When people refer to Maoist or Marxist or Nazi or whatever, they should really have the actual meaning of the word and use it as a pejorative adjectives. The Shining Path in Peru was truly a Maoist movement or the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency in India still is a real maoists movement.

Yet Taibbi does have a point.

And it's a point made by others here, that this "revolution" or "culture war" is instigated also top down. With Trump it's obvious, but part of it is true on the other side. And if a top seller book on the issue is written by a corporate hack that gets her money from consultancy on corporations on the issue, yes, there is a point to what Taibbi is saying.

And what to say, Americans love witch hunts.

Yes it was certainly a successful strategy in making advances in the hard sciences like physics. I do wonder if the strategy is as successful in economics? That's not a rhetorical question, I just don't know all that much about economics. — ChatteringMonkey

This is an interesting question and a bit different topic, so I reply to this separately.

Yes, economics has desired to become a "hard science" with using various fields of mathematics in depicting the complexity of economics. However I find that it is utterly incapable of reaching the objectivity we have in physics as the theories themselves have an influence how we think of economics and how we make our economic decisions. The problem is subjectivity, which has been also noted for example in sociology.

Economics, or at least part of classical economics often gets critiqued because it assumes some kind of hypothetical rational economic actor in its theories, when in fact we are not all that rational... and so the theories don't really apply to the real world. — ChatteringMonkey

First of all, being rational makes the case that we try to maximize our utility, whatever that is, which then gives of the ability to use mathematics in our models. But these models of course do have their limitations.

Doesn't some philosophy often make a similar mistake, especially in morality and justice to name a few... where we expect people to behave like rational (moral) actors. — ChatteringMonkey

Philosophy isn't interested just to explain how people are, philosophy wants to give answers how we should behave too and show how things for everybody would be better if we do so. There's always the normative side to philosophy.

But in the meanwhile, humans are still humans... and probably still have more or less the same desires, yet we expect them to be rational now and not desire revenge when deciding on what functions justice should serve? — ChatteringMonkey

How many of us would cherish "Individualist hedonism" as a school of philosophy, which strives for one's pleasure and sees empathy as bad and sociopathy, even psychopathy as good as a virtue? I guess that there would be people fitting this discription, so is it worth modelling the World with "individualist hedonism"?

Matt Taibbi explains it well:

It’s the Fourth of July, and revolution is in the air. Only in America would it look like this: an elite-sponsored Maoist revolt, couched as a Black liberation movement whose canonical texts are a corporate consultant’s white guilt self-help manual, and a New York Times series rewriting history to explain an election they called wrong.

Do you think the Davos and Bilderberg set DIDN'T plan to steal the wealth of the world? It just happened by accident? — fishfry

Firstly, they already own the World. Tell me the time when they or their predecessors didn't own it.

You and your companions, ordinary citizens, might have in your pension funds in aggregate the ownership of far more than the few billionaires, but that doesn't matter, it's the Davos people who sit at the board of those pension funds and various mutual funds. It's easier to invite to Davos Bill Gates than is to invite their 50 000 people who in whole owner far more than mr Gates. Besides, the executive people are there as employees without an employer, mainly. That's why they can pay themselves the astronomical salaries. The "owner" is that 2% paid in dividends, if even that is paid.

Secondly, do you think they care about anything else but getting themselves rich? I don't think that a person wanting to be an investment banker cares a shit about if the market collapses sometime in the future, all is good as long as he or she makes the money to put their children into Yale or Harvard and retire in that Mansion somewhere to play golf. In fact, many of them feel as much responsibility as you do about the economic situation, because they are just a cog in the wheel.

The fact is that speculative bubbles and financial crises do happen as they simply don't care. It's not an accident, it's just the train wreck that happens, it's taken as granted, because, who cares? Their job is to make money for themselves, not to worry about the society. The economy at large...that's for the politicians to handle. If the market collapses sometime, oh well, then better to get out before. And never underestimate socialism for the rich and the final backer of the whole system, the central banks.

