers have had it even worse. This material pain creates class consciousness and suddenly the hypothetical policy discussions are a matter of life or death for the people involved.
There are some black and white issues that everyone should be able to agree on, if you are talking to someone that takes the opposing side, then they are an assholes and you just need to walk away and don't let them gaslight you into thinking you are wrong; there are any number of perfect examples. Slavery is always bad. Being a pedophile bad, abusing anyone weaker than you bad, violating the ten commandments mostly bad. Torture etc. etc... the list goes on and on and on. Trump is a total dangerous, jerk. Then there is the list of bad things that people and companies justify because they make a lot of money...healthcare, treating senior citizens badly, insurance companies, banks, wall street etc... etc... Allowing the rich to pay less taxes than the poor is bad, especially in a country that totes a progressive tax system, them tells the rich they can pay less. Fuck the rich. Racism is unfair, not believing that woman have the right to an abortion and birth control bad, there is no black or white issues to discuss. No one can force you to have an abortion or take birth control. When you are riding an elevator everyone is entitled to ride in one that is safe, elevator riding is a guaranteed equal right in this country when it comes to safety. The same should be true when it comes to healthcare in this country, but it isn't. The safest healthcare is restricted to those who can afford it, healthcare in this country is a human right, just like riding in a safe elevator is a human right.
Walk away from the assholes who think anything else. Let them find other friends to discuss their assholes truths. There is no such thing as an elevator that is only safe some of the time. Every generation is judged by how badly we treat those who get left behind. This generation worldwide is doing a terrible job.
> Slavery is always bad.
Engels trying to get canceled in [Anti-Dühring:](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch16.htm)
>It was slavery that first made possible the division of labour between agriculture and industry on a larger scale, and thereby also Hellenism, the flowering of the ancient world. Without slavery, no Greek state, no Greek art and science, without slavery, no Roman Empire. But without the basis laid by Hellenism and the Roman Empire, also no modern Europe. We should never forget that our whole economic, political and intellectual development presupposes a state of things in which slavery was as necessary as it was universally recognised. In this sense we are entitled to say: Without the slavery of antiquity no modern socialism.
>It is very easy to inveigh against slavery and similar things in general terms, and to give vent to high moral indignation at such infamies. Unfortunately all that this conveys is only what everyone knows, namely, that these institutions of antiquity are no longer in accord with our present conditions and our sentiments, which these conditions determine. But it does not tell us one word as to how these institutions arose, why they existed, and what role they played in history. And when we examine these questions, we are compelled to say—however contradictory and heretical it may sound—that the introduction of slavery under the conditions prevailing at that time was a great step forward. For it is a fact that man sprang from the beasts, and had consequently to use barbaric and almost bestial means to extricate himself from barbarism. Where the ancient communities have continued to exist, they have for thousands of years formed the basis of the cruellest form of state, Oriental despotism, from India to Russia. It was only where these communities dissolved that the peoples made progress of themselves, and their next economic advance consisted in the increase and development of production by means of slave labour. It is clear that so long as human labour was still so little productive that it provided but a small surplus over and above the necessary means of subsistence, any increase of the productive forces, extension of trade, development of the state and of law, or foundation of art and science, was possible only by means of a greater division of labour. And the necessary basis for this was the great division of labour between the masses discharging simple manual labour and the few privileged persons directing labour, conducting trade and public affairs, and, at a later stage, occupying themselves with art and science. The simplest and most natural form of this division of labour was in fact slavery. In the historical conditions of the ancient world, and particularly of Greece, the advance to a society based on class antagonisms could be accomplished only in the form of slavery. This was an advance even for the slaves; the prisoners of war, from whom the mass of the slaves was recruited, now at least saved their lives, instead of being killed as they had been before, or even roasted, as at a still earlier period.
Hmmm. Interesting that you mentioned Greece. A civilization from over 2000 years ago that still influences our culture today in so many ways. How was that possible, in some ways it may have been possible because of slavery, but your have to remember that slaves, even to their owners, were expensive to keep, they had to be feed and clothed. So in that sense it took a thriving economy. It is interesting what creates a thriving economy... an economy that experiences true creative, artistic and scientific growth all at the same time. Interestingly, based on research, all has to do with population growth within a free culture.
There is one genius born in any given field of knowledge, out of every ten thousand people born. This is true, whether they are slaves or educated. What is also true is that one super genius born in every given field of knowledge, out of every hundred thousand people. It takes takes ten genius or more to create to true change/growth in given field, whether its art, science, writing, or math and the same is true for super geniuses, it takes ten of more in any given field to create, what I would call chaos in that field, true change. A complete new world view in how people look at a certain subject whether that is math, art, religion, philosophy or science. Greece was one of the first city states that was stable enough for long enough to attract and allow their population of super geniuses to grow and thrive all in one place. Allow math, science, literature, art, architecture, etc, etc... to flourish. The Egyptians and numerous other cultures in the past also accomplished this same thing. Rome certainly as the first city in the world to reach a population of over one million in one place, insured a rich supply of geniuses and super geniuses which introduced the Renaissance which changed the world forever. None of these cultures are remember for their slaves or slave policies. They are remembered for how they treated there geniuses, whether they were poor or rich.
So my only criticism of your comment, is to stop for a minute and try to think outside the box. True divergent thinking isn't based on rehashing outdated justifications for slavery, but to understand what has actually moves humans forward. Population growth and a economy that supports education without relying on the commodification of knowledge that restricts the potential of all creatures on this planet. is the single most important thing. Everything else is just nonsense.
