No, but many countries have religious bias of one kind or another. And that's just one factor. Political ideology is a more compelling one. Pretty much the whole world has been trending rightward since the 1980's. The most pervasive influence, however, is the commercial one. Persuading the consumer to buy things, wars, the status quo, attitudes and opinions is good for the top economic layer. And they're global. — Vera Mont

The clearest increase from the 1980s is probably the rise of neoliberalism and individualism. The attention to what things that matters to people change with that as they're more focused on self-expression of the ego rather than values and opinions in relation to the world around. The notion of the collective, of being part of something might fuel a need for knowledge in relation to that, but knowledge for the self only extends to what benefits the self, and thus expands over into interests. What interests people today are not big ideas about existence in relation to others and the world around, and instead more about the self and only the self as the end point of any knowledge.

Through that individualistic value, reading isn't interesting if it's not for the benefit of the self. Only that which emotionally aligns will be read, and therefor text that expands knowledge, challenge ideas and norms gets ignored. Reading a lot often relies on being open to new ideas, and if being open like that has diminished culturally, then interest in reading has diminished as well. Maybe the rise of social media has only been a catalyst and fuel onto a fire that was lit in the 80s? Algorithms that push the exact psychological profile of the ego that doesn't care about much else than the self.

For example, I want to know some details about Sweden. If I searched on Wikipedia, I would discover basic info such as the capital city, GDP, extension, etc. But if I decide to take a book of Scandinavian studies, my knowledge about Sweden will be deeper, better, and higher in quality. Sadly, it seems that people only want to focus on the surface. — javi2541997

Yes, good knowledge requires perspective out of a larger amount of information from many sides of a topic. We can read short notes on politics and history of a nation, but that doesn't mean we actually understands that nation, the spirit of the people, what they believed or how history played out. Reading detailed and longer stories about people in a nation can give a lot more insight into what that nation is about than a Wikipedia page -- it's like the difference between walking down a tourist street buying commercialized trash with the nation's flag on them, and go into a bar in a less known district to chat with locals.

I think emojis are a good internet tool. I like to use them—you can perceive that I use them a lot on TPF. — javi2541997

I think my lack of using them on this forum makes me look more serious and harsh than I really am :sweat:

they should read texts and do poetry. But for real. Not just to pass exams. — javi2541997

Yes, this is a problem. There's a lot of research done on children learning, but many schools form curriculums and policy out of ideals and personal values rather than following what the science says. Like one basic thing is smaller classes. It's a well proven thing to increase the quality of education for each child, but politicians and schools are extremely bad at adjusting this. Increasing the funding for schools, increasing the salary for teachers and pushing for more teachers will make for smaller classes.

Otherwise we get these shortcut strategies in which everything is studied for exams because that can be scaled up rather than making sure each student get enough help to actually learn grammar.

But this is also on the parents. Shoving an iPad into the hands of kids rather than spending time with them, reading stories to them, engaging in their imagination etc. will only produce consumers who cannot contribute or engage socially or intellectually.

Furthermore, let's be honest. People always valued science over language. It is a terrible mistake, in my opinion. — javi2541997

I would say that it's terrible in the form of language being extremely important in order to understand science. People won't understand science if they don't have enough language skills to communicate it. The why when doing science can sometimes become abstract, otherwise there would only be two types, the ones who don't understand anything in science and those who can only follow protocol.

So language is a basis for everything and understanding it fully and in complex ways enrich all other knowledge.

We—the millennial generation—are guilty, not just education and culture. I would like to know if you were thinking about a private or public educational system, or if this is not relevant at all. — javi2541997

I would put blame on all parents from the mid 80s until now. It's the broader culture that forms the values that dictate how parents take care of their children and what pressure is put on schools.

I don't think private or public education matters so much, even though private education can be pressured more by obnoxious parents. And that's a big problem as well. Parents have been getting more power in controlling schools, putting pressure on schools not to give bad grades to their child. This type of helicopter parenting culture has been rampant over the last decades and it makes the children get less out of the education.

