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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:05 Danglars wrote: And the part you didn't quote shows a guy wanting someone to shut up the chief diplomat. Why is that bad? If he feels the chief diplomat is doing a poor job, why shouldn’t he call for the chief diplomat cease speaking? | ||
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a_flayer
Netherlands2826 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:00 Plansix wrote: Explain why it is a problem? There is still disagreement within the field of study. There views have not been reduced to a binary state. The only agreement cited so far is which side of the media driven political spectrum they identify as. There can be division within that spectrum. This thread shows there can be large divisions within the left. There is no division within the left. Regarding the Google Memo specifically, you think that I agree with something that you and others have literally called an alt-right point of view, and you have not rescinded that in any way shape or form. You don't think it is a leftist point of view, and neither does the overwhelming rest of leftist people involved in American politics which has largely been built around this same exact social divide through identity politics. Do you not recall all the claims of sexism, racism, etc on the left during the campaign? "They just don't like Obama because he was black." As Haidt explains in the video: the views HAVE been reduced to a binary state. You are with us or you are against us. You cannot attack (in the verbal intellectual sense) the sacred identities within our group: the blacks, the Muslims, the women, etc. | ||
Falling
Canada11363 Posts
On August 12 2017 02:59 Uldridge wrote: @Falling: is capital actually getting proportionally into more and more people's hands? I'm not denying standard of living being higher. I'm talking about the absolute percentage of people who hold x% of the total capital versus the rest that hold y% of the capital. Then and now. Is it? What's the cut off? For some reason I think that, not because we've constructed a quite reliable society for ourselves, which I'm happy to be a part of, there's an exuberant amount (like literally a hallucinatory amount) of resources unavailable to the general public. If you get a glimpse of the actual wealth the top whatever % of the population actually has, you just start to despair. So I absolutely would argue that standard of living is higher, likely higher than it has ever been in history. As for absolute percentage of capital, right now. I highly suspect it has gone down since then. But the argument isn't really what is happening currently (well maybe Hicks would disagree- I have no idea, but as far as I can tell, things have been centralizing for awhile). The argument is in the middle of the 21st Century- at the time when these major thinkers were hammering out their new philosophical ideas- at that point capital accumulation was decentralizing and not centralizing, so more millionaires and so on. I think this is likely true, though I'm open to a counter claim. So then at the time of writing, you had capitalism raising the standard of living for all and more and more millionaires. At the same time (and this is me elaborating) you saw significant collapses in Marxist regimes- Gulag Archipelago was published in the 70's, for instance (I just read volume 1, fascinating read) which I think was a real bomb shell that shattered the image of success that the Soviets had kept up through their propaganda. And various other Marxist countries were also starting to look more like hell-holes than paradises. At the very least, it seems like this would be a good period to jump ship if one hadn't already. But it is an argument based on a particular time and not the present. As for despair when looking at the top... the more I read and hear of lives even from fifty years, the more I am content. My life is sooo much more comfortable, even though I am still renting and can't yet afford a 20% downpayment, and wages of stagnated. My life is still good, way better than any of my ancestors. And the 1%, they can have their billions; I don't want their jobs, their work hours, or their lives. (But I am for a progressive tax code, as long as the top bracket stays south of the 50% mark- so basically the Canadian tax code.) | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Citation needed for this bold claim. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium4838 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:09 Plansix wrote: Why is that bad? If he feels the chief diplomat is doing a poor job, why shouldn’t he call for the chief diplomat cease speaking? Because he's the boss, man. You don't question the boss. It makes him and in turn, the entire nation (me) look weak. Stand beside your leader and let him make his decision. Do you want to question authority @Falling: more millionaires (in absolute terms) doesn't equal proportionally more. The population is rising too. If for every new millionaire you have 10000 poor people that collectively have 1/100 of the wealth the millionaire has, it's not been decentralized. But this isn't my strength so I'll just assume that it was more millionaires proportionally to the population so that the wealth was actually more divided and you're correct. I'll just be a fly on the wall for this topic. | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
On August 12 2017 02:56 a_flayer wrote: How can you say that going from 2:1 in 1996 to 17:1 in 2017 is not evidence of a problem? It is the exact expression of the problem of polarization, and it all ties in with views on social justice, identity politics, etc. I give up. I hope your country burns in a civil war. wat | ||
