It’s not surprising, ssu, that you would attempt to shift blame back to Trump. I would expect nothing else. But it wasn’t Trump who abandoned Americans and Afghan allies while sneaking away in the night. — NOS4A2

Sorry, actually it was. Trump abandoned the Afghan allies by making a peace deal with the Taliban without any thought given to the Afghan government. Fuck them! That was the message from Trump.

Of course, you haven't the slightest interest at informing yourself how lousy the Doha peace deal was really like. No, if Trump is criticized, you turn automatically to defense mode. I would not expect nothing else from you.

The Doha peace-deal. What the hell of a "peace" is that? It's nothing else than surrender or simply encouragement for the Taliban to push harder, it's all for their taking. Likely with the Pakistani ISI helped them make their brilliant summer offensive.

Imagine if during the Korean War the armstice would have been done with US and North Korea (and China), but not with South Korea. So, just if North Koreans wouldn't attack Americans they still would be free to attack South Koreans and take ground from the south. Oh yes, they would have to have talks while at the same time be totally free hands to fight them. Imagine what wonders that agreement would have done for the fledgling South Korean army? Hence if it would have collapsed, I guess the people would say "See, they couldn't handle it, they didn't fight!"

(Back then, armstice meant cessation of hostilities. Not same with Trump's "peace-deal")


Nope, both of the two tired old men, Trump and Biden, simply wanted not to hear anymore about Afghanistan, as it was a nuisance. They didn't care shit about it. Hence it was peace at any cost! Both wanted the brownie points for ending the "forever war". Hell with your former allies, just fuck them, they had gotten enough. So I do blame both Trump and Biden.

Questions remain, however, as to why not go all the way and simply prevent Afghans from starving to death if possible, regardless of the actions or inaction of the Taliban. Surely this is a moral and philosophical issue: for example, why not release the assets held by the Central Bank of Afghanistan?

I would think that all moral philosophies support the idea of protecting innocent lives at all costs, unless of course, there are things more important than human lives. — FreeEmotion

In my view there is no dilemma.

The US made a peace deal with the Taliban. The Taliban held their side of the agreement (not to attack US forces...but of course attack the Afghan government, because there was nothing against that in the agreement!).

Why should the US after signing a peace deal still be hostile? The fact is that the US in it's hypocrisy doesn't want to admit that they threw in the towel and the fight is already over.

Comment to the OP.

I think someone wrote that Wittgenstein didn't understand basically Turing's example (the Turing Machine) and Turing failed to describe it for him. The anticipated meeting of the two didn't create great advances. But it's telling that even for Gödel to understand that Turing's findings were actually similar to his did take a long time, so it's no wonder if Turing and Wittgenstein didn't understand each other.

I'm not sure when reading Murphy's article he understands this either. Using negative self-reference as Turing or Gödel did isn't similar to Liar paradox. Close, but they don't result in a paradox. That perhaps is the crucial point to understand.

No one was fired or resigned or court-martialed for the murder, gross stupidity, and lies to the public. — NOS4A2

And why would they be? The US was fighting a fucking war in Afghanistan. Collateral damage happens when the only things you have is remote footage from a drone. Try yourself to interpret what is put into a car from an aerial footage.

Besides, knowing you, you wouldn't raise any questions if it would have been the Trump administration in charge. The political party in charge decides what is murder and gross stupidity and what is collateral damage and unfortunate events for you. (And it should be noted, for many American political commentators)

Just as those servicemen that got killed before, that was something that in the chaos was not preventable.

No NOS, this fiasco is genuinely made both by the Trump administration (that agreed to withdraw from Afghanistan without a cessation of hostilities) and by the Biden adminstration. It started right at the moment Bush declared going after the Taliban. And then past adminstrations declaring that they will go home as soon as possible. With that message well drummed up for everybody, no surprise that the Pakistanis then thought "OK, the Yanks are going home, so in that case let's support our guys then again".

And what do you know? The Taliban re-emerged.

I see this kind of thing from some but certainly not all in what I've read. - As with a lot of topics in the mainstream it can be hard to dig past the noise and find the actual original ideas and thoughts behind them. — I like sushi

Now this is true. Perhaps Critical race theory should be defined to three separate categories:

a) CRT of a specific author
b) Programs or authors close to CRT, using parts of the theory or in general have ideas close to CRT.
c) What those who are the detractors of CRT see as CRT.

