How is capitalism responsible for colonialism or land ownership?

Death casts its shadow over life, life is a dream to be forgotten.

The meaning of things isn't to be dictated or negotiated, the finality of death and the destruction of everything can be interpreted in a million ways. There is no meaning to happiness, pleasure or satisfaction and no meaning to virtue, heroism or great accomplishments. I could be less than nothing or more than everything.

Partly decisions to be made but sometimes it's just what we are as humans.

Here's a metaphor, my philosophy might be 1+1 = 3 and nihilism is the rejection of mathematics, without mathematics, there's no compelling rejection to my philosophy, I am the master and I decide all.

The person you refer to is almost certainly a troll and if not then he's just an idiot. Most topics here pretty much anyone can throw their hat into the ring and say what they think.

I took that into account and deleted a far harsher reprimand and edited into "get a grip". My kindness is great.

You ignored all the constructive responses and cried about the one you didn't like. I think you need to get a grip.

"Life is hard work" but that hard work isn't your job? What is your hard work?

It is just kind of silly to say that death is not scarier than living, I assume you think that nothing comes after death. Then you ask "why fear death?" without really addressing any of the reasons that people fear death. You don't address the "trials and tribulations" either.

Many people posted way longer responses than you deserved but you seem to have ignored them and just focused on the one or two posts that poked fun at your poorly written OP. Then you insult the whole forum.

What do you think people should make of that?

You must really dislike your work if it's worse than being dead.

How do you deal with a migrant crisis then? How do you educate someone on how to handle that without your biases coming into play? The right-wing and left-wing responses are totally different. This applies to most situations.

I don't feel you're even trying to make a compelling argument for the education you've suggested and instead you're just saying that some form of education would be preferable for you. Even if I conceded that this were true, I see huge issues with the licence. Just look at universities today, they are far from politically impartial, many are famous for their political leanings. Who teaches the licence, what kind of thinker does it produce and does it restrict the types of politicians that can be elected.

As I've said a few times now, I just don't have any confidence in your proposals to be implemented fairly. I haven't been sold on why the fact-checker is necessary and I am concerned that politicians can be silenced or forced to reword their arguments based on the fact-checkers opinions about biases or fallacies.

Facts are one thing because something either is or isn't a fact but everyone is biased and as for fallacies, there's a lot of leeway for interpretation. Just as you accused me of using a fallacy, who's right on that? It's dangerous because if the fact-checker is being uncharitable with people or parties he doesn't like or if he's just incompetent then that's going to be a huge problem.

The goal of the education system is to both educate AND grade you.

I am the highest moral authority in the universe, your arguments and interpretations are nothing to me. If you were to die, what would really change? But if I die, that's the end of everything. The two things are incomparable.

The whole squad is here now, excellent.

You can't control how people look at you or what they care about, objectification is a bad term, it doesn't really draw a clear line about what's appropriate, reasonable fair, etc. That line still exists but objectification is just kind of a nonsense term in my view. Being enamoured with someone's appearance doesn't require you to then feign interest in who they are as a person any more than not having any interest in their appearance does.

How do you decide the requirements for being a politician without being yourself political? You cannot create an impartial course on these topics.

Besides learning parliament rules, what else is impartial if it's specific?

If you had explained the license differently then my comments would be different. If it was a specialised course that prepared you for the practical elements of the job you're intending to take then it could be compared to medicine. As it stands, it's more of a bachelor of arts.

I think that you are making a fallacy with the idea that "because epistemic doesn't make experts of politicians it is not better than the status quo." — Christoffer

Here's already the issue with the "fact-checker" who looks out for biases and fallacies, your accusation here is demonstrably false given how I've repeatedly said that I think it will make absolutely no improvement on the status quo. When it was just facts, I was okay with it, now it's also biases and fallacies and I think it's too dangerous.

I certainly don't trust anyone to moderate my posts, the moderators on this forum are legit the worst posters here.

The idea is asinine and that's my position, now I can assume the role of fact-checker and do not respond to my criticism, just go back and rewrite your argument, I will let you know if it's logical or not and if it isn't then you can rewrite it again. You didn't lose this debate but I've determined that your position is illogical therefore you must rewrite it so we can get to the truth beyond your biases and fallacies.

No comment on the increased quality of parliament debates.