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a_flayer
Netherlands2826 Posts
I did cite it. About 3 or 4 times in this very thread. You refuse to watch it. Mind you, this is in the context of social justice. Social justice is the one thing that largely unites the American left. If you dissent from this, you are almost immediately alt-right (as evidenced by the Google memo and the fact that I agree with it, yet it is still referred to as an alt-right point of view). | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12261 Posts
On August 12 2017 02:29 a_flayer wrote: You might say that people teaching in college moved towards the left because the right is so out of touch with educated people, but I think that's far too simple. Colleges have always been left leaning, but only recently did they spiral out of control towards the sociological left. I think that there are many factors that are in play here that feed into each other. It's to do with social media, bubbles, education, politics, and the interaction between all things and probably many more that I can't name off the top of my head as they exist in society. This includes all the videos of black people being brutalized by police, this includes the likes of Milo. It is a vast network of action-reaction in the culture war. It's 4chan. Memes. Everything you can possibly think of that involves humans and social interaction. Colleges have clearly played a huge part in it over the past 20 years. Part of the reason why people in social sciences moved towards the left is because of - and again, I hate using the word because it gets a backlash - identity politics. Identity politics prescribes social change to accommodate for certain identities. Those identities that are left out of this change will naturally flock to the opposing side. To suggest that professors moved towards the political left because the political left is the only good way to look at the problems is not the right approach. It's certainly true now, because of the polarization, but if there had been a wider array of right-leaning researchers in the social sciences over the past 20 years they could have given their perspective and views, and provided the political right with properly understood, scientifically backed views on society. And also possible right-wing solutions to these issues. And if those existed, educated people who view these issues as important wouldn't be flocking to the left, thereby draining the political right of any intellectual thought on social issues and allowing extremists pseudo intellectuals to lead the charge in that field instead. It will be very difficult to unweave the web that has been spun in the way that it has been. Everyone continues to blame each other, unable to look at the other side with any sort of honesty. Even when people with reasonably backed views show up, they are immediately dismissed by the other side because of the extreme level of polarization. Hopefully we can agree that is exactly what happened here in this very thread with that Google Memo guy. You're not doing a very good job of disproving my approach, you just claim several times that it isn't the right one. I don't know why based on what you have said. Identity politics, as you describe it (I think there is a disconnect between reality and the way you describe it), is essentially what the right has been doing in America for a while, it was called the southern strategy. I find it a little bit fun that when you attempt to get more equality for minorities by presenting their point of view on a political scale, it's this malevolent idea that is part of what causes your universities to crumble onto themselves, but when the majority does it (it shouldn't have to do it cause, you know, identity politics for the majority should be called "politics"), that is rather fine, you still have 1 out of 3 republican in social sciences. Oh well. " It's certainly true now, because of the polarization, but if there had been a wider array of right-leaning researchers in the social sciences over the past 20 years they could have given their perspective and views, and provided the political right with properly understood, scientifically backed views on society." Perhaps they tried. Perhaps they couldn't get it to work. Perhaps the end result that we have today is the logical end of the type of "ideology" that the republicans peddle. Ideology with quotation marks because on the political side, it's very hard not to argue that a non-negligeable portion of what they say is based on what they are bribed to say. Perhaps the republican professors, who aren't paid to believe that it's good to give a bunch of money to rich people so that they keep it and donate some of it back to politicians, aren't paid to believe that climate change isn't real and aren't paid to believe that because people kill people, it's perfectly okay to sell guns to the people who will then kill people with them with as few background checks as possible, felt that it was becoming harder and harder to follow the rhetoric of republican politicians without being dishonest, and so they didn't do it. "Everyone continues to blame each other, unable to look at the other side with any sort of honesty." Another thing that you're saying with no demonstration at all, and in my case you won't be able to demonstrate it. I am perfectly honest in my stance that the republican party of the US is intellectually bankrupt, this is exactly and without a doubt what I believe. | ||
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mozoku
United States708 Posts