And as the issue has become part of the politicized "Culture War", it's extremely confusing to follow the debate. I think the general rule is to just look at what the people actually have said themselves and never quote or follow what a third person has described them saying.

The contrast between patriotism (good) and nationalism (bad) is illustrative. I don't know how one could be a patriot and not be a nationalist as well. Nationalism has been given a quite negative slant in the last 40 or 50 years. I suppose that is because some of our worst enemies have been nationalists, so therefore we should not be. — Bitter Crank

Well, people don't know the term jingoism and the term chauvinism has another definition today also. But I guess any word meaning that people would have some positive thoughts about their nation will be something very negative to some.

In the US patriotism is still accepted, but I think in Europe many are viewing it as something negative. Nation states are bad!

Am I vaguely in the correct ballpark in saying that 'Critical Race Theory' is not about eradicating 'racism' per se (as the view is that is cannot be annihilated), but more or less about how to counteract inequalities that exist due to 'racism'? — I like sushi

I think so too. Critical race theory starts from the idea that racism is inherent (to white people?) and includes far more things than the ordinary definition of racism; that there are people who hold racist ideas. Blurring the line just what is racism seems to be also the case. Furthermore, it seems to totally accept and endorse the division between people by race.

What I find odd in the US and UK are that many applications ask about the race or ethnicity of the applicant. Perhaps the structural issues start from things like that.

Oh, and the West is heaven on earth, right. — baker

Compared to the Maoists, yes.

List the famines that have happened because of "the West's" capitalist policies...compared to the 15 to 55 million dead in the famines caused by the "The Great Leap Forward" or the 1 to 20 million killed by the "Cultural Revolution". Capitalism may suck, but socialism kills. A lot of people.

Marxist Leninism and Maoism have killed far more millions than you could sum up in the wars the US and it's allies have fought. And still, I truly like that there exists a South Korea than there is a "North Korea" allover the Korean Peninsula, which has seen widespread famines during our lifetime. Yet, if it wasn't for the US, nobody would have cared about the Koreans. Americans did.

Isn't any ideology a social construct--not just eugenics? — Xanatos

Well, just look at a dictionary definition of an ideology:

a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

or

a: a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture

b: the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program

c: a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture

Quite easy to argue that ideologies are of the doing of humans and thus are "a result of human interaction" and "exist because humans agree that they exists". Again that animals of a same species do have different genotypes and phenotypes is something different.

But isn't the genetic distance between different humans--both on an individual level and on a group level (however one actually defines these human groups, whether in terms of families or in terms of something else)--something that can be both easily and objectively measured? I'm practically certain, for instance, that Ukrainians and Belarusians are much more similar to each other than either of these two groups are to, say, Sentinel Islanders. — Xanatos

But just what are you measuring? Genetical research tells something about your ancestry, but far better does traditional historical geneology about your ancestors.

First of all, do note how genetics (or population genetics) actually notes these differences. It has nothing to do with political boundaries like Ukraine or Belarus. After all, just short time ago you would be talking about people of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. And as the Sentinel Islands belong to India, then the Sentinels are de facto Indian citizens, at least legally. And the time frame in which population genetics is interested is far more longer.

Even very broad divisions of the human population into races is a bit problematic. One traditional one is to separate by continents, which still is problematic. For example, what's the purpose of pooling such different people together as "Asian"?

If separate racial or ethnic groups actually existed, we would expect to find “trademark” alleles and other genetic features that are characteristic of a single group but not present in any others. However, the 2002 Stanford study found that only 7.4% of over 4000 alleles were specific to one geographical region. Furthermore, even when region-specific alleles did appear, they only occurred in about 1% of the people from that region—hardly enough to be any kind of trademark. Thus, there is no evidence that the groups we commonly call “races” have distinct, unifying genetic identities. In fact, there is ample variation within races.

And basically the classic "race theories" involve culture, language, religion, history and social status to the definition, which obviously cannot be biological / genetical.

I also, of course, do not believe that people of color are inherently more criminal. I think that it is largely a matter of culture, and that many of these cultural influences can be blamed almost solely on historical inequalities and institutional and personal racism. — ToothyMaw

I wouldn't say it's a cultural issue, but more of a wealth and prosperity issue.