It takes a village to raise a child, as it's said. Parents need to understand that schools are part of nurturing the children and that also goes for abiding to rules and structure of school. Primarily, this is an underrated aspect of what a school is. It's basically a micro-cosmos of society, with citizens, laws and obligations. That structure forms self-disciplin, to function within society. If parents erodes this to push for their children to be treated "special", then those kids will be unfit to function in society.

I think that flows into the discipline of learning as well. If you don't form a basic disciplin, why form a disciplin of using language for communication? Instead, that leads to using language as merely expression, which is what internet-lingo is more than functional communication.

If language is always pure subjective expression rather than communication, it does not need proper grammar or structure, and I think that's a major part in what is happening here.

The more time children spent looking at moving pictures, the less they read. — Vera Mont

Not necessarily, as seen in this study. I don't think TV as a passive medium is much of a problem, it's been around for long. The problem is the incentive to read and the ability to spend time focusing on it. Parents shove iPad's into their children's lap in early ages and keeps doing it whenever the child is bored and restless. But it's this restless and bored state that is where the interest in reading needs to grow. Reading stories to them, spending time with them writing and using text. But the children also needs to be able to handle boredom, and not constantly be put into a passive state.

Meanwhile, teachers had classes of 35 and more students, due to the post war baby boom; they were required to take courses in the new methods in their spare time; they were expected to lead extracurricular activities and supervise lunchrooms, schoolyards, sporting events and dances, and their routine paperwork tripled inside of a decade. When were they supposed to provide extra help for the slower students? — Vera Mont

Yes, this is something that research have showed is one of the biggest problems and also one of the easiest to solve if society took this more serious. As I mentioned to Javi above, smaller classes is a must. All children are different in their timing for certain abilities and just increasing class sizes just makes for generalizing everything and mostly focusing on mass tests for grades rather than spending more time with each child.

If society can't gather around the finer details of educational complexity, then at least put some money into making classes smaller. It's obvious all over educational research.

As the general population's reading and math skills declined, news and public affairs outlets adjusted their vocabulary, the structure of their articles and the level of detail in their reports. Over time, information was gradually reduced to generalities and sensations. Schools, too, had to lower their standards in order to keep promoting students, up and out to make room for the new ones.

Since states are in charge of setting curriculum and administer the main funding of schools, poor states and poor neighbourhoods have poor public schools. Additionally, as the standard of living of low-paid workers stagnates or declines, parents have less time to spend with their children; there is little privacy in cramped homes to do homework, and books are generally absent. — Vera Mont

Yeah, this is a downward spiral. We don't see much of this up here in Scandinavia since there's a great deal of welfare systems mitigating low-income family's problems, but the gradual reduction of language complexity in official use of language is a global phenomena.

We must be careful not to mix together the evolution of language over time with a decline in complexity though. It's easy to look at new ways of using language and think it's getting worse, but language used in news outlets show something else and that's, as you mention, the decline in complexity in its substance. It's more sensational, more descriptive than contemplating. It doesn't put events reported on, in more complex context, instead generalizing. Only in investigative journalisms and carefully crafted essays do we find a better curated use of language, but those parts are rarely read by the casual reader and is more common for the intellectual reader, who's already well-versed in reading and writing.

A major thing to keep in mind is that the decline is broad, over many cultures. It's easier to understand the mechanics in places like the US, in which privatization generally forms understandable reasons for why reading and writing declines, but in nations like those in Scandinavia, we also see these declines in reading and writing, without the same kind of societal problems.

So there's a global cultural reason for why this is happening and it's increasing faster than before, meaning in historical context children did comparably well until the rise of internet and social media.

The primary thing I can see is how language is used outside of school. It both affects the ability to learn more advanced language in school, while that knowledge expands into the private sphere outside of school. They're interlinked for the holistic quality of language in a person.

As the religious factions push for less science and more scripture; conservative local governments and school boards ban or reject more and more books, and forbid the discussion of a range of disapproved topics, bar critical thinking instruction and unrevised history courses, there is a homogenization of thought which doesn't require analysis or comprehension of complex ideas.