The people who believe like Alex Jones or his leftist counterparts that it's all a conspiracy are the truly naive people, even if they call everyone else to being so blind. These people need desperately to make sense of the World and they desperately need their culprits. Someone to point their finger to be so utterly evil, that they have planned everything to go as things go. They simply cannot fathom that the truly large events happen without nobody deliberately having planned them. Nope, that's too much for them to understand.

I am aware that others think all this just happened by accident. It's no fluke that Harvard turns out a product like this young woman. And neither is the fact that the NYT is suddenly attacking Mt. Rushmore and the Fourth of July and the very founding principles of this great nation, flawed as it may be. It's no accident at all. That is my opinion — fishfry

Here I agree with you.

It seems like the US has this tendency to happily start ideological pogroms if they cannot burn people as witches anymore. Just take some issue that is wrong and evident to the vast majority to be so, and then in their virtue signalling people get a little carried away in the US. Somebody said earlier quite correctly that the culture war isn't something that has happened only now, it's something very dear to American culture since the start.

How would you define a subjective truth?

Something that is true for me, like I am at my countryside home in Finland and it's raining outside and that's not true to the place you are, isn't same thing as a subjective truth. The property of being in accord with fact or reality is objective.

Let's remember that objectivity is a philosophical concept of being true independently from individual subjectivity caused by perception, emotions, or imagination.

We know whoever it was is at least somewhat trustworthy; there really was intelligence on Russia offering bounties – intelligence that was reliable enough that measures were prepared. It's not a stretch to consider that they were correct about Trump knowing about this. — Michael

Trump already has said the whole thing is a hoax. Fake news, never happened. End of story.

And, btw, both Russia and the Taleban have denied it. So I guess we have to believe what they say. :roll:

Sure, you can have later, decades from now, even interviews with the GRU agents confirming this and confirming everything, but that doesn't matter. Then when you have multiple detailed histories done about the Trump administration (and believe me, there will be a ton of literature), everything will be even more clear as it's now. But who cares, it's just history then!

Oh really people hate the idea of consensus? I never heard of such a thing. Well the swell of social consciousness we are experiencing now is pretty awesome don't you think? I think I would rather be a part of it than oppose the good of consensus. — Athena

Well, my point was that the consensus that people have in things like "something has to be done to police brutality" is obviously important was responded with the following answer.

Wellcome to the new PF:

Why this obsession with consensus? Consensus is not a political value. It is completely agnostic as to whether things remain terrible, or whether things improve. Actually it's worse: insofar as the material situation is terrible, the call for 'consensus' is a call to stall change, to compromise on it, and to continue the shitty way things are. I mean it when I say: consensus is poison. Forget about it. Nobody wants 'consensus' with a society that kills black people at outrageous rates. Nobody but those brought up on Disney movies want that. Hell, even Disney movies kill their bad guys. Consensus is anti-political crap. — StreetlightX

plenty of ecological disasters are happening in the richer countries, and that the use of chemical fertilizers destroys the microorganisms in soils, which then can only be replaced slowly over many years by mulching. — Janus

Yes, you can see the change in the attitudes in the use of chemical fertilizers from from the 1950's and 1960's as then what was overlooked was the impact the use has in the greater system, as fertilizers then would be transferred from the fields to small streams and rivers finally to the ocean, which would have huge impacts on maritime ecology. Basically I see one of the biggest problems was turning from crop rotation (and having fields in fallow) to single crop year-to-year agriculture and with heavy use of fertilizer. This kind of simplistic input-output thinking is one cause.

Yet at least in the wealthier countries these issues can be solved. The emergence of local and organic food markets and organic food in general show that the wants of the buyers do mold the supply and if the political establishment does something about the environmental issues, changes can happen.

But back to the subject, the main question is if we can feed a population of +10 billion without totally devastating the environment. Famines have gone down and become more rare, which is very promising, yet we have to remember just how rapid has this transformation been. My country suffered it's last great famine only 152 years ago, which killed many times more people than WW2 or the civil war and was one of the last major famines in Europe. 150 years is still a short time in human history.