Under sufficient duress, any community will turn on itself and folks will prey on their own due to proximity and familiarity. Sociology / Criminology 101. In fact, most wars are civil wars just like most crimes consist of (petty) neighborhood crimes & domestic violence. — 180 Proof

I would add the lack of social cohesion and alienation, the feeling that the society is not made for you and never was intended for you, will make things more ugly very quickly.

Because I can make more out of what I have if I exploit the environment around me doing things such as lowering wages, benefits, and adopting certain labour-saving technologies, etc. — kudos

Actually, you don't make things better for yourself. If everybody's wages are lowered, everybody is worse, the capitalists too. Do remember that there is the important aspect of aggregate demand too (which Marxists seem to forget).

Imagine you have an island and basically you have all the people as prisoners and force them to produce some basic widget or raw material for export and basically feed them and keep them alive. That would be the extreme of this idea of "lowering wages and benefits". The problem is that there isn't anything else for you as basically the island is just a prison camp. And your labor forces is hardly invested in the enterprise, why would they be? Likely some would try to flee. But let's say you pay the prisoners more than just their food and living costs, that they basically will get something to spend. Even that would change the picture, but what could they do with the money they have? So why not give them a sound salary that they don't need to be prisoners (so you can do away with the prisoner guards). The islanders can voluntarily work for you or move somewhere else. And of course then your island could interest those looking for a job when the salaries are competitive.

The obvious difference to a prison camp would be that there would be a demand for other services, barbers, shops, a pub etc. and a true business opportunity for those as the islanders would have income to spend on. Possible immigration and prospects for people to start a family on your island. With those businesses a thing like land prices would rise as before the island was just one prison camp, the land had no price. Now you can rent or sell land to willing buyers.

Simply put it, a more advanced economy creates more wealth and more prosperity, which is really, genuinely, created. Not carved out from someone's back as a parasite: if you keep the people as prisoners and poor like in North Korea, they aren't going to create the wealth in the first place as in South Korea.

Fitting to the real World example of North and South Korea is that the North was actually the more industrialized part in the Korean peninsula before the division to North and South.

And this is where I see some making the leap that you CANNOT imagine because you're human, so if there were no humans they'd be no science nor any 'Periodic Table' (trust me I've seen this kind of argument used). — I like sushi

Which is rather silly. Basically you hear this reasoning when someone is argued into a corner or something.

There are some telling genetic differences between certain groups. Some medicines are tailor made to help such groups. Sadly the historical scientific beliefs/ideas surrounding 'race' and the advent of Darwin led to a whole lot of uninformed speculation that was considered 'objective' at the time. — I like sushi

Genetics is another thing, really. Racial theories and eugenics have been right from the start political and a "social construct".

Some people simply have such power. — baker

Well, one person like that was Napoleon. But Trump isn't actually a Napoleon.

All depends actually of what the reasons are for his visit. If the idea is that he could walk into the Oval Office and resume office of the President, the physical act of trying to enter the White House would be extremely funny. Many would question if he now had gone of his rocker.

Yeah, I bet the present administration would then humiliate him by not letting him in. But he sure would create a media frenzy with that stunt. If he would get them their.

And nobody comes. Will he have a hunger strike there? Or what.

Sure, some people would probably be outraged. But would anyone actually, physically stop him from doing any of those things? — baker

Yeah, they obviously cannot think of simply locking the door in the White House.

Locked doors do stop people, you know.

I guess you don't care to offer up any definition? — I like sushi

For a "social construct"?

I have no trouble with the definition:

A social construct is something that exists not in objective reality, but as a result of human interaction. It exists because humans agree that it exists.

I would simply state that the differences between the chemical elements are part of objective reality, not a result of human interaction. That we describe the differences between the elements by using the atomic model and have a periodic table doesn't change their existence. Sorry, but I can imagine that even without humans around, the chemical elements what we call "hydrogen" or "gold" will exist and have their peculiar characters. The elements had them when we weren't around and will continue to have them when we are extinct.

While on the other hand, let's look at the "science" behind racial theories. I'll give an example of my own people, the Finns, and how they were looked at by racial experts:

Because of their Finno-Ugric language, the Finns were initially classified by Nazi racial experts as a people unrelated to the other Nordic countries, in spite of a long history of political unity with Sweden. As a result, the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland was favored at first over Finnish speakers for recruitment into the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS because they were categorically considered part of the "Nordic race".