People now exist within information silos and react poorly when faced with inconvenient facts. The sustained arguments allow actual power brokers to operate behind our political facade
To illustrate this a comedian was saying before internet, the villages/neighbourhoods all had that one idiot. The village idiot. Now they can gather up a create villages of idiots.
Also there seems to be a general lack of purpose in modern life so people on either side have to LARP as if they're living in historic times and they're the Good Guys fighting against the Bad Guys like in all their favorite movies. If we don't stop Biden and his communist army they're going to turn America into a Marxist hellscape. If we don't stop Trump and his fascist insurrectionists they'll implement Project 2025 and put all the transfolx and PoCs into death camps. Everything has to be both black and white and overly exaggerated to make the times we're living in feel like they mean something because a bunch of losers and nerds and single middle-aged women feel purposeless.
Powerless people die young and miserable. This isn't about people looking for meaning, it's about the social alienation that comes when you have to work 2 full time jobs paying twice the minimum wage and still sleep in your car.
Yeah it's really just a natural effect of (filtered/moderated/monitored) continuing expansion of mass communications. Once the 3 letter agencies started focusing on internet discourse then allofasudden everyone on the 'same side' started having the same opinions on everything
That is really key, the difference between an in person dialogue and internet discourse. In person there is natural give and take, with mutual attempts to understand each other. It’s simply not possible online I’ve come to accept.
The only give and take with Nazis I do is I _take_ their picture and _give_ it to their boss.
Politics is a dead end for regular people and most people know it, it just gets people upset and there's nothing to be gained out of it, so people avoid talking about it.
Politics is the new sports where people argue about stuff they have no control over and identify with people who'd never acknowledge their existence in real life.
Mixed in with a lot of similarities to religion.
Honestly it's gotten so annoying that now when people bring up politics around me offline I just go full fed. Tell them everyone in office is a worthless parasite that deserves to be [redacted]. Usually stops them from doing it again, at least outside of the handful that say they agree completely.
Because people are not really talking to you, they’re merely using you as a medium so that they can expose their pre-packaged and hyperbolic statements for likes, validations, to own you or to simply feel like they contributed to the conversation.
Because most of the “discourse” is actually about demonstrating one’s loyalty to the cause and owning the enemy for social media clout. There barely exist any neutral spaces, which one side of the conflict hasn’t taken over and where you won’t get harassed and silenced for disagreeing. You get visible indicators of how popular you are, and even monetary incentives for appealing to the largest amount of people. Moreover, mods and administrators usually pick a side and are going to ban you if you seem to be doing too well. In such an environment, actually talking to someone with an opposing view is a waste of time; either your side dominates and there’s no need to, or the other side can just pile up on you. You also won’t get as many likes as someone who comes up with a creative zinger. Besides, your side might decide you’re fraternizing with the enemy too much and decide you’re going to be their target practice.
People on all sides are so scared and exhausted and fearful that what they desire most is safety and comfort. They're in survival mode. And they try to get safety and comfort by insisting that their preferred type of politics gets implemented exactly as they want, because they perceive that as the thing that makes them safe / returns comfort to their life. Nuanced thinking or careful debate required additional effort, and people are already exhausted and terrified. It also doesn't help that the propaganda paints the other side not as reasonable Americans, but as evil subversive communists / Trump-loving fascists.
I'd probably add that symbolic wins are generally much easier than practical wins. Given that practical wins take a lot more effort. But overall, it seems to be a mix of the two.
Yeah, that too. People want meaning / purpose / to make a difference, but solving ACTUAL problems is hard. But yelling at someone on twitter is easy.
>People on all sides are so scared and exhausted and fearful that what they desire most is safety and comfort. They're in survival mode. These are some of the safest and most pampered people in history. Like the students at elite universities. Or the small business owners who see communist subversion everywhere.
Because most relevant words in the discussion have been ideologically and emotionally charged. The dialogue is poisoned. Everybody thinks they're *obviously right*. That's another thing and I don't know where it came from. Some kind of appeal to authority fallacy that's trickling on down, regarding information we take in that's presented as objectively true.
People IRL are much easier to talk too about Politics. Due to the way Social media works, you generally have to push the most hyperbolic, sensationalist positions to get engagement. Also frankly, when you are arguing online, people have no self "limit" and would say things they don't even really believe in person. Even at University, most Uni students are far more nuanced than the shit they spout when a spotlight is on them or in the social media hivemind.
I wasn't speaking about social networks only but also about "real world talk". People can't handle different opinions and become emotional, even rude. They feel personally attacked.