On August 12 2017 00:06 KwarK wrote: As for NK, it's covered by the aegis of Chinese MAD. There has been some talk of it being irrational for China to go to war with the United States over an unprovoked American attack on NK. This is absolutely true, it would be highly irrational, after all, the world would get completely fucked up, NK isn't as valuable as the world, therefore it would be irrational. However that's the entire point of MAD. If the Soviet Union had said "we're going to roll into West Berlin, that's all we're going to take, West Berlin only, not West Germany, not France, just West Berlin" and then done it, it would have been completely irrational for the United States to go to war. NATO would nuke the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union would nuke NATO, hundreds of millions would die. It would obviously be far more rational to just let them take West Berlin. And they know that, just as you do. They know that if you are a rational actor then you will never decide that MAD is the optimal course. The foundation of MAD is saying 1) These are my red lines. 2) If you cross my red lines I will flip the fuck out in the most irrational way possible. If you don't let me have this not only will I take my ball and go home, I'll burn the entire stadium to the ground. My response will be so catastrophically disproportionate we'll both have nothing left. I promise you that. Even though it makes no fucking sense that I would act that way, I absolutely will. 3) Given that I am clearly an insane person, please do the rational thing and don't test me. In a rational world filled with rational actors there isn't a situation where the optimal solution is to kill most of the world's population in a nuclear hellfire. Nuclear war is fundamentally irrational, MAD is built on irrationality. That's what the "it wouldn't make sense for China to get involved" people are missing. That whether or not it makes sense isn't always important. That the only reason we survived the Cold War at all is because whenever one side promised to be insanely irrational about something, the other side said "okay, let's be rational and not test them". And even then, we got lucky. We exist in one of the few timelines in which the Cuban Missile Crisis didn't trigger war. China has a mutual defence treaty with North Korea built on the promise of MAD. An attack on North Korea is one of their red lines that they have assured us will cause them to act really irrationally. Now maybe they're bluffing. Maybe deep down they're rational and when forced to choose they'll not follow through. I have absolutely no clue either way. But here's the thing, nor does anyone else on tl. And whether it'd be irrational to follow through simply doesn't matter, and has never mattered. The only way we survive in a nuclear world is that when one side says "this is my red line which will trigger me to act really irrationally", you don't test them on it. And sure, China's interests in the Korean peninsula have changed massively since they first swept the US army back to the beaches in the Korean War. Nobody is debating that. Times have changed. Hell, the Chinese turn towards the United States in the 80s is probably a big part of the reason that NK became so desperate to get their own nuclear deterrent. But they still renewed their mutual defence treaty with NK, as recently as 2001. And whenever asked they still promise to defend NK against an attack. Personally, I think the odds are pretty good that China would love a third option. That if NK randomly shelled SK again they would say "we said we'd defend you if you got attacked for no reason but we're not gonna defend you after you shelled SK". But if Trump unilaterally attacks NK there is no third option. There is honour their MAD obligations or betray their MAD obligations. And I don't like those odds. Apart from the issues I've already raised with this (the fact that the NK issue has been written about ad nauseum without any mention of China's nuclear arsenal, the irrationality of it, etc.), there's other huge problems with your MAD theory. 1) Has China ever even embraced a MAD philosophy? There's a defense treaty, but that doesn't necessarily imply MAD. A defense treaty may be fulfilled through conventional means. It may have embraced it at one point; I'm asking this out of actual ignorance. But it leads to my second point... 2) There's no such thing as a "secret MAD strategy." MAD is a deterrent, and therefore only works when the opposing side is fully aware of it. Apart from the fact that the Chinese nuclear threat doesn't appear to be playing a role out in the Pentagon's calculations (judging from the articles written on US approach to NK), if China truly wanted to avoid war on the Korean peninsula, it would want to make its MAD intentions very public, no? The threat of certain nuclear war from China would have a massively chilling effect on US public opinion of military action in NK, and consequently, would almost certainly change Trump/the Pentagon's calculations through public opinion alone. Not even accounting for the direct effect that Chinese nuclear war would have on Trump/the Pentagon's calculations. 3) Why do you think China cares about its defense obligations to NK so much? It feels like your taking the most well-known example of defense obligations (the US and NATO) and applying it to China. Which makes no sense from a geopolitical perspective, and totally belies historical precedent (where defense treaties are often unfulfilled). Does China even have a defense treaty with any other nation? What exactly do they lose from not fulfilling it? And why is it insufficient to fulfill it with only conventional forces when nuclear alternatives pose realistic existential threats to China? The US, on the other hand, would lose credibility with the entire world if it failed to live up to its defense obligations. The costs of not fulfilling their respective obligations are hugely asymmetric, so applying the US commitment to the China-NK treaty doesn't make any sense. 