|
On May 28 2019 08:04 JimmiC wrote:
I have yet to see anyone give too much detail. It is more often a case of like you said not explaining enough or using terms liek for example "revolution" or "abolish" and not explicitly stating what is meant by it. Using different meanings of terms and not stating that.*
|
GH's posting is fine. You don't have to agree with him. You don't even have to respond to him. But he's writing informative posts in a clear manner and is happy to discuss his ideas.
And yes, I've had my problems with his posts in the past, but I'd rather discuss police violence with GH than Trump's tweets with P6 and Danglars. And I really don't want to discuss police violence in the US with anybody 
|
|
|
On May 28 2019 08:11 Acrofales wrote:GH's posting is fine. You don't have to agree with him. You don't even have to respond to him. But he's writing informative posts in a clear manner and is happy to discuss his ideas. And yes, I've had my problems with his posts in the past, but I'd rather discuss police violence with GH than Trump's tweets with P6 and Danglars. And I really don't want to discuss police violence in the US with anybody
Thank you, I appreciate that and seeing things like "I want realism" "using different meaning" helps me see that explaining where those words and meanings come from (not me) was the right direction.
|
On May 28 2019 07:19 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.
Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting. I want concrete, realistic!, propositions fleshed out, not always your ultimate dream. What could be done now, whiteout revolution, whiteout a general rethinking... I want realism.
The built-in assumption here is that it's realistic to create a "very leftwing" framework for society without a drastic change in how it functions today under capitalism. There is no reason to assume this is a realistic assumption. There is every reason to assume otherwise.
|
|
|
On May 29 2019 03:15 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2019 02:23 Nebuchad wrote:On May 28 2019 07:19 Velr wrote:On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.
Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting. I want concrete, realistic!, propositions fleshed out, not always your ultimate dream. What could be done now, whiteout revolution, whiteout a general rethinking... I want realism. The built-in assumption here is that it's realistic to create a "very leftwing" framework for society without a drastic change in how it functions today under capitalism. There is no reason to assume this is a realistic assumption. There is every reason to assume otherwise. You have been open that you don't know exactly what that framework is and want to talk to people about how it would function. I think that is a completely reasonable position. What isn't reasonable is to call for a massive (and likely very bloody) revolution without a plan in place, or even the framework of the plan. People are rightly very skeptical of revolutionaries that will sort it out after they are in power because the power or the revolution (or they were lying from the start) perverts and corrupts them from the ideal that they started with in mind. To me the best functioning current systems are Socialist democracies, because of this I would like to push them further and see if they can continue to be successful and at what point if any they stop being that way. Can you point to a system out there that is further left of that, that you would model yours after. If so then we can talk about some of the issues that they have and what can possibly done to stop or minimize them. Right now the discussion always seems to go to "socialism" is the answer and the philosophies around it. Practically though we have not seen it work out that way. It is fine to talk about capitalism's flaws, most posters here are aware of them and would like change. But it does not appear realistic without discussing the practical flaws that socialism has experienced when applied in the world.
The short story is I don't quite believe you. I don't think you want something more leftwing and are skeptical because of corruption, I think you just want social democracy without having to argue for it directly, so instead you just describe anything to the left of that as "vague" and "impossible" and that allows you not to think about it too much. Last time I asked you how you were going to save the world ( :p ), your answer was just about as vague as it could possibly get. It didn't bother you then.
If your concern is that we will be corrupted by power then one first move that we could realistically agree on would be to work for an increase in the level of democracy. Generally have more stuff that is decided by people rather than elected (and unelected) representants. Won't bring me more power so it can't really corrupt me. Helps our cause in that it increases the power of people, and most people are workers.
|
On May 28 2019 08:11 Acrofales wrote:GH's posting is fine. You don't have to agree with him. You don't even have to respond to him. But he's writing informative posts in a clear manner and is happy to discuss his ideas. And yes, I've had my problems with his posts in the past, but I'd rather discuss police violence with GH than Trump's tweets with P6 and Danglars. And I really don't want to discuss police violence in the US with anybody
No it plain isn't. He is acting like a priest shouting out the one true message, whiteout even the spark of an idea when it comes to the most important questions.