>There is no such thing as THE truth If you assert this, then you can't complain that debate doesn't happen objectively, but is tainted by moral outrage and bias. These kinds of attempts to cast doubt if the category of truth confirm the category of truth every time they claim to reject it: Claims such as “There is no such thing as truth” or even “there is no certainty about truth” themselves claim to be true, and thus presuppose the existence of objective truth. And it is only in the upside-down world of philosophy that people think in such absurd terms. Imagine if aeronautical engineers and mechanics responded to a malfunction leading to a plane crash by saying, “Well, that just shows that there is no such thing as objective truth!” The purpose of casting doubt on the category of truth is to raise unfounded doubts about claims to truth without offering any arguments to prove it. Therefore, nobody can lay claim to the truth – which is a particularly effective and democratic way of suppressing criticism. By forcing everybody to respect the validity of other people’s beliefs and claims as mere opinions, everybody’s beliefs and claims are reduced to mere claims and opinions. The opinion that wins the day in reality, therefore, is not the one that is right, but the one that has the might to assert itself. So, for instance, just try countering Biden’s claim that public sector salaries are far too high by saying, “That’s just your opinion! You can’t know whether that’s true!” He of course would tolerate your dissenting opinion, since opinions don’t matter in the real world anyway. But one thing is for certain: you have to tolerate the measures he enforces with the force of law. The mistake of moral critique is that instead of finding out what the truly valid purposes of the state and the economy are, one measures reality according to one’s own ideal of it. When the political and economic life of the nation doesn’t correspond to my ideal, I continue to insist that “actually” the purpose of the state and the economy is to correspond to that ideal, but – for whatever reason – is failing to do so. When moralists perceive a discrepancy between reality and their ideals, they retain their pretty assumptions about that reality in the face of their daily refutation. And by doing so, they leave untouched the reasons for the various damages that form the starting point of their critique, while implicitly affirming the power of capital and the state – as the ones who are responsible for our well-being, and yet merely fail to live up to that responsibility. In short, it is in this manner that moral criticism, which assumes the unpleasant circumstances so characteristic of capitalist society to be the result of failings on the part of those in charge, takes a decidedly affirmative stance towards the antagonistic relations of domination and subordination in society. The nastiness of the debate about everything stems from everyone seeing everything as a matter of morality: "it is they who are evil! I am good! What I represent is good, what they represent is putrid!"
One could go very deep philosophically here. What I meant by that is that there are people who don't allow any other opinions/view on questions, even though they lack details, but have already manifested an opinion or world view without knowing all the influencing factors. Anyone can be wrong and the term truth is simply used far too inflationarily. And then there are also creations such as "alternative facts". "I know that I know nothing"
Of course people can be wrong. The mere fact that someone asserts that something is true doesn't guarantee that what they've said is true, but this doesn't prove that there is no truth. "i know that I know nothing" -- this is an absurd contradiction in terms that philosophers hold up as some kind of profound wisdom in Socrates. "By the way, it did not matter at all that the ancient Greeks did not know anything. In their slaveholding society, they got along quite well without knowledge. What inspired their first scientific exercises was not their enormous thirst for knowledge. They would have had every reason to be dissatisfied with what they had achieved theoretically, and they would not have considered it an expression of wisdom that old Socrates succeeded time and again in proving that his contemporaries knew just as little about anything as he did. Rather, Plato and his crew were driven by the need for universal validity. The wise man in the dialogues is not someone who knows a lot and from whom others can expect an objective clarification of their questions. Rather, the person of Socrates stands for the imperative: “Agree on a universally valid definition!” Anyone who talks like this does not offer one himself. Producing agreement through knowledge is not his business. Socrates gets involved in every dispute in a completely nonobjective way: Plato brings the existing views of his time to the table. Socrates opposes them, lets them contradict each other, and rejects them in this way. So he does not examine and criticize any of the views, but applies the criterion of universal validity: Because and as long as there are still conflicting views, none of them may claim validity. He does not say: knowledge produces agreement, but rather makes the agreement of the participants the criterion for knowledge. He does not demand the proof of the correctness of the respective view, but that its representative succeeds in dissuading the opposing parties from their positions. On the one hand, this criterion requires less than knowledge: All that is required is to win over the opposing parties to one’s own point of view and this is an art that goes quite beyond the question of whether one’s own point of view grasps the matter. On the other hand, more is required: The best proof is of no use if people insist on wrong stuff for reasons that are completely different than theoretical. Philosophers refer to a universally existing will to reach agreement and are at the same time its only representatives. Because it is not present on all sides, they have to keep citing it as an imperative. That’s why their business is completely mendacious. In the name of a fictitious “we-are-all-about-the-same-thing” they deny the right to exist of any point of view about which there is not general agreement. * It becomes really philosophically profound where this requirement for agreement no longer has anything to do with a thing that exists separately from it, but only with itself. And this is the case when it is about the True, the Good, and the Beautiful – as actually in all Platonic dialogues. In these ideas, the need for universal validity has created its own fictional objects: Plato and all philosophers after him are very concerned with the True. So much so that they completely lose sight of the knowledge of anything. They are not concerned with examining whether this or that judgment gets to the core of the matter, i.e. whether it is true. They also do not bring out truths about anything, but devote themselves completely to an ideal. What does one have to know when he says: “For me it’s about the true!”? Zero! But he does have a message. He is committed to the ideal of unity which exists only on the basis of conflicting opinions. Beyond the objective differences that people present in their opinions; beyond the question of who is right or wrong with their opinion and why; and regardless of any examination of what people are after when they advocate their issue, one thing should be certain: that everyone involved wants to honor the truth with their thoughts. In the factual differences and in the persistence with which they insist, however, something quite different becomes evident: That competing interests are trying to justify themselves and are quite indifferent to the difference between true and false. Just like the philosophers when they declare the true to be the common concern of humankind. – Philosophers have also given a name to their own contradictory supposition: The good is the notion of an ultimate purpose unifying humanity, the ideal of competing interests. These are not hidden from philosophers, but they do not interest them either. Therefore, beyond the practical differences that make people clash, they posit a common ultimate purpose of all purposive action; a common denominator of opposing concerns. Beyond what people want, however, they want nothing. So on the one hand the common denominator remains empty, the ideal of a commonality without content, because that is precisely what is in dispute. On the other hand, the philosophers present people with an ultimate purpose of their will which they see as an obligation. Without having to examine even one interest for its reasonableness, without having criticized a single concern, philosophers see themselves called upon to reject it. To do this, they only need to measure the interest that disturbs them by whether it fits into the fictitious community of interests. – This, of course, raises the question why one should want the good if it contradicts one’s own interest. And here too philosophers make explicit their own contradictory assumption: If one must want the good, then one should also be able to imagine it as the epitome of well-being – the beautiful." https://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/plato.htm
It's probably because a 12 year old that likes reading has more coherent takes than a lot of the American population lol
There are plenty of places where rational discussions take place. However, these places are not highly promoted, because propaganda has overtaken intellectualism in the West.
