I say this, because I have seen moderate politicians stutter and stammer when confronted with its populist counterparts -- I literally scream at my telly, it is not hard to rebuke those remarks. Some extreme populists (whether left wing or right wing) think that popular vote should trump individual rights.

should trump individual rights. — Kitty

I see what you did there!

Trump's been enamored by political despots including Putin, Edrogan, Duterte, and most recently Xi Jingping, who's dissolution of the CCP's two term limit has arguably made him the most powerful person in the world — Maw

Just stumbled across this.

The democracies of Eastern European countries tend to be weaker, more susceptible to corruption than Western countries, so I'm not surprised by your skepticism. — Maw

It's also that Western countries have developed a fetish for democracies. This doesn't exist in other regions of the world. China and Russia, for example, have, pretty much, for all their history been ruled by single rulers. Russians love Vladimir - they want a Father to take care of them. Russia probably cannot even be governed democratically. It is a mistake to assume that what works or worked for America and the West will work for other areas of the world with different histories, etc.

Undeniably, there is more than one way to measure 'well-being', but in all international studies there is a correlation between democratic countries and well-being. — Maw

Again, international studies carried out by democratic countries no? What else could they say? The study will simply be structured so as to produce these results. Many people in the West have also developed a fetish for "studies" - but the truth is that scientific studies can be performed to give any results that one wants, especially in fields that are not the hard sciences. For example:



There are many thinkers who have started to understand this - for example Taleb (picking an example that I know you know). One does not gain wisdom and understanding by reading more and more of those studies - the information overload is an overload of mostly false facts.

I am not aware of any study shows the antipode. — Maw

I will also question that well-being can be measured through scientific studies. I think this is something that we simply cannot quantify. And even if we can, we quantify it based on our own assumptions of what is good (which must also be questioned). For example, we decide having access to economic opportunities is a necessity, and therefore places which offer greater access are better.

Regarding transparency, elected officials are responsible and are held accountable to their constituents. — Maw

This is just naive. If only the corrupt run, then there is no real choice. If the constituents are dumb, then they can be manipulated (and more often than not, they are). Look at countries like the US or Italy, etc. Democracy is a crass failure, because it promotes the mediocre, just as Plato clarified in The Republic. It also attracts men who have to focus on keeping power, instead of on doing administration work.

In addition, a strong, independent media is important in holding elected officials accountable and uncovering and reporting corruption, scandal etc. — Maw

What stops the media from getting in cahoots with politicians?

Perhaps more to the point, there are ample studies showing that democracies are indeed more transparent than alternative political regimes, so it's not a matter of subjective "I think", or political abstraction. — Maw

What does "more transparent" mean? Does it mean that you don't openly steal from public funds, but instead you do it through Panama funds, Clinton foundations, Obama foundations, etc.? If that's "transparency", then yeah, obviously democratic regimes are more transparent.

In regards to economic opportunities, I think the ability to enter a market-place to buy or sell commodities and services is an important freedom in-itself. It also enables one to advance in their social mobility. — Maw

I agree because I favour capitalism and am an entrepreneur myself, however, we must remember that unless one accepts the assumptions of capitalism, then one could arrive at different conclusions, where economic opportunities are not as relevant.

Agustino, you are absolutely free to criticize the various pitfalls, flaws, and limitations of democracy. As I stated, they exist incontrovertibly. Nevertheless, this does not entail that they are more severely flawed or limited etc. when compared to authoritarian regimes in all their manifestations, from hereditary monarchy to single-party dictatorship. And we have ample contemporary and historical evidence of how and why they are flawed and should not be a desirable socio-political form of governance. Rehashing well-known examples of some democratic flaws doesn't demonstrate the substantive virtues of authoritarianism, which you haven't provided.

It's also curious how selective you can be in regarding published scientific studies. You gleefully cite examples of studies that presumably show biological gender determinism, when defending Peterson, but you suddenly become a hard skeptic when studies exist that doesn't conform to your worldview.

substantive virtues of authoritarianism, which you haven't provided. — Maw

I wasn't thinking of authoritarianism, I was thinking more along the lines of constitutional monarchies. In any case, a system different from democracy - doesn't have to be authoritarianism. I was merely questioning what I see as your Western fetish for democracy. Democracy & Authoritarianism do not exhaust the political possibilities, despite what many democrats would want you to believe.

You gleefully cite examples of studies that presumably show biological gender determinism, when defending Peterson, but you suddenly become a hard skeptic when studies exist that doesn't conform to your worldview. — Maw

No, I've probably never cited a study actually, even with regards to Peterson. In fact, in our discussion about the lobsters, I even told you that the lobster study is irrelevant - the underlying point that Peterson was making, however, is relevant. I don't believe in the usefulness & generality you seem to accord to studies because I know they can be made to say whatever they need to.