You've proposed a 3-4 year degree split into several large topics, you have to be realistic about how deep they're getting into those topics. People from this course are not going to be on the level of career philosophers and psychologists or experts on history as a result of this course. How can a 3-4 year course on so many topics be advanced in these topics?

So what you're giving these politicians is just an introduction to topics which don't really have anything to do with being a politician. It sounds less intense than the average undergraduate degree. Why are you acting like people coming out of this degree are going to be experts in these topics? They're going to be receiving less of a philosophy education than what you get from an undergraduate philosophy degree.

So someone three or four years out of high school gets their politician licence and they're now a competent politician lol. Not only are they not going to be remotely competent but I don't think they're even slightly better off than before they began this course. How you gunna compare a doctor with a politician licence holder.

Demagogues would still exist as politicians still need to get voted in and they aren't suddenly experts on all topics related to the economy, industries, infrastructure, history, geopolitics, budgets, taxation, foreign nations, policing and any other topic they might speak on or be responsible for.

As for "parliament praxis", it sounds nice but I am concerned about how practical this suggestion is. I am unconvinced by the licence, I'm also unconvinced by the fact-checker and the main reason why is that I'm not sure that this fact-checker wouldn't just get into arguments. Alternatively, this person has absolute authority and just sin bins people.

You say biases and fallacies aren't allowed but I don't know, I'm sceptical. Aren't you at all scared by the fact-checker? If they aren't satisfied with your argument then you're just sent out of parliament or not allowed to speak?

I don't really have any faith in what is essentially less than an undergraduate philosophy student, I don't expect an increase in how informed they are on things or that they'll be impressively logical or even good debaters. I have no idea where your self-assurance on this is coming from. The licence is just a waste of peoples' time, not really making things worse or better.

I don't think that the demagogues you're talking about would be changed by this course, I don't think that the already educated people who wanted to get into politics would need the course. I don't think any of the things you listed to be studied would actually help somebody getting into politics.

There are already plenty of competent people who want to get into government, the thing is, democracy hasn't changed, the morons who got elected are still going to get elected and they're still going to be morons. You can't avoid this and honestly, I have no faith that the people you like would be people that I thought well of nor that the people you dislike are people that I also dislike, that's democracy for you.

I don't know what kind of fact-checker you're talking about, someone with complete authority to tell people to stfu if they say something wrong? I'm not sure how practical that would be and if they don't have that authority then I'm not sure how it's different from normal fact-checkers.

Debating through philosophical scrutiny, fact-checked, unbiased and without fallacies, is not at all close to what we see at the moment. The level of debates at the moment is a mud-throwing spectacle, not proper debate. I think that people have normalized political debate into the mud-throwing spectacle and forgot that debates should lead to some informed place of knowledge. If we had philosophical rules of conduct to these debates, they would look very very different. — Christoffer

The thing is that with the Trump debates, for example, not only was it broadly criticised that he made stuff up but also that he changed his opinions and that his answers to questions were vague and nobody knew what his actual policies were or how he planned to do what he said he'd do. Not only did it not matter but they ended up giving him so much coverage that it ended up just helping him become more popular.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets by because basically as far as the left is concerned the intentions justify the means. She has no clue what she's talking about but it simply doesn't matter to people. All of this is already out in the open and I don't know what you're planning to differently, it seems like you just want to strongarm voters.

I don't share your respect for philosophy either, I don't assume practitioners of philosophy are rational, intelligent thinkers. Discussions on this forum are filled with fallacies and few here have any fucking clue about the facts. In my experience, philosophers are the worst when it comes to facts because they think complex questions can be answered with baseless theories and morality.

So what I don't really understand is how epistemic democracy is different from media fact-checking. Are you proposing that someone is tasked with telling politicians in parilament how to speak, how to argue, to shut up when they're wrong and correct them etc?

Doctors don't just get an education, they have to pass exams that show their competency, then they need to do internships and then if they got past all that then they still need to do their job at least somewhat competently or they'll lose their licence. You can't compare what it takes to become a doctor with what it takes to complete a philosophy course.

I mean it's just silliness to begin with to say that a philosophy or history course will even help being a politician in the first place. One can't really compare that with studying medicine to practice medicine.

Also, I misread your post and thought you said people would need a voting licence and that's why I made the comments about mandatory voting, my mistake there.