(Food distribution during the great famine of 1866-1868 in Finland. Note that the people and the children have arrived to the event in their best sunday clothes. About 150 000, perhaps 200 000, died then which was roughly 10% of the population. Now the problem is obesity.)

Just to recap, here's in a nutshell a good clip on just what is the problem with policing in the US compared to other countries from CBS news. Many of the issues that have already come up in the discussion a) amount of firearms in the us b) police being heavily armed and ready to use weapons c) lack de-escalation tactics in training d) lack of other services than police e) politicized police unions.

Can you state your conclusion, and the steps by which you reach it? And where is the subjectivity that you mention? — A Raybould

I'll try to explain again.

1) You can make write whatever kind of response here on PF, right? There is no limitations on what you can write. (The administrators might delete your answer or ban you, but that is a different matter)

2) I will make the argument that there exist responses that A Raybould will never write on PF.

3) Can you then write a response that A Raybold will never write? No, you cannot. Because of being yourself A Raybold (hence the subjectivity). You yourself define not only those responses that you write, but there will be an infinite set of responses that you don't write, which is also defined by you. Do you see the negative self reference?

Because the history since before Eisenhower has been - mostly - Democrats being the good guys — tim wood

Before Eisenhower?

Weren't Democrats the one's that came up with the great idea of the Confederacy?

Or how about quotes from Democrat President Woodrow Wilson:

Segregation is not humiliating, but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.

In the matter of Chinese and Japanese coolie immigration, I stand for the national policy of exclusion. We cannot make a homogenous population out of people who do not blend with the Caucasian race… Oriental Coolieism will give us another race problem to solve and surely we have had our lesson.

There's your democrats! Better than Trump? Great guy. :roll:

I can't assist you as much as I'd like. I can't quite get it right when it comes to who said what but I can tell you, with some confidence, that there's a subjectivity-objectivity issue people seem mighty concerned about regarding consciousness. — TheMadFool

Obviously it's so when studying consciousness.

Yet Ernst Nagel was a logical positivist, hence he as a philosopher that knew his math & logic. He did a wonderful little book about Gödel's incompleteness theorems. If Nagel refers to proofs here, that is the really interesting part. I would bet five dollars that he's talking about a proof equivalent to a mathematical proof. Because indeed proving something is indeed something objective. A subjective proof sounds not only like an oxymoron, but something deeply illogical in general philosophy: me and you simply cannot have separate truths, truths that are true only to one but not the other (yeah, I know, we live in a time of post-truth or whatever).

Why am I so interested in the issue from the focus of math & logic? Well, if one can show it in mathematics, that's a very clear language to show it. And Turing was a mathematician.

(Well, if you remember some literature where you got the quote, please tell it.)

Our democracy is open to change by reason and consensus. We do not need to change that. We need to read and talk and realize what has gone wrong and how to right that wrong. — Athena

Some people hate here the idea of consensus changing the democracy. Too bourgeois, I guess.

So from the links we can learn one concrete thing: stay away from lasers!!! :mask:

Well, start from the fact that NOBODY knows what actually infinity is, so don't be too harsh on yourself. :up:

It's not entirely straightforward to come up with a definition of what's alive and what's dead; there is some disagreement over whether viruses are truly living, and defining the exact point of death of a complex organism is not a simple matter. — A Raybould

Sure, but it's easier than defining consciousness and what is conscious and what isn't. Doctors have some kind of definition that they apply on the issue.

Even if we accept that mathematics models reality extremely well, it does not follow that every mathematical entity models some aspect of reality. — A Raybould

Not every, but true but unprovable mathematical objects could be useful. At least in explaining what the problem we face is.

I am not convinvced that you simply cannot make an objective model about something that is inherently subjective. — A Raybould

Ok, I'll use from math/set theory negative self reference and Cantor's diagonalization to make an example.

a) Reply to my post with an answer that you "A Raybold" will never give.

b) Do such answers exist as in a)?