|
On May 29 2019 04:11 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2019 08:11 Acrofales wrote:GH's posting is fine. You don't have to agree with him. You don't even have to respond to him. But he's writing informative posts in a clear manner and is happy to discuss his ideas. And yes, I've had my problems with his posts in the past, but I'd rather discuss police violence with GH than Trump's tweets with P6 and Danglars. And I really don't want to discuss police violence in the US with anybody No it plain isn't. He is acting like a priest shouting out the one true message, whiteout even the spark of an idea when it comes to the most important questions.
i could understand this if it was still 2017, but if that’s how you feel reading the last page or so that’s on you, reading something into his posts that just isn’t there. he definitely does not present these opinions as the one true message, and certainly hasn’t done so from a place of unassailable moral high ground (which is the only way i can really interpret your complaint vis a vis a priest.)
and that he has no idea where to start seems inaccurate in my personal opinion. i would be interested in seeing you support that.
|
On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.
Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting.
I don't think anybody has ever complained that you are explaining yourself too clearly.
|
On May 29 2019 06:17 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.
Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting. I don't think anybody has ever complained that you are explaining yourself too clearly.
On May 29 2019 06:17 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.
Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting. I don't think anybody has ever complained that you are explaining yourself too clearly.
Velr did:
GH: I would actually love to discuss leftist ideas because I consider myself very leftist, but if the starting point is «revolution», «abolish the police» or «we need full on socialism/communism» I immediatly lose all interest. Coupled with his „with me or against me“ attitude i don’t see any benefit coming from engaging with him. I don’t see bad intent, it’s just a fundamental disagreement on how one should have a discussion especially with people that disagree.
These topics have their place for sure, but thats in a thread about political philosophy and not in one that is supposed to entail the momentary political discourse?
The issue here as I see it is that some people view clarification of my position as not being topical while others demand I not opine without that clarification which they seem to be refusing to get from anywhere other than my posts (which seems to exclude the quoted and cited materials). This creates a sort of Wargames situation where the only way for me to satisfy the demands of my posting is to not post.
From my perspective the rejection seems to be of my position (as interpreted) rather than my presentation which is used (less effectively when I'm not reflecting the vitriol I regularly receive) to mask that rather weakly argued (on the merit) rejection of my position/s.
|
|
|
As you may remember, I'm not a fan of central planning on paper, but for the sake of the argument I'm going to answer differently here.
It seems that you're presenting different stages for your argument, and the more you move in the direction of your utopia, the less defined it is. The most defined stage is what you're doing right now with recyclable material: doesn't require any political change, is obviously possible (and probably a good thing). So here we have a ton of details. The issue that I have with it is, and again that's not our first time on this, that your vision to fight climate change is very liberal: it requires a bunch of people to take personal responsibility and fight climate change in their own lives. This is inconsistent with the problem we're facing, as we are only indirectly responsible for climate change: businesses are the main culprit. So no, I don't think it's contradictory for an ecologist to take a hot shower or use single use cups, as long as they understand that the larger fight against climate change occurs at the level of industry, not at the level of how often you accept to pee in the shower.
Then we have, get other countries in the world to be social democracies. Already less defined. And create a global government that does central planning. Entirely vague. Notice that while expanding on this you do not exactly go into details, instead you talk a lot about how other stuff doesn't work and what makes your vision harder to accomplish. You say you don't need as much detail as you work within well defined systems, but you actually don't work within a well-defined system: the system today doesn't contain a central planning, nor does it contain a bunch of social democracies. One element at the center of your worldview also appears contradictory to me: you want central planning, but you don't want a revolution? A central planning isn't compatible with capitalism, as far as I can tell. If you have a way to make this work I'd like to read it.
Also would like an answer on my proposition to increase democracies if you don't mind. From my perspective it's a revolutionary idea that should be compatible with all the issues you have stated concerning revolutionary ideas.
|
|
|
On May 29 2019 23:02 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2019 21:08 Nebuchad wrote:
As you may remember, I'm not a fan of central planning on paper, but for the sake of the argument I'm going to answer differently here.
It seems that you're presenting different stages for your argument, and the more you move in the direction of your utopia, the less defined it is. The most defined stage is what you're doing right now with recyclable material: doesn't require any political change, is obviously possible (and probably a good thing). So here we have a ton of details. The issue that I have with it is, and again that's not our first time on this, that your vision to fight climate change is very liberal: it requires a bunch of people to take personal responsibility and fight climate change in their own lives. This is inconsistent with the problem we're facing, as we are only indirectly responsible for climate change: businesses are the main culprit. So no, I don't think it's contradictory for an ecologist to take a hot shower or use single use cups, as long as they understand that the larger fight against climate change occurs at the level of industry, not at the level of how often you accept to pee in the shower.