4) The CCP has shown in the last several decades its number one priority in China is maintaining its ruling power. There's very few things the CCP could do to threaten its rule in the short-term. I'm willing to go as far as to say that starting unnecessary nuclear wars might top that list though. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:09 Plansix wrote: Why is that bad? If he feels the chief diplomat is doing a poor job, why shouldn’t he call for the chief diplomat cease speaking? Because the part not quoted was not cease speaking or listen to wise council. Quote and respond, please. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:14 a_flayer wrote: I did cite it. About 3 or 4 times in this very thread. You refuse to watch it. As I said before, provide a transcript and I’ll go through it. I simply do not have 90 minutes to focus on that. And honestly, I never really pinned you as the guy to ask people to watch an hour and half video before we could debate a subject. That really was the purview of lesser, bad faith posters. | ||
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Falling
Canada11363 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:13 Uldridge wrote: @Falling: more millionaires (in absolute terms) doesn't equal proportionally more. The population is rising too. If for every new millionaire you have 10000 poor people that collectively have 1/100 of the wealth the millionaire has, it's not been decentralized. But this isn't my strength so I'll just assume that it was more millionaires proportionally to the population so that the wealth was actually more divided and you're correct. I'll just be a fly on the wall for this topic. Well, I assumed it was proportional. Really, I'm just asserting what he said, so if he's wrong, I could be out to lunch, but there it is. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:11 a_flayer wrote: There is no division within the left. Regarding the Google Memo specifically, you think that I agree with something that you and others have literally called an alt-right point of view, and you have not rescinded that in any way shape or form. You don't think it is a leftist point of view, and neither does the overwhelming rest of leftist people involved in American politics which has largely been built around this same exact social divide through identity politics. Do you not recall all the claims of sexism, racism, etc on the left during the campaign? "They just don't like Obama because he was black." As Haidt explains in the video: the views HAVE been reduced to a binary state. You are with us or you are against us. You cannot attack (in the verbal intellectual sense) the sacred identities within our group: the blacks, the Muslims, the women, etc. I wish we could move on from the rejection phase of denying reality (Trump is worthy of emulation by those on the left nowadays) and on to what can be fucking done to go from the tribalism binary to taking hard looks at all aspects of politics and society. | ||
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mozoku
United States708 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:21 Plansix wrote: As I said before, provide a transcript and I’ll go through it. I simply do not have 90 minutes to focus on that. And honestly, I never really pinned you as the guy to ask people to watch an hour and half video before we could debate a subject. That really was the purview of lesser, bad faith posters. Are you denying that the Left isn't divided on the Google Memo, or in general? Because those are totally separate assertions, and a_flayer is clearly talking about the former. Even you were calling anyone who disagrees with the firing as taking a position of the "alt-right" ffs lol. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:25 mozoku wrote: Are you denying that the Left isn't divided on the Google Memo, or in general? Because those are totally separate assertions, and a_flayer is clearly talking about the former. Even you were calling anyone who disagrees with the firing as taking a position of the "alt-right" ffs lol. There are a variety of opinions on the Google memo even among my friends(all left to super left. I have no discussed it with my brother or any right leaning folks). The only universal opinion is that google firing made sense and his chosen venue to address the topic was ill advised. The other prominent viewpoint is that his call to halt the current diversity push within google hurt his views because it gave the impression that he wanted to uphold the status quo. A better argument would have been to do a full assessment of google’s current efforts and provide suggestions on how to improve them based on his thesis. Also he used to many buzzwords that are linked to alt-right narratives, which further hurt his arguments. | ||
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Falling
Canada11363 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:02 farvacola wrote: Why would someone who hates being labeled "post-modern," likely due at least in part to its use in target practice, attempt to define it? Well, one could be cagey or vague for any number of reasons. But if resisting self definition is consistent with a wider belief of plurality and subjectivity, then a resistance to defintions is perhaps not just a defence mechanism against mischaracterization but a feature of the ideology. But even if the belief holder refuses to provide a definition, it is still possible for someone else to see patterns and make connections to discover what is held in common. By the way, thank you for that great summary of your readings. It was really interesting. | ||