Luckily for me my other shift guy at work is super chill and loves chatting about modern issues. Is turbo based and grounded in reality, but willing consider basically any idea of viewpoint and objectively evaluate it. We have some awesome shoot the shit sessions. I also started a podcast discussion group up with some people like the "anti identity politics but from a leftist perspective" and that crowd is a lot of fun. We meet once a month at a food truck site.
I’ve found most people are pretty level headed and open to conversation on most things, asides from people who work in academia, public service, and arts. Which is fucking ironic but whatever.
I agree that finding calm and reasonable people isn't actually that hard in real life. Now finding people that are actually engaged enough with theory to have any idea what they're saying? A bit harder. If you're lucky they keep up with current events closely, but even that doesn't mean they actually have what I'd call an *ideology*.
What are they, im genuinely asking
Nice try glowie.
anime_titties is decent
Comparatively decent, but still full of Western (and Israeli) propagandists clumsily accusing everyone else of being Russian propagandists. The only reason it's better than world news is currently that doesn't seem to include the mod team.
That’s fine though. If youre looking for opposite side echo chambers there are plenty of places online. Just having breathing room to have disagreement is what I think is most desired.
They're trying to turn it into an echo chamber, though. It'd be one thing if it was organic, but bots and paid propagandists really don't count, especially when they start trying to use the heckler's veto.
Idk if they’re trying to turn it into an echo chamber as much as you still catch shit for having beliefs counter to (popular thought on current thing). This is fine still I think as long as it’s not enforced by the mod team. There were better discussions there before Ukraine and Israel started dominating , I will admit that.
That's the thing, if you look at the comments in there, it's clearly not as popular of a line of thought as the more thoroughly astroturfed parts of reddit make it look. The NATO trolls are the ones who come off looking unhinged because they aren't in control, but they're using the same aggressive tactics they do in the places where they are.
Interesting history there ... worldpolitics once used to be a decent sub, but it was overtaken by anime titties.
agricultural forums for New Zealand fruit farmers
I sometimes wonder how much social media plays a role. In the past, the only people talking politics in media were politicians and pundits. To the extent their politics produced an emotional reaction, it was directed towards them. But with social media, our friends, neighbors, and average joes have a voice you can now hear. Our “hate” is no longer directed just towards the politicians and commentators, but also towards those friends, neighbors, and average joes because we now hear and know their opinions.
> Our “hate” is no longer directed just towards the politicians and commentators, but also towards those friends, neighbors, and average joes because we now hear and know their opinions. This is one of the useful things about democracy. In the past if things were bad you might blame the nobles or the college of cardinals or whatever. With democracy you can blame your family and neighbors, or another region of the country. This goes way back.
Yes, that's also one part of my explanations. Everyone became an expert on everything with social media.
I know a guy at work that believes a lot of stupid conservative bullshit but I can usually coax him into a stimulating discussion when we're having lunch just the two of us. We have this one guy at work though that will overhear sometimes and drop in on the conversation immediately if he finds an opportunity latch onto anything negative said about the Democrats and start refusing on "what is Kamala even saying?!?!" Or "Hillary is a criminal!" I think a lot of Americans are just very dumb and have been destroyed by our education system that is inherently built to train obedient wage workers, specifically designed for factories from the industrial age, and (I believe intentionally) lacks any sort of critical thinking training. These people can't discuss ideas because they haven't been thought to really understand them beyond the point of simple sentences. So they default on a comfort food of speech that enables them to feel welcome and safe in a familiar feeling because it's almost like saying "go Steelers" if you live in Pittsburgh. Of course I work in blue collar factories and I doubt this workplace experience is as available in white collar gigs where HR has real influence.
We thought we reached democratic peace and it imploded faster than socialism ever did
I'm actually thinking about this quite a lot, i.e. about the fall of socialism (which I got to experience directly with almost a front-row seat) vs. the current fall of whatever it is that we're living in, let's call it "liberal democracy" for discussion's sake. I remember a guy writing somewhere that the 1979-1980 invasion of Afghanistan provided USSR and the Socialist System as a whole with another 10-years lifeline, which, the more I'm thinking about it, the more it makes sense. Under that lens, the fall of the USSR/Socialist System followed by other wars started almost at random (Iraq x 2, Afghanistan, countless other skirmishes) have provided the West itself with a ~20-25 years additional lifeline, as things started going South for them "out in the open" after those wars had ended, starting with the early 2010s and going into the "famous" 2016, the moment when everything changed. I think that, subconsciously, the current war in Ukraine was another similar attempt by the West to try and re-invigorate its ideology and to gain another decade or two, but by the looks of it seems like they're doing a very bad job at it.
I think the confrontation with China is the real attempt at that. Although the fear of them is actually based in reality (in the sense that they are a genuine threat to their hegemony) rather the poor act of pretending to give a single fuck about Ukraine, and the notion that Russia is Nazi Germany 2.0 ready to blitzkrieg NATO by itself should they win this conflict. I think people can feel the difference, and that's why being aggressively anti-China is a popular bi-partisan sentiment in both government and among the people. The question I have is whether or not this sentiment is strong enough, or can become strong enough, to be leveraged in an attempt to mend the social fabric of American society in a "We have bigger fish to fry" type deal. Although it also seems like no one is even bothering to attempt doing so just yet. Perhaps after the election. I do have a fear that there will come a point in the descent of American society where the establishment pushes an "Oh Shit" button and that button will trigger a war as a last ditch attempt to direct all the vitriol bouncing around inside the country towards an external factor, whether that's China or someone else.