Then we have, get other countries in the world to be social democracies. Already less defined. And create a global government that does central planning. Entirely vague. Notice that while expanding on this you do not exactly go into details, instead you talk a lot about how other stuff doesn't work and what makes your vision harder to accomplish. You say you don't need as much detail as you work within well defined systems, but you actually don't work within a well-defined system: the system today doesn't contain a central planning, nor does it contain a bunch of social democracies. One element at the center of your worldview also appears contradictory to me: you want central planning, but you don't want a revolution? A central planning isn't compatible with capitalism, as far as I can tell. If you have a way to make this work I'd like to read it.
Also would like an answer on my proposition to increase democracies if you don't mind. From my perspective it's a revolutionary idea that should be compatible with all the issues you have stated concerning revolutionary ideas. It would not be central planning anymore than than a current federal government is, in fact less so. It would just keep some global guiding principals to make sure humanity is not pulling against each other, do things like not have certain banking rules/taxation rules in some countries so people can launder and hide money and so on. And this is the fanciful part no doubt. I more or less through that in as a ideal, but I think many of the problems could be solved if we could just import actual socialized democracies to the world, they would be able to have shared interests for the most part. Pure democracy has its issues as well since most people are uninformed on most topics, that is part of the reason these populists with catch phrases, all the answers and scapegoats are sweeping the polls. Finding the right mix is not easy, but I think the social democracies have done it best. I also don't believe it is as simple as capitalism is pure evil and socialism is pure good. Both sound amazing on paper and both have real issues when put into practice. I think creating a fair environment through social programs, along with regulations on businesses to make sure the reward and risk make sense, as well as that they compete fairly with each other, pay living wages, treat the environment correctly so on. People have to start taking personal responsibility for the choices they individually make. Businesses make things the cheapest possible because people care most about paying the least. If consumers actually said we are not buying Nike anymore because their pay, facilities and so on are not safe then Nike would do something. People also care more about convenience than the environment, do you have a plastic bottle of water you use once or do you have a reusable water bottle? Do you take your own reusable mug to Starbucks or do take there single use cup? There are literately 100's of changes people can make and don't so that is why regulation is needed. But guess what, there are also a TON of private businesses that are leading edge and doing way more than government or requirements. In my city we actually have dedicated staff to just try to bring it up to our own regulations! Governments, unions, so on are great, but they arenot without flaws. Hopefully that answered some of yours. Now can you please explain to me how socialism will fix the environment? So far I feel like I'm in Seinfeld a episode where it is the world has problems yadda yadda revolution, yadda yadda, socialism, yadda yadda climate change solved. And within the yadda yadda so much can go wrong or needs to be explained.
The arguments that you bring up against pure democracy aren't arguments against pure democracy, they're arguments against every kind of democracy, pure or unpure. People are uninformed and uneducated, so we can't trust them to make decisions about how they are governed, especially because of populism and propaganda. But in the system that we have today, people are uninformed and uneducated, and we trust them to make decisions about who will govern them, and populism and propaganda play a part in the process of who gets chosen.
I think almost nobody in the entire world believes that both capitalism and socialism sound amazing on paper. Capitalism and socialism are contradicting each other on a great variety of important topics about how society should be organized. One says that exploitation is fine, the other doesn't. One says that social hierarchy is fine, the other doesn't. One puts profit at the forefront, the other doesn't. Those are pretty crucial world view differences. It would be extremely weird to view both of those theories on paper and think that they are both amazing.
I'm going to give you a slightly flawed metaphor, that I still like, about what the liberal view of fighting climate change looks like to me. There's this huge forest fire in front of us, it's burning the whole forest. A group of people are throwing a ton of fuel into the fire, slightly to the side of the picture so it's not necessarily obvious to everyone watching that they're doing it. Liberals, in the center of the picture, are lining up and peeing into the fire in an effort to stop its progression. Sometimes someone comes up and talks to the liberals: "Hey, don't you think maybe we should try and do something about the people throwing fuel in the fire?" And the liberals answer: "Pff, this dude isn't even peeing with us, I dislike all these people not peeing, clearly they are the reason why the fire is still spreading."