Naturally you cannot give any answer that never give, but obviously as life is finite there obviously are answers or remarks that you, A Raybold, don't give. Notice the 1) subjectivity and the 2) negative self reference. Notice that in Turing's example of the Turing Machine and that it never halts, the logic behind it is of negative self reference too.

I do remember reading this paper on how ready various countries are to face a pandemic (done some years ago) and it basically gave the highest marks for the US. It's in the net, but I don't remember it now to give a link.

But who would have known that primary rudimentary actions to prevent a pandemic from spreading, like trying to contain it at start, wearing face masks, would become a deely political issue? Perhaps few that follow US politics closely would have forecasted that, but they don't work on the medical field. Besides, they would have had it difficult in making the argument that all the premade plans done years ago in multiple administrations would be put aside at the crucial time when a global pandemic strikes.

I don't know enough to say but as far as I can see this question can be resolved with simple set theory alone - if my ideas are coherent that is. — EnPassant

Well, Russell himself use Type Theory and basically Zermelo-Fraenkel Set Theory (ZF) was made basically to avoid Russell's paradox. If you find your ideas resembling theirs, you can be proud of yourself.

I can tell, Nagel made a big deal of consciousness being just too subjective to be objectivity-friendly.Since proofs are objective in character, it appears that consciousness can't be proven to an other for that reason. Nonetheless, to a person, privately, consciousness is as real as real can get. — TheMadFool

Wow.

Well, he's right on that thing. Because it is genuinely a problem about subjectivity and objectivity. Or to put it another way: the limitations of objectivity. And proving something has to be objective. You simply cannot make an objective model about something that is inherently subjective.

Can you give reference where Nagel said that? It would be interesting to know.

I think you are alluding to the Lucas-Penrose argument aganst the possibility of there being algorithms that produce minds. — A Raybould

No, just the basic mathematics in Turings answer on the Entscheidungsproblem with his Turing Machine argument. Above was talking about mathematical conjectures.

The fact is that there exists unprovable conjectures, even if they are either true or false.

Specifically, I am not sure what it would mean to say that conciousness is provable - what is the premise that one would be proving? — A Raybould

Let me try to explain.

We can agree on the definition what is an living organism and what isn't and when an organism lives or is dead. Do we agree on a clear definition on what consciousness is? I don't think there is a clear definition to that. We don't know what it is and philosophers find it puzzling and controversial. Just look at everything what has been written about consciousness.

Now a little thought experiment:

a) Let's assume that mathematics models reality extremely well: hence mathematical conjectures and objects can as models of reality tell us something about reality.

b) In mathematics there are unprovable, but true objects. The problem is of course that we can not give a direct proof about them (or calculate or compute them). We can give only an indirect proof: it cannot be so, that they wouldn't be true.

c) Assume these unprovable, but true objects do model our reality also. What would they look like?

BLM can be great way to vent the anger into something useful...assuming something would be done. I just think things likely won't go well.

Just remember that many were arguing prior to COVID-19 that the US would have the best ability to respond and tackle a global pandemic.

A dip for the wealthy hits a lot harder than a dip for the poor. That's what your statistics don't show you. — Wheatley

Which is shown with the gini coefficient or the gini index, as I stated.

And the real question is, when has this income inequality gone down? It has you know, in the US from at least 1850 to 1960.



And to understand what that gini coefficient means (if you didn't read the link I gave) it is that if everybody has the same amount of wealth (true communism), it's 0 and if Bill Gates has everything and everybody else nothing, it's 1 (or 100, if we use percentages). And of course the history is that dirt poor farmers and urban dwellers have gotten more prosperous since 1850 in the US, but then after 1960 or so wealth hasn't been distributed is similar fashion as before. Yet with income inequality you have to take into account actual absolute povetry. You see, if Bill Gates moved to Finland the gini coefficient/index would spike up, but we wouldn't be worse off from that.

But isn't the real question here, that in some certain cases there is no way for us to prove / compute if a conjecture is either true or false? Wasn't this what Turing showed in the first place?

