EPTI just can't fathom what an independent that goes back and forth looks like anymore.
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Sermokala
United States13738 Posts
I just can't fathom what an independent that goes back and forth looks like anymore. | ||
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StasisField
United States1086 Posts
On November 08 2022 13:04 Sermokala wrote: Us politics these days is just boring really. You don't have the ability to have arguments or debates about anything anymore. You either like fascism or you don't. You want things to get better or you don't. You're either okay with violence or you're not. You either embrace conspiracy propaganda or you do the bare minimum to figure out why things happen. You either think human beings have value or you just don't care about anyone but yourself. I just can't fathom what an independent that goes back and forth looks like anymore. In my experience, independents are mostly people who never cared to look deeper into politics because it looks like a shitshow and they blindly regurgitate the "both sides bad, both sides the same" rhetoric. They're centrists who dismiss both sides as equally crazy even though they've never really looked into either side's positions in the first place. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On November 08 2022 13:57 StasisField wrote: In my experience, independents are mostly people who never cared to look deeper into politics because it looks like a shitshow and they blindly regurgitate the "both sides bad, both sides the same" rhetoric. They're centrists who dismiss both sides as equally crazy even though they've never really looked into either side's positions in the first place. This is pretty accurate in my experience. Or people who are just trying to fenceshit and not irritate either group because of how hyper passionate some people get about politics in unpredictable ways. On November 08 2022 13:04 Sermokala wrote: Us politics these days is just boring really. You don't have the ability to have arguments or debates about anything anymore. You either like fascism or you don't. You want things to get better or you don't. You're either okay with violence or you're not. You either embrace conspiracy propaganda or you do the bare minimum to figure out why things happen. You either think human beings have value or you just don't care about anyone but yourself. I just can't fathom what an independent that goes back and forth looks like anymore. You don't have the ability for that because of the polarization. If you're making left leaning arguments, there is a seriously dearth of high intelligence conservative thinkers to discuss with. Most conservatives are working class people just following evolutionary programming that they don't really have the ability to articulate. So, there isn't much to say. On the other hand, if you want to make conservative arguments, you're going to get the cancellation mob coming after you waging war. And really, almost all arguments go back to natural law/setup of the world. Politics in a world where genetic influences comprise the majority of personality, proclivity, and intelligence has a completely different solution set than the alternate one where nurture is the dominant force. Everything hinges there, on that. You've got a huge swath of research saying one thing, and another huge swath saying another. And then you've got tons of idiots that just want to deny the question entirely because there is this very regrettable human tendency to "round off". E.g. many humans will take something like "Group A's distribution is centered 0,5SD left of Group B's distribution" and take it to mean... Group A is inferior to Group B ?? And then, as if that's not bad enough, a large subset of that will take the above statement and further say "Oh. An individual is from Group A, that means they are inferior to an individual for Group B" Which is seriously messed up, but sorta just what.....alot of humans do? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22694 Posts
On November 08 2022 12:19 L_Master wrote: I realize you probably don't mean revolutionary that way, but is there any way you get there without....revolution? If we go the civil war/collapse route, then I think all kinds of new government are 100% on the table from across the spectrum. But I think most people would prefer to avoid that if possible. I pretty much do and no there isn't from my perspective (however much I may hope and wish otherwise). Even unrealistically optimistic social reformists don't believe US politics has the self-awareness necessary to concede power to additional parties to stave off catastrophe. Before we dream of electoral reforms or federations the US has to get through Republicans taking power and according to Democrats destroying the mechanisms by which Democrats could ever hope to remove/replace them within the bounds of US electoral politics. Basically if Republicans win 2022 as they are favored to in political spheres, and Biden loses 2024 as he is currently 3rd in the betting markets, forget reconciling the two sides, Democrats will be defunct as an organization. At least as far as electoral politics in a Republican rigged so-called "US democracy". I think there's still a chance a peaceful socialist revolution isn't met with such violence from the entrenched capitalist class that it necessitates something on the scale of civil war and instead is relatively peaceful as far as revolutions go (something like the George Floyd uprisings x100). I think the odds and evidence points to the aforementioned entrenched capitalist class buying mercs and going all out to crush a peaceful revolutionary socialist movement at practically any cost though. So I generally suggest any would-be socialist, revolutionary or otherwise, to prepare for the latter while working toward the former. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On November 08 2022 14:22 GreenHorizons wrote: I pretty much do and no there isn't from my perspective (however much I may hope and wish otherwise). Even unrealistically optimistic social reformists don't believe US politics has the self-awareness necessary to concede power to additional parties to stave off catastrophe. Before we dream of electoral reforms or federations the US has to get through Republicans taking power and according to Democrats destroying the mechanisms by which Democrats could ever hope to remove/replace them within the bounds of US electoral politics. Basically if Republicans win 2022 as they are favored to in political spheres, and Biden loses 2024 as he is currently 3rd in the betting markets, forget reconciling the two sides, Democrats will be defunct as an organization. At least as far as electoral politics in a Republican rigged so-called "US democracy". I think there's still a chance a peaceful socialist revolution isn't met with such violence from the entrenched capitalist class that it necessitates something on the scale of civil war and instead is relatively peaceful as far as revolutions go (something like the George Floyd uprisings x100). I think the odds and evidence points to the aforementioned entrenched capitalist class buying mercs and going all out to crush a peaceful revolutionary socialist movement at practically any cost though. So I generally suggest any would-be socialist, revolutionary or otherwise, to prepare for the latter while working toward the former. It's a much longer discussion, but I do think the Capitalist-Socialist dichotomy is largely a false one. When people complain about capitalism, they aren't usually complaining about the actual conceptual dynamics of markets. They are complaining about exploitation. There is another word of that....parasitism. What causes parasitism? Natural, innate human drives for hierarchical standing: power, wealth, status (largely mating access driven, but that's a different conversation), but in a naïve, impulsive manner. It all goes back to the foundational pieces. Imagine being an individual, alone in the world with nothing of civilization at all. Caveman days or whatever. Each and every moment, nature is asking a question of you and it is one you MUST answer: “Why shouldn’t I kill you and take all of your resources?” Every moment of every day nature asks that question. Famines, droughts, predation, other human tribes, weather events, dangerous objects, natural disasters, etc. With no civilization you have zero buffer between yourself and nature’s question. In response to that, what does mankind do? We form units of civilization, of which the purpose is to provide a buffer between mankind and nature’s eternal question. And we do that through, really, only one way: cooperation. In theory, you could probably argue it’s possible to do it via coercion but that has a problem. So, cooperation -> civilization -> buffer from nature’s question That’s society. That’s us. The other important, almost essential thing that must be kept in mind, going back to overfitting is that some specific niche fitness is not the best. There is one, and really only one, question we want to optimize if we look at civilization across time: the velocity of adaptation. The quicker we can adapt, the quicker society adjusts in response to dangerous changes, and maintains our strength and prosperity against anything nature throws at us. Cooperation maximizes that velocity of adaptation by incorporating all humans working together in the most harmonious, most parsimonious, least costly, most efficient way possible. Which in turn means that: maximize cooperation -> maximize the rate of adaptation of civilization -> maximize the buffer we have between us and nature’s question. Everything a civilization does ultimately must be tuned to that, or, it will be devoured by nature in some fashion (literal collapse, out evolved by a faster adapting culture, memetically devoured and institutions of cultural production destroyed) And you maximize cooperation via Reciprocity: Fully Informed, Warrantied, Voluntary, Productive, Free of Imposition of Costs on others. So when people talk about problems with "capitalism", they rarely object to the conceptual ideas of markets. They object to what happens when you have an unequal distribution of humans (e.g varying degrees of competence and luck) participating in markets in a non-reciprocal manner, aka parasitism, aka a violation of Reciprocity in some manner. | ||
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plasmidghost
Belgium16168 Posts
My initial guesses are: Senate: GOP flips NV, GA, AZ House: GOP wins 240 seats Governorship: GOP flips WI, NV, OR, KS Texas: Abbott wins by at least seven points | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
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DropBear
Australia4293 Posts
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Gahlo
United States35091 Posts
On November 08 2022 22:55 DropBear wrote: Please tell me Trump isn't running again That's a question for the 2024 election. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21352 Posts
On November 08 2022 22:55 DropBear wrote: That is 2 years from now, and I fully expect he will. The protection from being the President is the only defence he has against a whole host of lawsuits and investigations, both civil and criminal, closing in on him.Please tell me Trump isn't running again | ||
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DropBear
Australia4293 Posts
On November 08 2022 23:06 Gorsameth wrote: That is 2 years from now, and I fully expect he will. The protection from being the President is the only defence he has against a whole host of lawsuits and investigations, both civil and criminal, closing in on him. Actual Caesar moment, without the successes. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
On November 08 2022 23:06 Gorsameth wrote: That is 2 years from now, and I fully expect he will. The protection from being the President is the only defence he has against a whole host of lawsuits and investigations, both civil and criminal, closing in on him. Our best hope by then could be that DeSantis crowds the space and runs as well, splitting the fascist vote. Maybe their supporters start going after each other as they try to assert the one true way to be an American. Probably not, though. They'll fall in line, like a good patriot always does. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On November 08 2022 23:38 NewSunshine wrote: Our best hope by then could be that DeSantis crowds the space and runs as well, splitting the fascist vote. Maybe their supporters start going after each other as they try to assert the one true way to be an American. Probably not, though. They'll fall in line, like a good patriot always does. All indicators are that he will run again. Given the state of the economy and general directionality of events, it's very likely he (or whoever wins R nomination) wins the race too. Which is one of the reasons I'm surprised those of you (most?) are rooting for a liberal victory. A major red wave win followed up with the high probability of the entire global and economic situation being much worse in 2024 would be very, very easy to pin on the conservatives. A more marginal situation isn't, they can play the obstruction card. More broadly though, to have any chance, the Democrats have to turn on their progressive/woke wing that is absolutely going to kill them. Our best hope by then could be that DeSantis crowds the space and runs as well, splitting the fascist vote. Maybe their supporters start going after each other as they try to assert the one true way to be an American. There are so few fascists though. Mayyybe like 10-15% of conservative voters. The rest of the conservatives are quite opposed to such things. I'm seeing a consistent theme in this thread about how a chunk of posters seem to be framing things, and I'd be willing to bit that very few of you are living in close proximity to conservatives, and or have more than 4 or 5 in your common circles. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