Anyway, yes I am pretty certain that none of your suggestions will help, I think most of them already exist. Trump is fact-checked all the time by the media and his supporters don't care, why does putting a fact-checker in parliament make any difference. The politician licence is a waste of time, none of those classes you suggested are likely to help a politician do their jobs better and I don't think that the problem with democracy is lack of education for politicians in the first place.

Politicians already debate issues in parliament, they debate on the media, they debate in elections, how much more debating do we need.

Your suggestions are either redundant or superfluous and really I think you've failed to address real problems in representative democracy in the first place. I think mandatory voting alone would probably stop many of the totally unqualified people who are getting elected recently.

Democracy isn't just orientated around the election day, you can demand for an elected government to start doing a better job on an issue and make it clear that things aren't good enough. That's really what a protest is about, it's about trying to get change to happen as opposed to convincing people to think like them.

It's also important to note that you don't need a majority to enact change in a democracy and just because the majority want something that doesn't mean it will happen. Protests apply more pressure per person on the government to change things than people who stay silent on the issue - obviously.

Your suggestions don't seem practical to me. I prefer making voting mandatory because I think it leads towards more moderate leaders, radicals are likely to be a greater percentage of option voting. Polling already exists and I'm not sure what's different about your proposal for it.

You aren't really addressing the major flaws in democracy, we already know we're going to have incompetent politicians. They get voted in as opposed to getting in by merit and whether they keep their jobs isn't necessarily based on whether they do a good job or not. It's a complicated job on top of that, having a degree in philosophy or psychology isn't even likely to help even a little bit.

Identify a real problem and a practical solution, I have no idea what you're even talking about here.

I like what you're saying here but I don't think the world is ready to hear it. Maybe in another 100 years.

I'm not sure it's necessary to graduate from kindergarten to understand your abysmal one-liners. I'm sure they've heard some of the older kids use similar styles of argumentation.

You're so funny, after just mocking me for saying "race has nothing to do with racial injustice", where'd you pluck that idea out from? And then misunderstanding why you were quoted in the first place. To top it off, the actual quote is apparently a response to something I didn't even say. Or is the actual top off that your comment doesn't make any grammatical sense? Hard to decide but it really is great of you to choose to complain about my literacy skills after that whole debacle.

I was highlighting your ridiculous, distracting remarks in a comment about ridiculous, distracting remarks. Your argument wasn't being addressed, I don't discuss serious topics with you only a bit of banter.

I don't think the term "annoying" is going to be taken seriously as philosophy.

Yeah, I agree with all of your statements, not much else to say.

Err, that's not what I was paraphrasing. Nor do I have any idea what your meme is talking about, please don't tell me that's your understanding of my argument.


Australian

I meant to paraphrase you, not give a thesis, if I've done you wrong then please feel free to clarify what you meant, doesn't matter much to me as there is no interpretation of your comments that can't be used as an example in my post.

It's cute how those who are not regularly murdered everyday on the basis of their skin color get to explain how skin color does not matter. It's like those celebs who, while hiding out in their multi-million dollar mansions, got to tell everyone that 'we're all in this together'. Everyone rightly told them to crawl into a hole and cark it. — StreetlightX

I even paraphrased you without making fun of your grammar, gotta give me props for that.

I think framing this as a conflict between free speech and censorship is a bad approach to the problem. The actors you note aren't state actors and the way trends spread online isn't analogous to a central authority deciding on what acceptable speech is. There is also the complication that the people involved in "censorship" are utilizing their own right to free speech to various extents. — Echarmion

It's a necessary, modern approach and it's going to become increasingly important to focus on how the state protects free speech rather than how they interfere with it. The state has a role in both censorship and giving protection against censorship and both must be addressed. Honestly, censorship has very little to do with this topic and I understand now the point you were making with the swastika wasn't what I thought it was, my mistake.

I think this lines up nicely with approaching this as a problem of social dynamics, rather than one of censorship. — Echarmion

It's an extension of the same problem I was talking about earlier with race and racial histories, they're basically indirect disagreements. If you ask people about what sounds fair and reasonable versus about how black people have been mistreated and deserve compensation, even if you're selling the exact same policy, the result is different. My issue with some of the posters here is that they don't care about that at all, they stand by what they see as the pertinent facts and interpretations and couldn't be damned if they're making the topic politically complicated, even when it's just to satisfy their own anger at the expense of greater widespread agreement.