That mathematics, to be logical, has to have unprovable statements, which still are either true or false.

And hence, it would be perhaps provable that consciousness is unprovable.

My argument is to define X without X as a subset of itself regardless of whether it can or can't be such. In this way the paradox is avoided by defining a set that contains 'All sets...' but not X. X is then included in X2 and the paradox is avoided. The same argument is then applied to X2, X3... The result is that the 'Set of all...' is really an infinity of sets each containing the other. — EnPassant

What's the difference to Russell's Type theory?

Speaking of culture war. According to Trump the US is under attack from "far left fascism". I suppose, in the case of the US, it's a nice change of pace that after years of right wing fascism (under the guise of deregulation and austerity for welfare) that we now get left wing fascism. — Benkei

Fascism is just a swear word these days. Remember the "Islamofascists" of the Dubya years.

I guess I'm all for left wing fascism then. — Benkei

If you like this time, how much worse would it have to get to change your mood? Because things may be worse in the fall. I cannot see the elections anything else but polarizing, nasty and a huge confusion. Of course there is the possibility that Trump is so bad that he actually unifies the country in opposing him. Yet, well, might not happen.

The standard length of unemployment benefits is six months in the US and the record unemployment started in late March, so come November and Americans will have a problem. States now having to close restaurants and etc. because of the rampant pandemic doesn't look like the US heading for a V-shaped recovery. This all will have an effect on what we call the "culture war" and likely even on the protests against police brutality.

But by all means look up the stats on wealth distribution through the last recession, to check. — unenlightened

Why don't we do that:

Here's statistics from the last economic downturn, the so-called Great Recession / Financial Crisis:



Notice what happens to the wealth of the top 10% between 2007 to 2010? It comes down. This small and as I stated before, statistical event, happens when stock market and housing prices go down. But it's a passing moment. The Gini index measures wealth inequality and you can notice the small drop when the country goes into economic recession (which officially happens later when the change has already happened). Once the bottom is reached, the unemployed stay unemployed longer, but asset prices start to rise anticipating the coming economic upturn.

Yes. But this is the way the current discourse goes in the "culture war". Nobody cares to actually read what others are saying, but try to look at how it can be interpreted in the worst way possible to further one's own agenda.

Like the Devil reading the Bible, as a Finnish saying goes.

I don't know about those specific cases, but generally agricultural practices are leading to deforestation, destruction of habitat, species extinctions and soil degradation; that's the point. — Janus

The worst ecological catastrophes happen in the poorest countries. For example Jared Diamond has written extensively very readable books about this. Prosperous societies with effective institutions do take care far better of their environment than countries with weak or non-existent institutions. To prevent things like of soil degradation has been known for ages as simply having fields not being cultivated, but to stay on fallow for a season or two. And modern agriculture is changing from the 1960's type of thinking that degradation can be solved by simply fertilizers and crop rotation isn't necessary. Same is the understanding on how to prevent desertification. People surely understand what is needed to be done in general, but if you are poor and need to feed your family...

Example of a border between two countries. One is poorer than the other.

I haven't denied that humans can be ingenious or that technology exists, so again, I'm not seeing your point. — Janus

To state that humans can be ingenious and technology can advance isn't same as to say that every obstacle can be solved by human ingeniounity and technology, so no need to worry.

Where is that quote from? — Benkei

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

As it continues with fostering a queer-affirming networks, I don't think this has anything to do with marxism, but just with modern leftist/progressive views, which obviously aren't the main agenda. (And no, I don't believe that this is some "transformed" cultural marxism, just as I believe in that racism is what it meant a decade or two ago.)

Yes, who cares about economics when we have great literature. Just like during wartime, only a few mass wealth even if depressions are times when capital changes ownership.

It depends how it's managed. 2008 was a record profit year for many. As is this one. — fdrake

Usually the best year is when the economic downturn begins. I doubt 2009 was so great.

Non-violent protest is preferable if it's effective but violent protests is preferable if nonviolent means are ineffective when pursuing justice. — Benkei

And are they ineffective?