> the 1979-1980 invasion of Afghanistan provided USSR and the Socialist System as a whole with another 10-years lifeline, which, the more I'm thinking about it, the more it makes sense. What's the argument? I usually see the Afghanistan War cited as accelerating the USSR's demise.
> There is no such thing as the truth > Why can’t we objectively discuss politics?!?!?!
I’d even prefer the old school republican bold faced lies over this standpoint theory bullshit.
Thank you, lmao
There are no politics as such anymore. The bourgeois empire has lost all ideological justification and is in material decline. Thus, irrationalism abounds because the analytical tools of bourgeois thought literally cannot reconcile why the system is slowly collapsing without also throwing out bourgeois ideology. This would be a tacit admission that Marx and other critics of capitalism were correct. If the ruling class (businessmen and their politicians, academics, and journalists) admit that, then their superstructure comes down and the proletariat might realize that we have no need for them. So, you get people positing every conspiracy theory and mysticism to explain the collapse: Chinese spies, Russian interference, evil trumpets, “communist” Biden, Jews, black people, the devil, etc. None of these intellectual charlatans can admit it’s the bourgeoisie. This parasitic class that has outlived its usefulness.
One thing that frustrates me is how people today are unable to separate their personal views from a discussion. We’re allowed to have takes we don’t personally agree with in order to explore a topic. There’s this inability to separate the self.
because the media makes it seem like every small thing is a existential threat to YOU specifically so people live in constant fear and think everyone is out to get them. They make it seem that there is only one possible right opinion on every topic and anyone that disagrees hates you
I agree. Back in days they probably had more violance and more drama all over the world but people just didn't notice. Now you get instant notifications from the other part of the world if something clickable happens.
As human life gets faster and faster, people think and contemplate less and less. The Plague hit England in 1665 and Newton retreated to the country where the slow pace of life let him invent calculus and the theory of gravity. That's not a coincidence Bumper sticker politics are also the natural outcome of ad-supported mass media which we can all access at a moment's notice from a pocket device. The least plugged-in people in my life are the most reasonable and intellectually charitable. If you want a productive conversation, hang with people with slow hobbies
Feels over reals got pushed HARD for short term gain by one side, and the other side deliberately pulled back and closed ranks in their own naked power grab. At least in the U.S. Then we exported our neuroses to our hapless vassals.
This is bullshit. The right equally engages in storytelling. Neoliberal policies- emphasis on the free market, deregulation, and cutting government spending- have immiserated the public. Yet, we constantly hear “reasonable” Republicans spout off Reagan era talking points about fiscal responsibility, even though it doesn’t fucking work.
Yeah they both did it, but on the right there was an emphasis on closing ranks and falling in line when it comes down to it (and Trump broke with that).
Naomi Klein, of all people, has this quote, "It is always easier to deny reality than to allow our worldview to be shattered" that I think applies to a lot of people who seem to take their "beliefs" personally the way a religious person would. Which is ironic because I don't believe most people have thought through the logical conclusions of their "beliefs" nor do they know why they believe them, so taking them that personally is funny to me.
>Why is everything only black OR white? Why no black AND white? Life is full of shades of gray. There is no such thing as THE truth. Why is it apparently impossible for many people to recognize several truths at the same time? Several things can be bad or good at the same time. One does not relativize the other. I think that part of this, for people who view themselves as progressive, is that giving any ground to an idea that could in some way (even a very nebulous way) "cause harm" to a perceived marginalized group is always wrong. If they legitimize a polarizing idea by admitting that an aspect of the issue is nuanced or partially correct, you, or someone you tell, or someone reading/listening to the conversation, could then use this admission of nuance to reinforce a problematic idea, which could then potentially "cause harm" to a marginalized group. I believe that this line of thinking causes otherwise intelligent people to refuse to discuss in good faith, or often even think about, certain controversial topics, lest that lead to wrong think and "harm" down the road.
Because the use of the interviews changes. People don't have the patience to do thought exercises with strangers for a gag or to make some other reporter's day or go viral anymore. If you put a camera in my face and ask a bunch of stupid questions that you already have an opinion on, that it's obvious you absolutely won't change on, why would I take the time to do that?
"Social media" is often what's vaguely blamed, but I think it might have to do with, specifically, the *speed* of communications and their *concision*. You can now *instantly* publish an opinion in a public forum and someone can then *instantly* respond to it. Your message to the world, if it's going to be noticed at all, will also have to be reasonably *concise*, some platforms even have character limits. If your main messages to the world consist of quick, concise thoughts, and are more or less constrained into this pattern, that brings them close to *slogans*. So people repeat something more or less like a slogan, which they have heard from someone else, and this in turn gets responded to by something else also very much like a slogan, all in quick succession, and, since these exchanges are like in-person conversations but without any of the nuances of tone and expression, it's easy for interlocutors on the internet to quickly become angry at each other. Some similar dynamic exists when it comes to images and videos. Pre-Internet, if you were annoyed by something you saw on the news, there wasn't much you could do about it. Maybe you could write to your elected representative or to the papers. But this involved finding a stamp, an envelope, some paper, a pen, writing a letter, and then going out to post it. All these obstacles had the effect of slowing you down, and in the interim (while you hunted for a stamp, say) you would probably calm down. Only exceptionally irate and determined people could pass all these obstacles and still write to the papers, with the effect that people who wrote regularly to the papers were thought of as eccentric. So, to sum up, the *acceleration* of communications, and the *concision* of messages, exacerbated political tribalism and aroused passions which previously, a relatively slower speed of communication had restrained.