And that brings us neatly to how I think socialism would help against climate change: the profit motive stops being the primary motive of businesses and corporations. By giving people the power to decide what a company should and shouldn't do, we get to put other motives into the picture, like, in our case, humanity's survival for example. Here's a concrete example: when confronted with the scientific notion that our species was likely to die if we didn't do anything about climate change, people in the capitalist class reacted by funding antiscience projects and backing antiscience politicians. They didn't do so because they are evil, they did so because convincing people that climate change was a hoax was more profitable than doing something about climate change. And capitalism dictates that the best route is the most profitable route. Capitalism, without a revolutionary reform, is by its very nature ill-equipped to defeat a threat like climate change because in order to defeat that threat, you have to go against the principles of capitalism.
|
|
|
On May 30 2019 03:43 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 00:07 Nebuchad wrote:On May 29 2019 23:02 JimmiC wrote:On May 29 2019 21:08 Nebuchad wrote:
As you may remember, I'm not a fan of central planning on paper, but for the sake of the argument I'm going to answer differently here.
It seems that you're presenting different stages for your argument, and the more you move in the direction of your utopia, the less defined it is. The most defined stage is what you're doing right now with recyclable material: doesn't require any political change, is obviously possible (and probably a good thing). So here we have a ton of details. The issue that I have with it is, and again that's not our first time on this, that your vision to fight climate change is very liberal: it requires a bunch of people to take personal responsibility and fight climate change in their own lives. This is inconsistent with the problem we're facing, as we are only indirectly responsible for climate change: businesses are the main culprit. So no, I don't think it's contradictory for an ecologist to take a hot shower or use single use cups, as long as they understand that the larger fight against climate change occurs at the level of industry, not at the level of how often you accept to pee in the shower.
Then we have, get other countries in the world to be social democracies. Already less defined. And create a global government that does central planning. Entirely vague. Notice that while expanding on this you do not exactly go into details, instead you talk a lot about how other stuff doesn't work and what makes your vision harder to accomplish. You say you don't need as much detail as you work within well defined systems, but you actually don't work within a well-defined system: the system today doesn't contain a central planning, nor does it contain a bunch of social democracies. One element at the center of your worldview also appears contradictory to me: you want central planning, but you don't want a revolution? A central planning isn't compatible with capitalism, as far as I can tell. If you have a way to make this work I'd like to read it.
Also would like an answer on my proposition to increase democracies if you don't mind. From my perspective it's a revolutionary idea that should be compatible with all the issues you have stated concerning revolutionary ideas. It would not be central planning anymore than than a current federal government is, in fact less so. It would just keep some global guiding principals to make sure humanity is not pulling against each other, do things like not have certain banking rules/taxation rules in some countries so people can launder and hide money and so on. And this is the fanciful part no doubt. I more or less through that in as a ideal, but I think many of the problems could be solved if we could just import actual socialized democracies to the world, they would be able to have shared interests for the most part. Pure democracy has its issues as well since most people are uninformed on most topics, that is part of the reason these populists with catch phrases, all the answers and scapegoats are sweeping the polls. Finding the right mix is not easy, but I think the social democracies have done it best. I also don't believe it is as simple as capitalism is pure evil and socialism is pure good. Both sound amazing on paper and both have real issues when put into practice. I think creating a fair environment through social programs, along with regulations on businesses to make sure the reward and risk make sense, as well as that they compete fairly with each other, pay living wages, treat the environment correctly so on. People have to start taking personal responsibility for the choices they individually make. Businesses make things the cheapest possible because people care most about paying the least. If consumers actually said we are not buying Nike anymore because their pay, facilities and so on are not safe then Nike would do something. People also care more about convenience than the environment, do you have a plastic bottle of water you use once or do you have a reusable water bottle? Do you take your own reusable mug to Starbucks or do take there single use cup? There are literately 100's of changes people can make and don't so that is why regulation is needed. But guess what, there are also a TON of private businesses that are leading edge and doing way more than government or requirements. In my city we actually have dedicated staff to just try to bring it up to our own regulations! Governments, unions, so on are great, but they arenot without flaws. Hopefully that answered some of yours. Now can you please explain to me how socialism will fix the environment? So far I feel like I'm in Seinfeld a episode