4. the people have a just cause, they get the support they need, change is affected (race riots of the 60s). — Benkei

Is it really the race riots? I think the vast amount of legislation ending segregation and Jim Crow was given before the worst riots, which were sparked by the assassination of Martin Luther King. You should tell us why my understanding that the Civil Rights movement was mainly non-violent resistance is wrong.

However, if corporate America and half of the politicians think "taking a knee", no longer casting "white people" to voice "black cartoon characters", or no longer having "master bedrooms" and all the other symbolic bullshit happening is "making a difference" then they sure as hell deserve a molotov cocktal through their window at some point. — Benkei

Hence the focus of the protest has to be focused on real issues and actual legislation, not the "culture war" stupidities.

Just look up how many kids died in Iraq due to lack of medicine resulting from the sanctions. But that's perfectly fine because it respected property, right? — Benkei

UN sanctions on Iraq and Saddam Hussein's regime are a bit off this topic in my view.

I hope you are right, but your post in general sounds like wishful thinking and fantasy national virtue. I very much fear there will be a blood bath, because economically it will suit the monied class. — unenlightened

An economic depression doesn't suit the monied class. It's a statistical fact that during economic depression and downturns income inequality narrows (meaning the rich aren't getting so much as before). Of course that statistical narrowing of inequality is meaningless as when poor people loose their small income, it matters far more than a millionaires losing 20% of their income.

A bloodbath? The issue was far more explosive in the 20th Century as there really was existing laws on segregation and overt political opposition. Let's remember that Eisenhower had to deploy the army to ensure that local authorities abide with the rulings. And in the end the country did experience high level political assassinations.

Now look at how peacefully the CHOP/CHAZ was cleared. Where's the huge outcry about the eviction? If there was a huge outcry about it, it isn't reported on mainstream media. And did the police face opposition or sniper fire? Of course not. The protests are basically non-violent: nobody is willing to take lives and give their life away if necessary as in a true conflict situation or war. We just tweet these days very angrily, luckily.

Police dispersed protesters in Seattle's Capitol Hill Occupation Protest (CHOP) area and arrested at least 31 people on Wednesday after an emergency order by Mayor Jenny Durkan. Hundreds of police officers worked afterward on cleaning up the area

Which does tell about the situation (if it really has gone that way). First the mayor of Seattle was talking about "the summer of love" referring to the site, which I find a bit condescending, but then it seems that the turn came when the protesters dared to protest at her house in the middle of the night, so soon came the order to empty the area without Trump getting involved at all. Which shows just how much "on side" the democratic politicians are with the protests. Likely officially the reason was the homicides that happened there, but I tend to think disturbing the mayor was the key.

And sorry, but I fail to see the US at the cusp of a civil war, even if things can get worse in America. The incoming elections likely are very nasty and I think that in the following political turmoil lives are going to be lost, so it's pretty gloomy. That people start to roam the streets in vigilante groups and start shooting each other is a possibility, even if it's unlikely. Hurricane Katrina is a good example of how thin the line is.

(Yes, it can get ugly. Picture of an incident in New Mexico last month where a vigilante group faced of protesters.)

Don't you think that pulling down statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln would perfectly fit to the situation of a culture war? — Number2018

Oh, it's fits perfectly a culture war! But so do the protectors of the statues, who think that officials will do absolutely nothing to protect public statues, and that they have to create patrols to defend the cultural heritage of the nation from anarchists. Perhaps not Mt Rushmore, but other places...

And we could start/continue it here too!

We could start a huge fight about it here in the PF. And then, by the standards of how the culture war is fought, the discussion should degenerate to personal insults and end in someone getting banned. And that banning then would be seen as "cancel culture" and PF being taken over one side or the other (depending on the viewer, likely).