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Kickboxer
Slovenia1308 Posts
Anyone who identifies as a social conservative -> must be closet "alt right" -> must be closet nazi -> is literally a nazi | ||
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TheLordofAwesome
Korea (South)2655 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:17 mozoku wrote: Apart from the issues I've already raised with this (the fact that the NK issue has been written about ad nauseum without any mention of China's nuclear arsenal, the irrationality of it, etc.), there's other huge problems with your MAD theory. 1) Has China ever even embraced a MAD philosophy? There's a defense treaty, but that doesn't necessarily imply MAD. A defense treaty may be fulfilled through conventional means. It may have embraced it at one point; I'm asking this out of actual ignorance. But it leads to my second point... 2) There's no such thing as a "secret MAD strategy." MAD is a deterrent, and therefore only works when the opposing side is fully aware of it. Apart from the fact that the Chinese nuclear threat doesn't appear to be playing a role out in the Pentagon's calculations (judging from the articles written on US approach to NK), if China truly wanted to avoid war on the Korean peninsula, it would want to make its MAD intentions very public, no? The threat of certain nuclear war from China would have a massively chilling effect on US public opinion of military action in NK, and consequently, would almost certainly change Trump/the Pentagon's calculations through public opinion alone. Not even accounting for the direct effect that Chinese nuclear war would have on Trump/the Pentagon's calculations. 3) Why do you think China cares about its defense obligations to NK so much? It feels like your taking the most well-known example of defense obligations (the US and NATO) and applying it to China. Which makes no sense from a geopolitical perspective, and totally belies historical precedent (where defense treaties are often unfulfilled). Does China even have a defense treaty with any other nation? What exactly do they lose from not fulfilling it? And why is it insufficient to fulfill it with only conventional forces when nuclear alternatives pose realistic existential threats to China? The US, on the other hand, would lose credibility with the entire world if it failed to live up to its defense obligations. The costs of not fulfilling their respective obligations are hugely asymmetric, so applying the US commitment to the China-NK treaty doesn't make any sense. 4) The CCP has shown in the last several decades its number one priority in China is maintaining its ruling power. There's very few things the CCP could do to threaten its rule in the short-term. I'm willing to go as far as to say that starting unnecessary nuclear wars might top that list though. A leading government newspaper in China just stated that China will remain neutral if DPRK strikes at the US, Japan, or South Korea and is met with a proportionate response. It also stated that China will go to war backing the DPRK in the event of an unprovoked first strike by the US. So I think China has made its position very clear here, and this public statement should actually help prevent war in Korea, because it basically says that whoever uses weapons first will get screwed by China. I would be very careful about assuming that China is not serious about its commitment to defending North Korea against unprovoked attacks. If you think that first-rate powers don't make dumb decisions about going to war over their troublesome client states, look at Russia, Serbia, and Austria-Hungary in 1914 compared to China, North Korea, and the US today. It's safe to say that neither the Tsar nor the Austrian emperor liked the results of that war. | ||
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Kickboxer
Slovenia1308 Posts
Or is material reality being sexist and should be informed on the subject? Does that make reality sentient, is that proof of a God? Nothing, and I literally mean nothing, should take precedent over established factual truth. especially not something as volatile and insanely subjective as people's personal feelings. Once you let bullshit entrench itself we get fake news and Trump. Or at least that's how I see it. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On August 12 2017 03:43 Kickboxer wrote: ... also, when the findings of proper scientific inquiry uncover results that seem to be sexist or racist, the problem is not the findings, the problem is obviously the definition of "sexism" or "racism" respectively, that much should be pretty clear I guess? Or is material reality being sexist and should be informed on the subject? Does that make reality sentient, is that proof of a God? Nothing, and I literally mean nothing, should take precedent over established factual truth. especially not something as volatile and insanely subjective as people's personal feelings. Once you let bullshit entrench itself we get fake news and Trump. Or at least that's how I see it. Although the concept and definition of racism and sexism are broad in scope, there is a legal frame work in place to prove if discrimination took place, if that is what you are asking. I doubt that framework would be sufficient to prove the existence of God, though. | ||
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