Owing to Finland's substantial military contribution on the northern flank of the Eastern Front of World War II, Hitler decreed in November 1942 that "from now on Finland and the Finnish people be treated and designated as a Nordic state and a Nordic people", which he considered one of the highest compliments that the Nazi government could bestow upon another country.

From this example you can see how obvious "social construct" nazi racial theories were as it fits perfectly to the definition given above for a social construct. And this goes with other similar racial theories too.

Should we also reject the periodic table because it is a social construct? — Xanatos

The amount of electron shells and the number of protons in an chemical element can be stated as an obvious difference as the elements do differ from each other in this way. I guess calling this scientific observation an 'social construct' simply means that absolutely everything that humans have thought of scientifically is a 'social construct'. Of course with that definition the word is utterly useless.

But compare the periodic table to the way how "Hutus" and "Tutsis" or the "Aryan Race" and "The Nordic Race" are defined and separated from each other. Seems more of a "social construct" than the number of electron shells or protons in chemical elements.

The constitutional court temporarily held back the enforcement of the decree, we're still waiting for its decision. — baker

This is actually what is happening and has happened in many countries. The pandemic has put the ruling administrations in a tough spot and if the emergency laws aren't up to it (as usual), it causes this kind of friction where governments have to back down because of legal reasons. Has happened here too. But I guess it still far from a threat of there happening a self coup or the polarization of politics in the US.

I am very much surprised by this, given that it always seemed like the military and the police are on the side of the current government — baker

The police or the military don't go on strike as other government workers can do. They do understand their important unique role. Yet don't think that they as government employees wouldn't share the features similar with other government employees. They naturally have an idea of how to do their job. It's always one thing for a political leadership to make up policies, totally another thing if the goverment bodies implement them.

This isn't just in the US, it's a global trend. Polarization (and simplificationism) appear to be the logical consequences of democracy.

Democracy wasn't born out of some deep mutual respect people would have for eachother, but is merely one of the options for what to do when there is no hereditary monarchy (or its equivalent) in place.
Don't forget that the original motto of the French Revolution was Liberté, égalité, fraternité ou la mort. — baker

Democracy is a necessary safety valve. But basically if the economy goes bust and people are really unhappy about the situation, then ugly things and talk can emerge. And then it isn't just the administration in charge that people are angry about, usually people get fed up with the mainstream political parties and some start looking at what earlier was "the fringe". And this is how radicals can seize the moment and the loonies get into the center stage while people start to hate "the moderates".

You don't think there's a fundamental difference between how information was searched for and reached us before Google and Facebook and now? We've got record numbers of people believing the worst things without any ability to even listen to opposing views.

I've been on this and the old forum since 2003. Discourse has significantly changed here too. Before, it was only philosophy of religion that was shit. Nowadays it's politics too. — Benkei

I usually didn't (and don't) participate in the philosophy of religion forum. Well, the talk was still quite heated when the war on Iraq happened, that I remember. People came to the old forum "to defend" the actions of the Bush administration in invading Iraq. So the present isn't so new.

I really invite you to read more about the information apocalypse, how deception unmoors us from reality and how it becomes increasingly difficult to tell reality from fake news How targeted distribution of information leads to information going "viral" in ways it didn't and couldn't before. — Benkei

But notice one thing: Both you and your countrymen as I and other Finns share this similar media environment with the Americans. Yet Dutch politics or Finnish politics aren't as polarized as US politics with houses of government being occupied (at least that I know, I could be wrong about Dutch politics, but do know how it's here).

I would say one decisive difference is that both in Finland and the Netherlands and unlike in the US, there has to be coalition governments, which means that the parties simply have to get along somehow. In the US 'winner wins everything'-system there isn't any need to be diplomatic with the other party. It's the other way around: the two parties who actually share a lot of policies have differentiate from the other and activate people to vote for them by depicted how bad the other party is. And this has gone totally out of control in the US.

So basically my point is that the "information apocalypse" doesn't polarize politics itself, but once if polarization is sought, it really amplifies it a lot. Yet there has to be larger reasons for the polarization itself. Otherwise I guess Finns and Dutch people would be storming their Parliaments and talk about a new civil war....for, I don't know, for some reason.

Enjoying the global media issues in the Netherlands...


...and in Finland, try to spot the persons of colour in the crowd.

why didn't Trump get the armed forces involved after having lost the election! — baker

Have you followed the debate about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley?

The US armed forces are not exactly a pushover institute. Since the George Floyd riots, there had been friction between the military and the Trump team.