I fully expected this from the start, the newest post when I started looking at this thread was Baden saying how more people would accept systemic racism exists if their race had been enslaved and brutalised for hundreds of years. Then StreetlightX saying more people would think more like him if people of their race were getting murdered on a daily basis or something. How can you be simultaneously upset about opposition and resistance to your ideas while making every effort to make such controversial and inflammatory comments? It's so stupid that it makes me laugh but it's really quite sad when you look at the bigger picture.

Lol, that's not a good example, it's an unreasonable comparison. Rejecting Nazism isn't a contentious issue, you can't compare it to the very many far-left ideas which aren't even accepted by most of society and how censorship works there and compare it to a fucking swastika. The censorship isn't even democratic, social influencers on twitter threaten businesses and get people fired for exercising free speech. Left-leaning universities and education boards make rules without needing widespread support.

Side note, this happens every time, systemic racism isn't about identity politics and the far left but somehow this topic ends up dominating the conversation. Unnecessarily inflammatory statements on both sides that just supports my claims about how we get distracted. You can't even have a serious debate about the issues, because the inevitable inflammatory remark about race, racial histories, identity politics or what have you is made and people get angry about it.

That's the rut we're in.

No I agree systemic racism is pretty upsetting and if anyone gave a shit about their own self well-being they'd want to do everything in their power to see the end of it. — StreetlightX

You aren't compelling or logical but if you get even angrier perhaps all of your political opponents will just yield in fear.

Upsetting people is easy and people are selfish, you want to argue otherwise?

What kind of allies are so pathetically self-involved and care about their snowflake feelings? That sounds like most people to me.

You've misunderstood me, I didn't address "your" narrative, I spoke generally about how racism can be a narrative. A story that gives life to race and makes it more than an aesthetic.

The second quote isn't talking about you. Even if I disagree with some things, you quite obviously are not racist and you've already gone to some lengths with your language to show that.

As for your words, I don't know how this needs to be said but this philosophy forum isn't active enough for me to think you can have an impact here. Unless there's something I don't know about and you're involved in politics, I only discuss ideas and if there's a discussion about their greater impact it's because your ideas aren't just held by you. As is the case with identity politics and the continued emphasising on race and gender.

I don't need to care about race to oppose racism, discrimination, unfairness, bad policy or to consider solutions to problems that disproportionately impact a race of people. It's not that if you don't care about race then all those issues go away, it's that you don't create resistance to solutions by angering people. Not only white people who get angry because they feel attacked but people also get angry about the issues surrounding race and racial histories and they become angry and hateful rather than helpful. Then they further create resistance by being angry and aggressive. It's a sensitive topic.

Being angry and disgusted with racism isn't necessarily helpful at all, it depends on where that anger is channelled.

Heh, I'm not sure what you say does any good or any harm, you aren't in a position of power. I'm not sure what you want me to compare you to. All I can say is that your insistence on proactively bringing up race and gender is not conducive to making these things less relevant. You've even said you see identity politics as a start to something useful, what do you think identity politics is and what does it do? You read Benkei's essay and thought... he's calling a spade a spade?

I'm arguing about ideas on a philosophy forum, your impact on the world is a complete irrelevance.

I'm sure you do that but I meant that you highlight race in a way that makes it matter and not that you highlight that race matters. You deny this? Calling a spade a spade, isn't that what you call it?

I can find common ground with lefties on some issues but as for identity politics and emphasising race differences, you alone might not do anything but these ideas will have devastating consequences in the future.

A life condition where race has been made to matter is itself a form of injustice against the truth of our common nature — fdrake

It's pleasing to hear you say this. However, in the past and now, I have felt that a major issue with you is that you highlight race in a way that makes it matter. How am I to react to someone who favours language that highlights race and then also says that this is an injustice. Is it a necessary evil for you then?

Racism is a word that gets thrown around meaninglessly, the word has become quite political. So, what is real modern-day racism? I think this is the heart of it, "calling a spade a spade" as you put it. A narrative on race differences that assigns attributes, intentions and actions to races. Which elicits, promotes and validates opinions on races - and racism.