The lobsters are irrelevant in the end, just one example aimed to make understanding the idea that hierarchies aren't simply man-made, but also exist in nature. He's not saying that lobster hierarchy is like human hierarchy. — Agustino

You gleefully cite examples of studies that presumably show biological gender determinism, when defending Peterson, but you suddenly become a hard skeptic when studies exist that doesn't conform to your worldview. — Maw

I do not base my life on shifting grounds. So I cannot base my life on scientific findings which exist today, but tomorrow could turn out to be wrong. I use science pragmatically. That is another reason why I don't like scientific studies. Science is ever-changing. Today we think this and that about lobsters, tomorrow we'll think differently. What am I supposed to do, move from fad to fad?

So I cannot base my life on scientific findings which exist today, — Agustino

Yeah, far more prudent to base it on unscientific gobbledygook.

Yeah, far more prudent to base it on unscientific gobbledygook. — CuddlyHedgehog

LOL :rofl: , funny, but there are other ways to gain knowledge in life. Science is useful, don't get me wrong, in its limited field of application. But I would not resort to science in telling me who to marry, who to trust, how to negotiate, how to love, etc. Just like I wouldn't resort to astrology in those matters. I resort to critical thinking combined with life experience.

Resorting to science in those matters is no different than resorting to astrology in fact!

Which part of your anatomy are you pulling these ideas out of?

Which ideas?

Nevermind. Just playing with you.

:nerd: Playing what with me?

:lol:

[Delete] @Baden

@Maw - "The Americans love to have a boss" :sweat:

Marx was a non - believer — Benkei

I just pick this quote at random, but the point applies almost everywhere any mention of religion or religious belief comes up. "Marx was a non-believer." Non-believer in what, exactly?

The problem is that without that first piece of navigation - i.e., where we are, our starting point - no one can know where they're going. Now, that doesn't detract from the joys of conversation and discussion, But for people uninterested in Onanistic "philosophy," philosophy with no useful purpose beyond the self-erotic, it's all a great waste of time.

Man up. If you want to tell us that "Marx was a non-believer," then tell us what (he didn't believe in) and make your case. Otherwise you're just using unattributed ideas and quotes without understanding what they mean, and likely for purposes alluded to.

It's clear from the context of the posts I replied to. Read up.

I don't see any intellectual cowardice on Benkei's part. It's just short-hand reference to Marx's lack of belief in a god.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself. — Marx, Critique of Philosophy of Right

You can see some atheist humanism in him, at least in this Critique. He speaks interestingly frankly in criticism about secular humanist (roughly, atheist socialism 'fraternity of man' style thing) ideals and about communism raised to the status of divinity in a letter to Ruge, usually given the title "The Relentless Criticism of All That Exists":

Therefore I am not in favour of raising any dogmatic banner. On the contrary, we must try to help the dogmatists to clarify their propositions for themselves. Thus, communism, in particular, is a dogmatic abstraction; in which connection, however, I am not thinking of some imaginary and possible communism, but actually existing communism as taught by Cabet, Dézamy, Weitling, etc. This communism is itself only a special expression of the humanistic principle, an expression which is still infected by its antithesis – the private system. Hence the abolition of private property and communism are by no means identical, and it is not accidental but inevitable that communism has seen other socialist doctrines – such as those of Fourier, Proudhon, etc. – arising to confront it because it is itself only a special, one-sided realisation of the socialist principle.

And the whole socialist principle in its turn is only one aspect that concerns the reality of the true human being. But we have to pay just as much attention to the other aspect, to the theoretical existence of man, and therefore to make religion, science, etc., the object of our criticism. In addition, we want to influence our contemporaries, particularly our German contemporaries. The question arises: how are we to set about it? There are two kinds of facts which are undeniable. In the first place religion, and next to it, politics, are the subjects which form the main interest of Germany today. We must take these, in whatever form they exist, as our point of departure, and not confront them with some ready-made system such as, for example, the Voyage en Icarie. — Relentless Criticism... Marx

Thank you! Would you agree with me that in the texts you were gracious enough to provide that Marx doesn't actually define religion? And lacking that, whatever his complaints, they're not categorical?

If he had been talking about cars instead of religion, you could see that he speaks not against cars, but rather against both bad cars, and the bad use of cars.

I actually don't know what Marx thought, beyond popular reports, which are clearly ambiguous. My point is that, absent clarity at the start, you're most likely to set out on the wrong path, which means you're neither getting to your destination, nor knowing where you've got.

It's clear from the context of the posts I replied to. Read up. — Benkei

This only tells me you've adopted an idea to your own purposes, not what the idea is.

here's a little story.

Mary and John were spending a lot of time together. They often went to the movies together and went out for dinner. My younger sister asked why, since John is a *shock horror* boy. I told her "that's cause they're in love". She nodded knowingly.

Tim overheard and proceeded to ask "what do you mean by love?"

I told him that's clear from the context.

Tim says that only tells him I adopted an idea about love for my own purposes.

I hope you enjoyed that story.