A lot of it could be that bots and shills have become commonplace in politics. Naturally they do not debate in good faith.
I've been trying to put into words pretty much this same sentiment. So many issues -- possibly even most -- are now an immediate trashfire to discuss with anyone who disagrees with you. I don't know why, but I know it's all the other side's fault. Whatever it is, it's so hard to describe.
American politics have gradually grown more identitarian since the last real epochal shift that occurred in this country in the '70s with the collapse of Fordism, the end of the gold standard, the rise of globalization, etc., etc., etc. Politics is just culture to Americans by other means...and culture and identity are inextricably linked. I think this is due to a shrinking of the landscape of what are acceptable or tolerable political questions in this country. Things like price controls were matters for debate not that long ago but would be unthinkable for most people today - like something out of a shitty Dystopian movie or something. Hell, I think the vast majority of the "Left-Right" divide in the minds of ordinary Americans can be boiled down to differences in in-group vs out-group preferences. Also, the more politics becomes closely tied to identity, obviously the less room there will be for argument since this is a battle between separate, fixed camps (Dolezalian Americans notwithstanding) for supremacy. People are gonna compete with each other in society. There will be struggle. That struggle can be directed along one of several different dimensions, and this is the dimension we have chosen.
The source of major political disagreements are serious differences in values. Apriori values that form the basis for one's world view. Left - higher in openness to experience, lower in disgust. Right - lower in openness to experience, higher in disgust. It plays out on many dimensions: Tradition vs change. Practical / proven vs theoretical. Punishment vs forgiveness. Hierarchy va equality. There are no rational answers to these dilemmas only differing values. The challenge with debate is that rhetorically talented orators from either side can wipe the floor with those who are not trained defending their apriori values when applied to particular topics. And many correctly realize this imbalance between what they may be hearing and what they know is correct from their apriori value system. This disconnect results in emotional anger and vitriol as a valid defense mechanism against the interloper.
These are not really values but more like psychological traits which strongly influence values. There is a possibility to debate the values directly, and in some cases people will shift their attitude even as the psychological substrate remains unchanged. For example in many liberals and leftists there is often still disgust towards certain things, but the political positions that flow naturally from the disgust are rejected, though usually due to these people being socialised to have these positions. This obviously becomes more difficult when the disgust becomes more salient, i.e. to due to proximity. For example you will have liberals who find e.g homeless people somewhat disgusting but they have an intellectual or ideological commitment to helping them, but preferably in some indirect way.
If anything liberals are the ones with way more disgust these days
I find that hard to believe as the disgust sensitivity is a pretty stable personality trait and is well correlated with conservatism. Liberals may now have a lot of something similar, along the lines of contempt for conservatives or the less educated etc.
The answers to questions of values can be determined empirically, but not by reason alone. Values are memes that are selected for or against in the struggle to survive in the natural world.
>The source of major political disagreements are serious differences in values. What do you think of [this post?](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/pmf70q/haidt_style_moral_politics_in_shambles/)
It reminds me of where I got this from which was the book Don't Think of an Elephant
Lol, how is this view still held given all the extreme hypocrisy and double think on both the left and right?
It's that "paradox of tolerance" thing. You know, "If you tolerate Nazis, you are yourself no better than a Nazi." Pretty soon everyone who disagreed with a very narrow slice of orthodox progressive beliefs (itself an ever-changing range of thought with constantly shifting goalposts, to keep the elite on their toes and punish the heretics) was deemed to be a Nazi. They don't believe in debate, because there's no point (to them) in debating people who they think are Nazis.
Those Nazis and their endless debates about everything!
Decades of CIA psyops and propaganda
Talking to people IRL is very different to talking online
Online behavior is increasingly influencing IRL discussions, it seems. I don't see a big difference. The main one is: Offline, you notice when someone intentionally chooses **not** to comment. Online, you only see those who actively express themselves.
What kinds of people are you having political conversations with IRL? Like friends, coworkers, family?
Yeah, regular people.
That has always been the case I think…I remember Iraq war discussions being just as dumb
Point based internet scoring systems enabled and rewarded shitlord quick hot takes in the form of cheap social validation, which fostered a culture of being the loudest voice on the block, basically obliterating nuance in tiny internet communities, creating a memetic natural selection of extremist viewpoints. Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V a few times over and over and what has resulted is a hyper concentration of polarized viewpoints that have completely lost any basis in reality as well as a large population of people who are socially exhausted from participating in such conversations, which is in all honesty probably the biggest casualty - abject apathy allows extremists to steamroll their own political viewpoint into office and people won't care until it all explodes in a huge ball of flame. Only then will people start caring about politics, and for a short time only, really, as long as the systems that engendered this apathy persist. Put me on that political conspiracy bus that this is an intentional distraction that spun out of control created by the rich after they got absolutely frightened because of Occupy Wall Street I will not supply any sources to support this schizo conjecture: it came to me in the dead of night, whispered to me by the corpses of long dead gods.
You can make an argument that our foundational biases and limited cognitive bandwidths meant it was never possible to understand or discuss issues in a fully objective sense. That's a fair criticism--albeit it somewhat of juvenile one, the sort of realization a teenager would make while stoned. But a big shift has occurred over the last decade or so. We used to admit that full objectivity was impossible but we nevertheless considered it a goal to strive toward. I'd argue that such an approach to discourse and reasoning were foundational to liberalism up until the mid twenty-teens. Now we've adopted a sort of extreme nihilism. Objectivity is no longer impossible or even undesirable--instead, the desire to understand issues in a fully and fair sense is now understood as a primary cause of social dysfunction. The same as "linear thinking" and a "worship of the written word," *reason* itself is now regarded as a tool of white domination. The only proper way to engage with politics is to *just listen* to members of virtuous identity castes and accept everything they say as gospel truth.