First, basically Trump would have had to basically fire all the heads of the military and replace them with yes-men. Possible, even if difficult, but this would have needed a plan and decisive leadership to be carried through. Trump lacked both. Trump pinned his hopes on Pence and when that didn't work, had nothing left than just to watch his followers have a blast at occupying Capitol Hill. Just as nearly everything Trump did and does, is decided on the moment and fired from the hip.

In fact Milley has been quite consistent on his view that the armed forces won't get into politics. And if you think that he or the US armed forces will do anything and have a "yess suh, whatever you say suh!" attitude toward Presidents, please listen to the following clip that Milley gave in a speech during the chaotic last November 2020. The speech is pretty much intended as a communication to the Trump people and where the military stands on the election, because it's not your ordinary speech you give in a museum:



Armed forces typically don't have to acknowledge election results. That happened in the US in the last elections.That Milley was worried about the possibility of Trump launching a strike at the Chinese (or somebody) and questioning Trump's abilities just shows how much distrust there was between Trump and his military.

but in comparing him to other leaders worldwide, I don’t see it. It’s as simple as that. — NOS4A2

Then you don't want to look or simply refuse to look. There has been a few, one African president that refused to go after losing elections... and after a bit of insistence went out.

Who tried to kill the United States of America. — tim wood

Giving the finger to the Constitution and wanting to stay in power by whatever means isn't a way to kill a country. Have some trust in your country.

I think the really ominous sign was people like general Flynn who insisted that Trump should get the armed forces involved. Luckily Trump is just a bully and wouldn't really go through (or in his ineptness incapable of doing so.)

Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn on Thursday said that President Trump could deploy the military to “rerun” the 2020 election.

During an appearance on Newsmax’s “Greg Kelly Reports,” Flynn was asked about the actions the president could take to undo the results of the election.

After Flynn suggested that the president could seize every voting machine across the country, he then suggested deploying the military in swing states that the president lost to President-elect Joe Biden.

“He could order, within the swing states if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and basically rerun an election each in those states,” Flynn said.

Flynn, who has worked in special forces and has lead the Defense Intelligence Agency, are the kind of guys that you really have to look out for. They wouldn't fuck around (while Trump is all about fucking around). If given the power people like Flynn wouldn't just watch on TV how the events are happening after getting the people to march to the Capitol Hill as Trump did.

Yet that 9/11 moment of total strategic surprise has gone past and an autocoup, a form of coup d'état in which the leader of the state that has come to power through legal means, dissolves or renders powerless the national legislature and unlawfully assumes extraordinary powers, isn't going to be so easy anymore in the US.

All of it in the context of unjust political investigations and impeachment inquiries, not to mention the fevered media treatment unlike the world has ever seen, peering into every facet of his life. — NOS4A2

NOS, he was just an inept leader. Simple as that. A great commentator and could engage with his supporters yes, but the position wasn't for the Tweeter in Chief. That's not leadership. In that role, tweeting and engaging the public discourse he was great, at least Twitter was happy.

The polarisation these politicians thrive one can only exist in a society that supports it. The most important factor in that is how people get information. — Benkei

Information spreads in various ways. It has spread since history and likely much of it has been incorrect. Yet the cause of people getting angry about the present, the rise of populism isn't just how people get information.

It simply doesn't go like that. The simple fact is that if people are fine with their life, economically have no worries, the public sector works, they simply don't get angry just because of algorithms.

The specter of Trump’s fascism was already proven to be a canard — NOS4A2

Yep. As Trump didn't have any leadership skills, he couldn't do what he wanted to do. Hence the strange admiration of Putin and other authoritarian leaders.

It's not about the conspiracy theory per se. It's that if I look at a video of Mario Brothers, the next video suggested will be about Mario Brothers II and Mario Kart. Or if I look at a cute cat, I get another cat or perhaps a dog. etc. etc. It's the "targeted offering of information based on a persons behaviour" that I want to prohibit. So if I look at a cat the next video offered could be a documentary of war crimes in Vietnam in the 1960s instead another cat. — Benkei

Well, if I put "Conspiracy Theory" into Youtube, I'll get "Finland doesn't exist (Conspiracy Theory)". Yet basically this is basically how the internet works.

On most occasions that targeted offering is basically OK. And you can get the personalized searches off. And you can choose your friends and what they link to you. Yet I think that there's an internet that is full of garbage is the reason for this.