where it is the world has problems yadda yadda revolution, yadda yadda, socialism, yadda yadda climate change solved. And within the yadda yadda so much can go wrong or needs to be explained. The arguments that you bring up against pure democracy aren't arguments against pure democracy, they're arguments against every kind of democracy, pure or unpure. People are uninformed and uneducated, so we can't trust them to make decisions about how they are governed, especially because of populism and propaganda. But in the system that we have today, people are uninformed and uneducated, and we trust them to make decisions about who will govern them, and populism and propaganda play a part in the process of who gets chosen. I think almost nobody in the entire world believes that both capitalism and socialism sound amazing on paper. Capitalism and socialism are contradicting each other on a great variety of important topics about how society should be organized. One says that exploitation is fine, the other doesn't. One says that social hierarchy is fine, the other doesn't. One puts profit at the forefront, the other doesn't. Those are pretty crucial world view differences. It would be extremely weird to view both of those theories on paper and think that they are both amazing. I'm going to give you a slightly flawed metaphor, that I still like, about what the liberal view of fighting climate change looks like to me. There's this huge forest fire in front of us, it's burning the whole forest. A group of people are throwing a ton of fuel into the fire, slightly to the side of the picture so it's not necessarily obvious to everyone watching that they're doing it. Liberals, in the center of the picture, are lining up and peeing into the fire in an effort to stop its progression. Sometimes someone comes up and talks to the liberals: "Hey, don't you think maybe we should try and do something about the people throwing fuel in the fire?" And the liberals answer: "Pff, this dude isn't even peeing with us, I dislike all these people not peeing, clearly they are the reason why the fire is still spreading." And that brings us neatly to how I think socialism would help against climate change: the profit motive stops being the primary motive of businesses and corporations. By giving people the power to decide what a company should and shouldn't do, we get to put other motives into the picture, like, in our case, humanity's survival for example. Here's a concrete example: when confronted with the scientific notion that our species was likely to die if we didn't do anything about climate change, people in the capitalist class reacted by funding antiscience projects and backing antiscience politicians. They didn't do so because they are evil, they did so because convincing people that climate change was a hoax was more profitable than doing something about climate change. And capitalism dictates that the best route is the most profitable route. Capitalism, without a revolutionary reform, is by its very nature ill-equipped to defeat a threat like climate change because in order to defeat that threat, you have to go against the principles of capitalism. The thing is the elected people are like a board of directors not direct oversight. The people hired and trained within the governmental organization are the ones doing the real work and presenting the ideas to the various elected officials. Sure they can make changes about time frames and what they want looked at but the end of the day it is all the bureaucrats that are getting shit done. This is why you don't want every decision made by vote, because people can't possibly be informed on everything even if they wanted to. Your last sentence is why capitalism alone has not solved the problem, it is about the issues with short term thinking which don't go away with socialism. Secondly we do not have "capitalism" right now, at least not in the Adam Smith sense. My issue is it is not a fair comparison to point out the failings of the current systems (which I'm not saying do not exist) and match it up against a philosophical position. There are reasons why neither exists in those philosophical forms. Which is why I keep asking if there is country, preferably with some size, that you would like to at least use as a starting point. Since if you are talking about fixing climate change you have to be talking on a global scale. I
If we do trust these people, hired and trained, within the governmental organization, to do the real work and make the right decisions, then why is it good to let the people vote at all? Don't these people in government know better than the uninformed population who would make the best ruler? This isn't to say that you are against democracy. This is to say that if we follow the logic of any argument against having more democracy, these arguments' logic can easily be brought up against the level of democracy that we have now. There is a tension there.
Of course we have capitalism. The means of production are privately owned, by a class of people. These people, who we call the capitalist class, then exploit the labor of workers to create a profit, and the goal of the game is to maximize their profit. If you bring up Adam Smith you're talking liberalism, not capitalism.
It's not short term thinking that causes capitalism to not fix its problems, it's capitalism. The capitalists aren't short-sighted, they're correct. It is unarguably true that it is more profitable to fight against science on climate change than it is to go with science and fight climate change. Reaching climate goals is a second set of goals, on top of maximizing profits, that you impose on yourself. If instead you just don't do it, you are of course going to maximize profits. Their behavior is entirely consistent with how we train them to think about the economy in this system.