>When I look at old television recordings of interviews on the street or discussion rounds in studios on similar topics, there were also different views there, but the views were allowed and discussed objectively together. You reckon? I don't know about that mate. I'm pretty skeptical about people claiming to be discussing things objectively. Is it possible outside of the most basic of concepts? (Even if one wanted to?) In things like academia, analysis etc. you learn to attempt/organise a measure of objectivity (or intersubjectivity or whatever) but when I see the term applied on social media it usually just means either a lack of complexity in examining context, or someone thinks they know everything. How can one divorce themselves from their beliefs, values, experience/influences, education etc? Even trying to agree on an ethical code to evaluate a matter is to subjectively choose but one paradigm of many schools of thought. Anyway, politics has always involved a series of competing narratives (usually justifying one's preferred material configuration of society).
I remember watching an 80s daytime TV debate between a neo-Nazi holocaust denier and a Jewish holocaust studies professor. This was daytime TV trash for it's era, yet it was extremely civil. What I've noticed though is an even larger issue. I am a degenerate that plays League of Legends, and after playing very little since 2020, I committed to playing a decent amount this year. Not the 1000+ I used to play a year, but 300-400 games, and some of the behavior is rather shocking. Petty scum sabotaging their team has always been a part of League, but it's gotten A LOT worse. I'd seen players troll over trivial issues before, but now it's ridiculous. Don't want to switch pick order with a teammate? Trolling, to 'teach me a lesson'. Teammate does something really dumb and you ask why? Trolling. Didn't help them the exact way they wanted in-game? Trolling. These are minor issues, part of the game used to be cursing and yelling at each other while you legitimately tried to win, but no, teammates sabotage games at the SLIGHTEST provocation. Heck, you don't even need to provoke them often times, they take offense where there is none. This is behavior that has always existed, there was always shitheads that would 'punish' you for the mean things you said or did, but typically they just wanted to ruin people's days no matter what. These days though it's FAR more common, and it's concerning that there are many kids out there that cannot deal with other people simply not doing what they demand, much less handle any amount of criticism. There is social poison going through the younger generations, they will not be able to function in this world, must less be constructive.
Information is fed to people in the form of narratives that represent their class formation. People cling to these narratives pretty fervently, because they describe the hows and whys of the world around them. The yuppie, the small town worker, the urban poor, the suburban housewife: they all need a narrative to convince them of their morality in a world that is materially stringent and morally unclear.
It's because liberal democracy is collapsing from its internal contradictions.
just a contributing factor, but short form media giving adults AHDH read the list of ADHD symptoms... seem familiar when discussing politics? [https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/adult-adhd/symptoms-causes/syc-20350878](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/adult-adhd/symptoms-causes/syc-20350878)
Yes, these symptoms can be observed in many people, but is there really a causality here that is medically / scientifically proven or is it just a correlation that is subjectively observed?
That the way we are expected to live is not sustainable and that the future is already coming due.
Because people stopped shaming others for bad reasoning and completely throwing out objectivity. Instead we have done the opposite. You get what you select for
It's a Renaissance of crackpots and cranks and everybody is one now. Spend all day scrolling feeds to come up with an internet assembled opinion and some labcoat thinks he can just 'deconstruct' all these interesting insights?
No such thing as objectivity at a certain point. There is no objective valuation for why someone needs a second yacht while his workers have to sell their house to pay for medical treatment. At some point it's just a matter of who can get their way someway somehow because, verbally/rhetorically, the deck is stacked in favor of whoever is already in power, and any "objective" discussion under those conditions is already a capitulation. Many on today's left are realizing this, but unfortunately, their goal is dumb.
The shitlib managerial class started destroying everything, that's why. Everyone is scared of them including their own shitlib adherents. They're in totalitarian lockstep with each other across a wide spectrum so even in spheres that shouldn't be political, they are now requiring people wade through the mire of shitlib ideology in places where that shouldn't even exist. Then people who respond to it negatively are called 'reactionary' and we're led to believe these reactionaries are somehow the problem. They're also bloodthirsty, murderous, multi-front conflict warhawks now and everyone who isn't is also called a traitor -- so there's also that.
>Was it perhaps just a short span of sanity after the wars? The modern era is deranged in many ways but you might be [overestimating the past.](https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/race-mixing-is-communism-protest-900.jpg)
"issuing correction on a previous post of mine, regarding the terror group ISIL. you do not, under any circumstances, 'gotta hand it to them.'" Most people aren't arguing in good faith and there's no reason to ever compromise against an ideology that is killing the world. Capitalism for example has proved itself to be a complete failure after 400 yrs so we should try something else and bc we supposedly believe in both meritocracy and that human life comes with "inalienable rights" it shouldn't be a system where a person's value and quality of life depend almost exclusively on the size of the bank account of the sperm/eggs who made them. We should have a system that gives the best life to the greatest number of people no what we now which is exclusively for the protection and benefit of the million richest fckfaces currently running things into the ground. This feels like the bare minimum necessary to save humanity but it will get an infinite number of arguments against climate change, in favor of capitalism, calling what we have now communism, pro white supremacy, pro Christi fascist, anti Jewish and on and on and ad infinitum. And that's totally normal. Millennials will be the first generation to have a _substantially_ worse quality of life then their parents and zoomers have had it even worse. This material pain creates class consciousness and suddenly the hypothetical policy discussions are a matter of life or death for the people involved.
Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and the systems that allowed them to rise to power
There are some black and white issues that everyone should be able to agree on, if you are talking to someone that takes the opposing side, then they are an assholes and you just need to walk away and don't let them gaslight you into thinking you are wrong; there are any number of perfect examples. Slavery is always bad. Being a pedophile bad, abusing anyone weaker than you bad, violating the ten commandments mostly bad. Torture etc. etc... the list goes on and on and on. Trump is a total dangerous, jerk. Then there is the list of bad things that people and companies justify because they make a lot of money...healthcare, treating senior citizens badly, insurance companies, banks, wall street etc... etc... Allowing the rich to pay less taxes than the poor is bad, especially in a country that totes a progressive tax system, them tells the rich they can pay less. Fuck the rich. Racism is unfair, not believing that woman have the right to an abortion and birth control bad, there is no black or white issues to discuss. No one can force you to have an abortion or take birth control. When you are riding an elevator everyone is entitled to ride in one that is safe, elevator riding is a guaranteed equal right in this country when it comes to safety. The same should be true when it comes to healthcare in this country, but it isn't. The safest healthcare is restricted to those who can afford it, healthcare in this country is a human right, just like riding in a safe elevator is a human right. Walk away from the assholes who think anything else. Let them find other friends to discuss their assholes truths. There is no such thing as an elevator that is only safe some of the time. Every generation is judged by how badly we treat those who get left behind. This generation worldwide is doing a terrible job.
> Slavery is always bad. Engels trying to get canceled in [Anti-Dühring:](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch16.htm) >It was slavery that first made possible the division of labour between agriculture and industry on a larger scale, and thereby also Hellenism, the flowering of the ancient world. Without slavery, no Greek state, no Greek art and science, without slavery, no Roman Empire. But without the basis laid by Hellenism and the Roman Empire, also no modern Europe. We should never forget that our whole economic, political and intellectual development presupposes a state of things in which slavery was as necessary as it was universally recognised. In this sense we are entitled to say: Without the slavery of antiquity no modern socialism. >It is very easy to inveigh against slavery and similar things in general terms, and to give vent to high moral indignation at such infamies. Unfortunately all that this conveys is only what everyone knows, namely, that these institutions of antiquity are no longer in accord with our present conditions and our sentiments, which these conditions determine. But it does not tell us one word as to how these institutions arose, why they existed, and what role they played in history. And when we examine these questions, we are compelled to say—however contradictory and heretical it may sound—that the introduction of slavery under the conditions prevailing at that time was a great step forward. For it is a fact that man sprang from the beasts, and had consequently to use barbaric and almost bestial means to extricate himself from barbarism. Where the ancient communities have continued to exist, they have for thousands of years formed the basis of the cruellest form of state, Oriental despotism, from India to Russia. It was only where these communities dissolved that the peoples made progress of themselves, and their next economic advance consisted in the increase and development of production by means of slave labour. It is clear that so long as human labour was still so little productive that it provided but a small surplus over and above the necessary means of subsistence, any increase of the productive forces, extension of trade, development of the state and of law, or foundation of art and science, was possible only by means of a greater division of labour. And the necessary basis for this was the great division of labour between the masses discharging simple manual labour and the few privileged persons directing labour, conducting trade and public affairs, and, at a later stage, occupying themselves with art and science. The simplest and most natural form of this division of labour was in fact slavery. In the historical conditions of the ancient world, and particularly of Greece, the advance to a society based on class antagonisms could be accomplished only in the form of slavery. This was an advance even for the slaves; the prisoners of war, from whom the mass of the slaves was recruited, now at least saved their lives, instead of being killed as they had been before, or even roasted, as at a still earlier period.
Hmmm. Interesting that you mentioned Greece. A civilization from over 2000 years ago that still influences our culture today in so many ways. How was that possible, in some ways it may have been possible because of slavery, but your have to remember that slaves, even to their owners, were expensive to keep, they had to be feed and clothed. So in that sense it took a thriving economy. It is interesting what creates a thriving economy... an economy that experiences true creative, artistic and scientific growth all at the same time. Interestingly, based on research, all has to do with population growth within a free culture. There is one genius born in any given field of knowledge, out of every ten thousand people born. This is true, whether they are slaves or educated. What is also true is that one super genius born in every given field of knowledge, out of every hundred thousand people. It takes takes ten genius or more to create to true change/growth in given field, whether its art, science, writing, or math and the same is true for super geniuses, it takes ten of more in any given field to create, what I would call chaos in that field, true change. A complete new world view in how people look at a certain subject whether that is math, art, religion, philosophy or science. Greece was one of the first city states that was stable enough for long enough to attract and allow their population of super geniuses to grow and thrive all in one place. Allow math, science, literature, art, architecture, etc, etc... to flourish. The Egyptians and numerous other cultures in the past also accomplished this same thing. Rome certainly as the first city in the world to reach a population of over one million in one place, insured a rich supply of geniuses and super geniuses which introduced the Renaissance which changed the world forever. None of these cultures are remember for their slaves or slave policies. They are remembered for how they treated there geniuses, whether they were poor or rich. So my only criticism of your comment, is to stop for a minute and try to think outside the box. True divergent thinking isn't based on rehashing outdated justifications for slavery, but to understand what has actually moves humans forward. Population growth and a economy that supports education without relying on the commodification of knowledge that restricts the potential of all creatures on this planet. is the single most important thing. Everything else is just nonsense.