That's why people like Benkei are rather unforgivable, this kind of attitude can only lead to discrimination. We can justify hatred towards a race if what the race is, isn't just a skin colour. So what if what's said is true? That doesn't justify bringing it up in the wrong context or emphasising it as something important and especially not using it in your arguments. Modern-day racism is pointing out that white civilisation has done better than others, it's about judging Muslims as potential terrorists or being distrustful of black people due to crime rates and poverty.

So what if white people benefited from past and current injustices? Aren't they just people? The perpetuation of this is unacceptable, systemic racism is bad for everyone and immoral. Anger towards the inequity, which is the result of past injustices of which nothing can be done, only leads to an increase in the significance of race. It is not conducive to helping people and only hurting people. Undoing the inequity necessitates further the act of the government and the people to distinguish between the races, to acknowledge racial history and continue the injustice of race as a significance.

As I said previously, we can identify an existing problem and identify a practical solution. That's not what this is about, it's about the narrative, the framing and the dramatisation of race differences and race histories. Luckily, the best political option is also the moral one, which is invalidating interpretations on race.

This is the modern-day left, they complain about race being of significance to people in some contexts but in many contexts, they take it to be extremely important. Can't really have it both ways. Any conversation with someone like StreetlightX or Banno is like that, "oh no black writers" but then they have no reservations blaming either the whole West or an entire country for the actions of a handful of people or less.

You meet my expectations fdrake, when it comes to eloquently and soundly articulating the facts about the problems, you do so excellently. I agree with Echarmion though, your insistence on provocative terms comes across as belligerence and considering the political state of the left, it's even easier to write you off that way. That being said, I think writing you off that way is correct, it's just that you make it easier.

I don't think you've hyperbolised the problems, truly, that's pretty much how it is. I won't echo what we've both already written about. The thread is "does systemic racism exist in the US" and that's been answered.

However, I hope you are able to separate interpretation from fact, maybe even that you can see interpretation as having important implications. That we can strive to be pragmatic in our approach. Race is superficial, the causation behind our problems shouldn't be charactered by the pettiness of our nature. Race is responsible for nothing, it is nothing, that's the truth beyond our pettiness. How can it be any other way?

Things are the way they are because of human nature, the nature of power, economics, technology and so on. I know you can articulate the problems using these terms, you've shown it. Yet you insist on using the petty language made important by the stupidity you should abhor. Which of the real problems can be resolved by any solution orientated around race and sex? What are the benefits of the perpetuation of the focus and how do they compare to the potential for harm?

It is all true, white men hurting coloured people, rich men hurting poor people, people hurting people. So I say people are hurting people, because I believe the focus on race and sex is harmful and unpragmatic, I think it leads us towards further tribalism. It's not a practical solution, it's angry hate, passion towards injustice should be tunnelled towards only pragmatic problem-solving.

So your terminology and insistence on emphasising racial and gender differences shouldn't be found guilty of being factually incorrect. It should be found guilty of fanning the flames of hate, spreading the very poison that you're embittered about. Impractical at best but more likely harmful and politically unsound. I think you're smart enough to know that, people will show resistance to help based on the reason.

Honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about. I like to talk about simple issues. Crime, drugs, fatherlessness, investment opportunities for small businesses, landlord-tenant power relations, lack of social security, automation, increasingly expensive and necessary education demands and whatever else. Black people have to deal with being poor, in a country that doesn't much help the poor and then on top of that there's racism.

So when someone talks to me about white supremacy, imperialist expansion and capitalists manufacturing the political landscape for profits, I don't know how to respond.

I'm done with him now but I found it to be really funny at the time. It's all for entertainment anyway, I visit the forums until I've had enough of it and then I take a break.

I'm done talking about Benkei, I was more charitable with what he wrote until he made it worse in this thread. That being said, I would have expected you to more or less agree with him based on my opinion about you. Yes to all of your statement/questions.

Systemic racism is a separate problem than what I was discussing with Benkei, you've misunderstood and you aren't trying to address it but I don't want you to address it, you should just drop it.

As for systemic racism, I think I know you well enough, you're smart enough to understand the very complicated set of problems but you decide to simplify it into "evil white men" anyway. You'll offer lengthy paragraphs about the issues which sound really good until the inevitable narrative re-write of these complicated issues into identity politics orientated around the all-important all-encompassing gender and race categories. This time I even agree with you on the lengthy issues and I'm bored of arguing against identity politics so let's skip this round.