You know there is no country like this, obviously. In Switzerland we have more democracy and we're doing fine, but it's not direct democracy either and we aren't fighting for it. And it's not remotely close to socialism, of course, nor should it be as we are a small as fuck country with not a ton of direct power. The change needs to come from a large, powerful country in order to have any chance at sustainability. Since most of the fights against socialism have been led by the US, it is a natural starting point, as it gets rid of a very natural enemy at the same time.
|
On May 29 2019 06:36 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2019 06:17 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.
Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting. I don't think anybody has ever complained that you are explaining yourself too clearly. Show nested quote +On May 29 2019 06:17 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.
Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting. I don't think anybody has ever complained that you are explaining yourself too clearly. Velr did: Show nested quote +GH: I would actually love to discuss leftist ideas because I consider myself very leftist, but if the starting point is «revolution», «abolish the police» or «we need full on socialism/communism» I immediatly lose all interest. Coupled with his „with me or against me“ attitude i don’t see any benefit coming from engaging with him. I don’t see bad intent, it’s just a fundamental disagreement on how one should have a discussion especially with people that disagree.
These topics have their place for sure, but thats in a thread about political philosophy and not in one that is supposed to entail the momentary political discourse? The issue here as I see it is that some people view clarification of my position as not being topical while others demand I not opine without that clarification which they seem to be refusing to get from anywhere other than my posts (which seems to exclude the quoted and cited materials). This creates a sort of Wargames situation where the only way for me to satisfy the demands of my posting is to not post. From my perspective the rejection seems to be of my position (as interpreted) rather than my presentation which is used (less effectively when I'm not reflecting the vitriol I regularly receive) to mask that rather weakly argued (on the merit) rejection of my position/s.
Only Velr can say whether he is complaining that GH explaining himself too clearly, but it'll be a tough sell to say that he is based on what you have quoted.
|
On May 30 2019 07:22 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On May 29 2019 06:36 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 29 2019 06:17 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.
Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting. I don't think anybody has ever complained that you are explaining yourself too clearly. On May 29 2019 06:17 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On May 28 2019 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
Feels like I can't win sometimes. I have someone complaining about not explaining myself clearly and another complaining I'm explaining myself too clearly.
Either you want my ideas/positions fleshed out or you don't but complaining about both at the same time is exhausting. I don't think anybody has ever complained that you are explaining yourself too clearly. Velr did: GH: I would actually love to discuss leftist ideas because I consider myself very leftist, but if the starting point is «revolution», «abolish the police» or «we need full on socialism/communism» I immediatly lose all interest. Coupled with his „with me or against me“ attitude i don’t see any benefit coming from engaging with him. I don’t see bad intent, it’s just a fundamental disagreement on how one should have a discussion especially with people that disagree.
These topics have their place for sure, but thats in a thread about political philosophy and not in one that is supposed to entail the momentary political discourse? The issue here as I see it is that some people view clarification of my position as not being topical while others demand I not opine without that clarification which they seem to be refusing to get from anywhere other than my posts (which seems to exclude the quoted and cited materials). This creates a sort of Wargames situation where the only way for me to satisfy the demands of my posting is to not post. From my perspective the rejection seems to be of my position (as interpreted) rather than my presentation which is used (less effectively when I'm not reflecting the vitriol I regularly receive) to mask that rather weakly argued (on the merit) rejection of my position/s. Only Velr can say whether he is complaining that GH explaining himself too clearly, but it'll be a tough sell to say that he is based on what you have quoted.
Of the crowd still complaining about my posting that's the best example (as flawed as it may be) of someone articulating my position and simply not liking it's presentation still/disagreeing with it.
Besides not liking that my position doesn't have a place for centrism or "very leftist" as Velr would call it (an important identification) his complaint is that rather than discussing the latest Trump tweet or whatever that I'm instead explaining the philosophy which underpins my position/s (which is at the core of why you guys think I'm making up words/definitions/being vague etc...
If I say "Voting for Biden is a better path than revolution" I don't have to explain it, you all just accept it because you've spent a lifetime inundated with arguments that support that hegemonic position. If I say "Revolution is better than voting for Biden" you guys reject it, and demand I explain. In order to explain I have to use concepts, terms, and ideas you guys have never or rarely been exposed to and usually in a dismissive fashion if you are.
So by saying "your philosophy explanation doesn't belong here" Velr is arguing for me not to explain the things people assert are vague, something I made up, etc...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