I actually don't know what Marx thought, beyond popular reports, which are clearly ambiguous. My point is that, absent clarity at the start, you're most likely to set out on the wrong path, which means you're neither getting to your destination, nor knowing where you've got.

You'd probably get quite a lot out of reading Volume 1 of Das Kapital. Not necessarily for the economics, anthropology or social commentary, but his methods of reasoning are very instructive of another way of doing things. David Harvey has an excellent lecture series on the topic and puts a lot of effort in portraying the way Marx reasons.

One of the distinguishing features of philosophy is that part of its conceptual apparatus is in coming up with and clarifying concepts while also refining them in response to questions. Moreover, the questions can help you refine the concepts, and the concepts can help you refine the questions. The interplay between the two can give rise to an organic development of your understanding as you read along or try to express your own positions. When done well, philosophy chases a theme to its roots and provides an atlas of a conceptual landscape. When done poorly, it focusses more on the classification of problems into pre-developed categories which explicate nothing insightful about the chosen theme. Exposition over imposition, always.

If beginning with definitions is required, rather than beginning with problems and orienting our thoughts towards them, this produces a tyranny on philosophical discourse. The fungibility of close-but-inequivalent words; how meaning rolls from letter to word to sentence to passage to the text as a whole; is necessary for the coalescence of refined concepts relevant to their problematics in the first place. Philosophy takes place on the interstice of ambiguity and clarity, it loses most of its content when circumscribed fully in either of those domains.

New knowledge arises out of taking radically different conceptual blocs, rubbing them together and making revolutionary fire

David Harvey — fdrake

:up:

The David Harvey lectures are fantastic. I watched them while reading volume 1 of Capital back in 2011.

This was a great rally!

[Delete] @Baden

President Trump repeated on Thursday his false assertion that the United States runs a trade deficit with Canada, the morning after privately telling Republican donors that he had deliberately insisted on that claim in a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada without knowing whether it was true. — Trump Repeats False Claim About Canada After Admitting Uncertainty Over Figure

Trump in a nutshell.

On the unprecedented legal rationale being used to justify Trump's new tariffs:

Reports released by Mr Trump’s commerce department on February 16th found that Section 232 could be used to restrict steel and aluminium imports because America’s armed forces and “critical industries” need a domestic supply of steel which imports are putting at risk. This is bunkum. Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank, notes that the administration’s aim of having domestic steelmakers working at 80% or more of their capacity has nothing to do with how much speciality steel is actually used by the defence department: the report was “totally cooked”.

Jennifer Hillman of Georgetown University, who has been both a commissioner on the United States International Trade Commission and a judge on the WTO’s appellate body, finds the national-security justification particularly questionable given that most of the steel imports come from Canada, the European Union (EU), Mexico and South Korea. The steel tariffs will barely scrape China, the Trump administration’s greatest trading—and putative military—foe. Adding to the sense that the national-security argument is a sham is the fact that the tariffs on aluminium—where imports from Russia and China matter more—are less than half what they are on the steel made by allies.

There is, though, a snag. Article XXI of the WTO treaty allows a member to raise any tariffs “it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests” even if there is no evidence that imports are surging, subsidised or sold below cost. Invoking Article XXI allows you to do anything you like, and thus endangers the whole system—which is why, given that the system is one which members have chosen to join and which they value, it is very rarely invoked. It is a nuclear option.

You could see this as tactically astute. But it sets a terrible precedent. If a country of America’s heft gets away with justifying protection on blatantly spurious national-security grounds, what is to stop members like India or China doing the same? Bad behaviour has spread in the past. In 1956 America had its agricultural sector exempted from rules limiting state support—only to see the European Community, as the EU then was, using the same exception a few years later to create its common agricultural policy, a grotesquely distorting system of subsidies that American negotiators went on to spend decades trying to curb.

What does that mean for jobs? An analysis by the Trade Partnership, a consultancy, predicts that increases in the price of steel and aluminium under these tariffs will, in the short-term, create 33,000 metal-making jobs and destroy 179,000 metal-dependent ones. Mr Trump is thus screwing over two Rose Bowls of people for the sake of one Fenway Park. — The Economist

I think that Trump is becoming so emboldened that soon he will fire Mueller.

He was so happy with taking McCabe's pensions and soon he won't have anybody to say no to him.

Hoping for that day to come. Will have popcorn ready for that farce...

At least some people are telling the obvious:

Reluctantly I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that he is for some unknown reason under the sway of Mr Putin.10:46 PM - Mar 16, 2018

(retired general Barry McCaffrey)

When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you.

(retired CIA-director John Brennan tweeting Trump)

And this, of course, will make Trump-worshippers living in their La-la-land of alternative reality convinced that there is a vast evil conspiracy against their God-Emperor Trump!


2:00 PM - Mar 17, 2018

All that, plus at least one porn star being paid off and sued by our president?
...
"Nero fiddled while Rome burned."