That the political environment is so toxic is far more to do with politicians and the political parties themselves. No need to make coalition governments means that you can be as mean and aggressive as possible towards other parties and it's a well known way to get people to vote your party. When actually there isn't much options for the voter to choose on.

How is this censorship? I'm just prohibiting Google from offering you another conspiracy theory video — Benkei

Define conspiracy theory video...to the goddam algorithms already present in our searches. Don't think that you could micromanage the issue far better.

I seriously think that large part of this problem can be solved by prohibiting any type of targeted advertisement, news, videos, links etc. and break the bubbles. I suspect that as a result most narratives will become more centrist, more "the average" etc. and people will be more readily confronted with opposing views, learn to deal with those views and talk about it with unlike minded individuals. — Benkei

You have to be very careful how to do this, because more censorship likely isn't the answer as likely many politicians aren't so inept as Trump, who hasn't been able to communicate so well as once off Twitter (as he of course has minimal leadership or organizational skills). It will likely just irritate people more.

There is the ugly path from political polarization to political violence, which then can become the "new normal" that further erodes the democratic process and strengthens calls for authoritarianism. You have had already prime example of political violence in the US, naturally with the Jan 6th riot, but also starting from the shooting incident of Gabrielle Giffords in 2011 and the other incident that happened at a congressional baseball game for charity in 2017 or the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. The shooter in the baseball shooting incident was actually an leftist terrorist. Luckily some of the Republican members had army medical training and could immediately give first aid to Scalice and the Capitol Police could pin down the terrorist that he couldn't continue firing at the congress members.

President Obama with Giffords after the shooting:


The real worrying sign is how little these incidents actually raised any debate about political violence. Of course this is very typical: political violence is a taboo. It happens only in "Banana-republics", not in civilized countries. And this is true both in Netherlands and Finland as in the US. For someone lets say going to a political demonstration and then getting killed or the event of a political assassination are not the things either the media or the political leadership want to remember. Nobody will admit it would be anything else than a extremely rare thing that doesn't have any links at all to the present political climate. The sad thing is that usual it does.

No, my fear is how bad it will have to become before Americans will admit that they do have a problem with violence. Because on the positive side, it really isn't yet a real problem, but all the hallmarks that it could be in the future are there. Yet again, things can also get better.

Pretty damning and in a way still missing the point. His solutions are still technocratic, a tweak here and there, but the problem seems now fundamental to me. — Benkei

If a person starts with:

with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. The warning signs may be obscured by the distractions of politics, the pandemic, the economy and global crises, and by wishful thinking and denial.

And then ends with:

Heading into the next election, it is vital to protect election workers, same-day registration and early voting. It will also still be necessary to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which directly addresses the state legislatures’ electoral power grab. Other battles — such as making Election Day a federal holiday and banning partisan gerrymandering — might better be postponed.

There is something obviously something out of touch. If you assume that there is a reasonable chance of mass violence and breakdown of federal authority, arguing about election technicalities is a bit strange. This is simply because with mass violence and breakdown of federal authority election technicalities don't matter.

If the US would be, as Kagan writes, "is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War", election technicalities aren't the answer. To do something about the polarization of politics is the problem. The political discourse is just spiraling out of control. It's like people are just waiting for the next clash to ensue. Who would want to join politics in this kind of political environment? Basically seeing part of the voting public as the problem won't help: it's a way to advance the polarization, encourage alienation and separation of the voting blocks. And naturally the right in the US has already for years has been on this path: the other side simply hasn't lousy policies, it's a mortal threat. And this drumbeat just continues.

Anyway, the next mid-terms will be ugly. Not a great start then for the 2024 elections.

That’s just not true. Biden is doing better than this time in the Trump presidency, by a decent amount. — Xtrix

Just for the record, the statistics here:



So @Xtrix is right, even if Joke Biden has taken a tumble. What for me is surprising that sometime nearly 50% approved Trump. But then it went down again...

what if the entire internet shut down for a day? What would the be most major impacts/consequences for the globe in this brief but major widespread return to a pre-globalised technological dark age? — Benj96

The media hype would be enormous. Once people would get back online. Ooh, the horror, the horror.

I suppose the Earth is due for another Carrington Event. — 180 Proof

Extended outages in the Electric grid, especially in winter, are far more dangerous than the whimsical issue that Facebook or Twitter being down. With failure of the electric grid at winter many relying on electricity for heating might die. And the industrialized farming would have its problems too.