A polity that thinks in slogans and jingles is easier to control than one that arms itself with facts. — Vera Mont

While I agree, it doesn't explain the broader decline globally, since not all cultures share the same level of religious conservatism.

The intelligence of a collective group or population can change. This has been discovered by historians. Reading comprehension, depth in understanding, and ability to construct complex written or spoken narratives can be undermined by technology, among other things.
So, then the question becomes, can a reduced intelligence be the cause of a downfall of a culture? Yes! We've seen over histories that cultures/kingdoms had risen, reached their glorious era, then vanished — L'éléphant

One thing I'm usually promoting is that society needs to return to valuing science, expertise, knowledge and wisdom. That we treat knowledge and the knowledgeable as virtuous and something to reach and achieve, something that people look up to. The post-truth ideals going around has much to do with the poorly educated and less intelligent to lose faith in the wise in society. So no one cares to become wise, no one cares about gaining knowledge because there's no status in doing so. And there's no wonder they think like this since the ones running society are usually scammers tricking people into believing they have knowledge when they don't, and the disappointment when these scammers fail people over and over makes people lose trust. This lost trust ends up making collateral damage onto the perception of knowledge and the actually wise.

The people do not have to be intelligent to function as a society, they just need to understand how to spot who's intelligent, knowledgeable and wise from who's a scam artist playing that role.

And if people gain trust in the wise again, then knowledge will gain popularity and be something people want to pursue.

What society as a whole needs is to get rid of the post-truth scam artists eroding the status of knowledge. The media literacy of being able to understand who's who and not fall for scammer narratives is key to healing society's relation to knowledge.

4 years of this clownshow and people will be begging for literally anything else. Which is good. — Mikie

Problem with that is that then the Democrats won't make much effort to do anything and we will have four years after that both cleaning up after Trump and not doing politics that actually benefit the people.

Democrats need a strong counter to what Trump offers, not in "spirit", but in actual work. As mentioned earlier, Bernie had the support of the people, so that's a good hint at what type of Democrat the people actually want. They now have four years to find and build up a candidate that can inhabit his abilities and policies. Form a good marketing campaign for it and tour around listening to people who will get screwed by Trump politics.

A good video on the subject of how society transforms into post-truth. As I've mentioned, the key is the erosion of truth within society more than the language of its leaders. Post-truth language from leaders only works if the definition of truth has already eroded away. You cannot defeat what you cannot define.

Flexible governments survive where rigid ones fail. — frank

Yes, but I didn't say government, I said system, as in the system that protects the democratic process. Rigid enough so that no one could overthrow the system just by being elected.

It's strikes me as very strange that you think you're a supporter of democracy when you think people are too gullible to make their own choices. — frank

People are gullible to make choices if manipulated. Real choices are reliant on truth and honesty from the people giving out that choice. This gullible nature has been established by enough research into both psychology and social psychology. If we can agree on this being true about people, especially in social groups, then it should be obvious that for democracy to function as it is intended, there shouldn't be any possibilities of political actors to manipulate this gullible nature and instead force politicians to stand by truth and facts.

If all political agents do this, then we focus society to democratically function by the idea of Wisdom of Crowds. Rather than become a demagogy.

It is naive to not recognize the gullible nature of people while forming protections against those wanting to destroy democracy. Otherwise we risk being blind to those who use democracy to destroy democracy.

Maybe. Monarchy is a very robust form of government, even more so when linked to a state religion. We'll pretty much all go back to monarchies as climate change sets in. Democracy is just a tool. It's not a good in itself. — frank

Democracy is a form of power. The problem is that people can only think in binary or extreme forms. It's either authoritarian or it is democratic etc. We are either under full control of one or a few or we are absolutely under the tyranny of the gullible morons of the masses. But I don't think that is true at all, that kind of absolutist thinking is for the shallow simple minded people who think in polarized forms.