Anyway this thread's concern was predominately to do with the industrial agricultural practices which are destroying soils and claiming ever more forest, and which have to continue as long as the population even just remains where it is, and all the more the more it increases. — Janus

And is this happening in the Netherlands? Does Netherlands have a huge environmental crisis because of it's agriculture? Is Finland destroying it's forests? If I recall correctly, the first legislation to prevent excessive and unrestricted forest cutting was issued in the 17th Century here.

Your dream of human ingenuity and technology triumphing is, I believe nothing more than a fantasy — Janus

Or simply mentioning that human ingenuity and technology exists seems to be too much here.

It comes very naturally to us to indulge in wishful thinking; you only have to look at the history of religions to see that. — Janus

It comes very naturally to us to indulge in pessimism; you only have to look at the history of religions to see that.

(Just think how many Christians are waiting for Doomsday to come)

Do you really think that someone pushing an agenda that you don't agree with thinks he or she is pushing injustice? That someone surely thinks it's the just cause.

Besides, what African Americans have given to the United States is that they have pushed the Union to truly live up to it's ideals and core values that the country was founded on. For many countries their constitution is just letters in a formal paper that has no resemblance to reality and no meaning other than being an empty lithurgy, which the country's citizens likely have no idea of even existing. Not so for Americans. Some cannot be more equal than others, only in George Orwell's famous depiction of the Soviet Union they can, but not in the United States.

African Americans did not achieve the ending of segregation through a violent revolt, but through the Civil rights movements using nonviolent resistance campaigns, which indeed was so successful, that the country took the movement as part of it's own cultural heritage to be cherished and remembered.

Today that push for a more just US that would live up to it's values even better could be continued with opposing police brutality and the whole legal system, or what has become of it. Nonviolent means will be far more effective means to do this in a deeply polarized country bursting with guns and which is hell bent on transforming into a police state from a justice state as a huge security apparatus already exists in the country.

How would you define the unfolding
event in the US? — Number2018

Let's remember that Presidential elections are the silly season in the US when this discourse spills out of the normal political commentating ring (talk radio, right wing/ liberal & progressive channels). US politics is obsessed with values, morality and lifestyle, so naturally some debate in the culture war realm would be invented. But now you not only have a populist president, but a very incompetent populist president, which just makes things even worse. Populism itself seeks to divide people to "us" and "them" us being the ordinary people and them being the filthy elites.

If this wasn't bad, add into the toxic stew a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, which has not only killed well over a hundred thousand in the US and is strong and well and spreading in the country, but also put the US and the World into one of the worst economic depressions ever.

So what better time to pull down a statue of George Washington and set in on fire.

Weee...culture wars!!!

I'd laugh at this tragicomedy if it only would stay as it is.
But likely it will be even worse. If you think this is the low point, you will be surprised how more low and stupid it can get.

I think mining the ocean floor is a pipe dream. — Janus

Think so? Let me ask you that after a decade, if we still would be here on this forum. Far more realistic than mining asteroids. (For those interested, here is a link about the subject done by Greenpeace.)

whales can come back in a relatively short time; not so minerals and fossil fuels. — Janus

And my point is that they aren't ending soon, and the price mechanism and technology will mean that some are simply going to be replaced by others. Let's remember that Saudi Arabia hasn't gone to dig up shale oil. Yet, that is. But now is starting itself on the shale boom: Saudi Aramco launches largest shale gas development outside U.S.. For fracking they are using sea water.

Culture wars is a trap that we have fallen in for.

It's a way to make everybody a moron and let people go fighting their strawmans. Even the name "Culture wars" makes hubristic claims of a war going on. The portrayal of the "enemy" is the most stupid thing in this war. For one side it the "marxists" and for the other it "fascists" and the "1%".

As if really, we genuinely would be living in the 1930's. But what better way to beat two dead horse again and again.

I am defending the principle that damage to property is traditional and justifiable form of protest that has worked to change things — unenlightened

Direct action and using violence has worked. Creating economic losses has surely worked. War works. Someone's freedom fighter is another one's terrorist, as the saying goes. Just remember when you say something is "traditional and justifiable", using that method then is so also for someone pushing an agenda you vehemently oppose.