But not an issue we could not handle. And afterwards we would just make our back up systems more reliable.

You’re saying that silencing opposition and controlling the truth may both be strategic power plays? — praxis

May be? I think they are quite obvious ways. Political power is to control how things are talked about and how people see the issues. It's not only about truth and lies, the discourse is important too.

And in the US of 2016, 2020, and god help us likely 2022 and 2024, the assumption that we collectively have common sense is open to question. 2020 we got by, but not by enough. How, short of trauma, is common sense restored? — tim wood

That is the real question here.

How do you assume that the polarization would stop? There really is the danger that the election of 2020 (and it's aftershocks) is going to be the new normal. I'm not seeing a way it would get better. Populism rules supreme.

Yes, that part of it is almost that simple. But the election itself is not. And if and when an electorate shows itself afflicted, are there to be no remedies? — tim wood

For a democracy to function sets demands for the citizens. Voters have to have some knowledge and especially interest in the collective decision making. The basis is that the majority of people do have common sense. That's all. And it works. Somehow. Not a perfect system, but still far more better than authoritarianism.

Yes, constitutions, minority rights and other issues are OK as "safety valves", yet if the electorate wants to imprison all red haired women as being dangerous witches, there go the redheads to prison. We assume that the majority of people do think that imprisoning women based on their hair color is a lunatic idea and hence nobody will come up with the idea and get majority support for it. We should see the real motivation when there are limitations to voting: usually they aren't from the fear that the voters would vote recklessly and "put female redheads to prison" or something similarly ludicrous.

Usually someone in power fears that by going to the simple "citizenship is 1 vote" idea would politically give them a political disadvantage. Hence for this reason, just to give one example, Puerto Ricans aren't given the right as US citizens to vote in Presidential elections as Puerto Rico isn't a state or part of any state, but a territory (and their representatives in the House don't have a vote). And this of course was very typical with other colonies...when European States had more of them as now.

You’re saying that you can’t tell truth from lies? — praxis

No.

I'll try to explain. So someone said this:

whatever they believe gains them some kind of advantage, regardless of what's said is true, so the basic strategy is not to silence opposition but to control the truth or reality. — praxis

To control the truth, or just force others the subjective truth is what Postmodernism views this thing. A power play.

What were the best years of your life, so far? — Bitter Crank

Was close to dying few years ago. Happy about every day afterwards that I can share with my children and even to write here on PF. My youngest child was then quite young, so she wouldn't have remembered much of me. Now she'll remember.

Best years? The present that we are living. Never doesn't get better than that. Best past years? When I was 12. Still a child and no worries, yet you could think and understand things and you remember things well. Before that sucking teenage time.

What kills is loneliness. You don't have motivation to live. Once all your friends have died, then it's bad. Then people can start question life and have the attitude, "Ok, that was it".

Seriously though, advocating for so-called voting competency tests is an all round terrible idea. — StreetlightX

I think it should start from things like felons would never lose their right to vote, even while they are incarcerated.

Citizenship should be enough for to have the right to vote.

I don’t know what you mean. — praxis

Postmodernism (and epistemology generally) distinguishes between subjective truths and objective truths. The former are statements about one’s individual experience of the world, while the latter comprise propositions supported either inductively or deductively. - postmodernism stresses the distinction between objectivity of facts, versus objectivity of knowledge or people. It accepts the possible existence of facts outside human context, but argues that all knowledge is mediated by an individual and that the experiences, biases, beliefs, and identity of that individual necessarily influence how they mediate any knowledge.

Finally, postmodernism criticizes individuals’ claims of objectivity via a critique of power. Specifically, it argues that the degree to which society accepts an individual’s claim of objectivity is directly proportional to that individual’s structural power.

That's the diplomatic way to say it. The other way to say this is that there aren't objective truths and it's all subjective truths and so I can make my own truths...because that's power.

It's all just a power game.

That kind of postmodern thought.

Deflated is far the more likely, certainly internationally. — tim wood

Yep. Likely this is the case.

But of course likely people will simply deny the facts and just accuse of others being naive. Deny all those rented cold storages that had to be used when the morgues were having problems to deal with the dead. And as now the health sector has adapted to fight the virus, who cares if the most deaths for instance in Florida happened this August, not last year?