On November 08 2022 23:54 L_Master wrote: All indicators are that he will run again. Given the state of the economy and general directionality of events, it's very likely he (or whoever wins R nomination) wins the race too. Which is one of the reasons I'm surprised those of you (most?) are rooting for a liberal victory. A major red wave win followed up with the high probability of the entire global and economic situation being much worse in 2024 would be very, very easy to pin on the conservatives. A more marginal situation isn't, they can play the obstruction card. More broadly though, to have any chance, the Democrats have to turn on their progressive/woke wing that is absolutely going to kill them. A lot of folks don't have the privilege to cast a strategic vote for Republicans and make things worse in order to win in the long run. As it stands, if Republicans gain any more leverage over election systems and are able to suppress more votes and deny more elections, it won't matter how bad things are because of them. The game will be fully rigged if they're given the chance. They're at the point where they're admitting as much. Every result they like is legitimate, every result they don't like is voter fraud. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
And as has been noted, "disgust sensitivity leading to conservatism" kind of rules out that the current crop of Republicans are anything resembling a conservative party. They are actively making a dive for all the power right now, abandoning all other principles and trying to actively dismantle democracy itself so that their decreasing popularity among Americans won't matter. Like...first of all: 1) Nobody *likes*conservatives. They are like the big, intense father who comes in when everybody thinks shit is fucked up. This is one way conservatives tend to mess things up. They are almost always elected to fix ONE issue, but then take that as a mandate to start implementing a full conservative agenda and everybody gets pissed and votes them out. Strategically, their leaders are really, really not savvy whatsoever. 2) Their popularity is absolutely NOT decreasing right now. The only place it's decreasing is with college educated women. In almost every other block, it's increasing. Honestly, I'm surprised you guys aren't more alarmed at the very noticeable shift in "the force" (overton window) over the last 6 months. I live in a fairly moderate area, but make a point to cultivate relationships all over the spectrum (in person + online) from various regions and areas. Ideas that were absolutely unthinkable to talk about six months ago are becoming conversations I'm hearing openly, in public. And no, I don't mean revolution. I mean things like the degree to which genetics plays a role, the degree to which woke/identity stuff is actively harmful or outright discrimination, whole bunch of stuff around COVID, etc. It's stuff that I would consider ominous if I was Democratically inclined. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
Almost all swaths of reality I can detect personally, are telling me, in fairly strong terms that conservatives are on the upswing and there is a tremendous amount of anti-woke, anti-progressive left sentiment from very normal people. When I'm seeing previous moderate liberals that I know to be reasonable people starting to have these conversations, that's something I consider a moderately strong signal. You guys seem to....not be hearing that. In fact, you seem to be hearing the opposite. And there isn't reliable information to "settle" that, because each side so deeply distrusts the information coming from the other sides. Moderate conservatives don't seem to want to think elections are rigged, but there are whispers of concern. The more populist, but not dissident right, conservatives are definitely on the side of "elections are probably rigged". Short summary is I have a tremendous amount of aggregate data that suggests the opposite of what many of you guys seem to think, and strongly suspect you guys feel like you have lots of data or information. Both things can't be true. There are two very different realities out there floating around, and whoever is in the wrong one is in for a TON of disillusionment and pain when things come to a head over the next decade (probably sooner but predicting complex events accurate is obviously a shitshow) Every result they like is legitimate, every result they don't like is voter fraud. Well, if the reality I observe is a decent approximation of a representative sample (and I'd bet on that), then either: 1) Liberals are REALLY good at getting people to turn out to vote and are obliterating conservatives in that way 2) Conservatives are correct in their conspiratorial thinking (which, again, is still a minority of right wing voters) There really isn't much leeway for anything else. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
On November 09 2022 00:13 L_Master wrote: And no, I don't mean revolution. I mean things like the degree to which genetics plays a role, the degree to which woke/identity stuff is actively harmful or outright discrimination, whole bunch of stuff around COVID, etc. It's stuff that I would consider ominous if I was Democratically inclined. Okay, well I've heard what I need to know about your inclinations, if you actually have any. It's much easier to engage in both-sides sophistry when you start from a position of privilege. As you note, the track-record of Republicans is well established. They beat the drum of inflation and crime, with no intention of addressing either, to then use their power to attack marginalized communities even further. It's not a "both sides are equally hapless" issue where you can play hot potato posturing for 2024. This election will absolutely have consequences, and Republicans will look to accelerate the backslide wherever they can. Roe was just the start. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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KwarK
United States41976 Posts
Each time they get in they further subvert the institutions. They refused to let Obama replace Scalia but packed the court with their own people under Trump. The constitutionalists within their own party are being purged in favour of fascists. The Republicans haven’t won a popular vote in years, they know that and they don’t care, they don’t plan to get into power using votes. | ||
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plasmidghost
Belgium16168 Posts
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