Democracy is far better than authoritarian systems as the authoritarian systems easily becomes corrupted or form abuse of power. But democracy needs to have a system that does not collapse onto itself. It needs to get rid of grifters and manipulators, get rid of psychopaths and power hungry career politicians. The only politicians who should be allowed in such halls of power should be those with absolute interest in caring for the people, humanity and society. Anyone of them who's just there to gain their own power should be defeated in a show of societal force that prevents people to even dare to try and seize power.

It should be dangerous as hell to try and seize power in such a system. To the point of absolute annihilation. If that is true for all in such a society, then no one can wield power for their own benefit against anyone, and society truly governs itself with representatives rather than individuals.

I'm not sure why you think this. All ancient democracies ended in tyranny. What makes you think we would be different? — frank

Not sure what you mean, I'm agreeing with you on the point of people craving for a form of tyranny. As long as that tyranny takes the shape of being on their side it is an alluring idea for the simple minded ones.

I would say though, that there is one form of tyranny that is required even though people have problems with handling the parameters of such ideas. And that's the tyranny against intolerance and anti-democracy. I think that there should be an absolute intolerance against even the slightest notion of change that does not aim to improve democracy and the quality of it. Any attempt by an individual or small group to increase their own power outside of democratic means should be a straight to jail situation. A rigid form of system that can only be changed by a large amount of all its citizens, say 90% of all people need to be behind it to make substantial changes. Because any change that is substantial cannot be by the tyranny of the minority.

In such a system, Trump would be removed long before he's even close to running for president, by the reason of how he talked about the US and its politics alone. If any politician even utters any form of anti-democratic idea to the public they should be disqualified and banned from halls of power.

I'm of the opinion that a government should be run by only the competent and one way to make sure of it is to ban anyone who can't form policy and politics that aren't for the benefit of the people and the nation. They need to show that they are stable individuals who work as actual representatives of their voters for the purpose of steering the ship with confidence and not malice. If people are angry about something, it does not help them whatsoever to align with someone who wants to basically take their voting power away from them. Sorry to say, but people are generally gullible and stupid and the only way to guarantee that they don't shoot themselves in the foot is to make sure that there's never ever any candidate who can take advantage of their gullible nature.

If people cannot imagine a society in which both freedom of speech, and an intolerance against the anti-democratic authoritarians can co-exist, then they're not really thinking beyond the shallow.

I think it might be you who discounts the possibility of a US dictatorship, not Americans. A lot of Americans want it now. — frank

What I meant was that the idea of speed running society to preferable changes by overthrowing democracy is what childish minds think leads to a better world. I'm not saying that such childish minds exist all over society, but it says something about the knowledge and intelligence of the population if such ideas remain into adulthood.

Well, so far he is not the president. Although it is within the powers of the office, his choice of people like Gaetz, Kennedy, and Musk, and threats to remove military leaders who are not sufficiently "loyal" crosses a line. Replacing people who are competent and can serve as a check against his self-serving interests and destructive tendencies with people who are not but are willing to do whatever he wants is crossing a line. — Fooloso4

Exactly, the line seems to exist all over the place, pushed and pulled by the preferences of the one evaluating its placement. But the interesting thing is when a line gets crossed that fully rally the people against an authoritarian leader.

When I hear Trump "joke" about a third term, I'm thinking of the movie Civil War in which part of the reason why that fictional conflict started was both the president dismantling the FBI and going for a third term. It eerily echoes what Trump is talking about. As I said, he's most of the time just bullshitting for likes and attention, it's part of his shenanigans, but even so, if he were to act on his authoritarian fantasies, when would the people be like "that's too far" and arm up a coup?

The only thing that makes a civil war unlikely is if Trump is bullshitting. If he's not, all he says are grounds for how such a conflict would happen. I don't think that the population would just stay silent and take it if it were to happen that he acts in violence against the people. I don't think the military would follow orders of it either. But it is interesting to speculate at which point the people would collectively wake up into organized rebellious opposition against him.

Primarily since the people of a nation like the US are so far in thought from such actions. If something like this would have happened in France, a person like Trump wouldn't be able to sneeze in the wrong direction before the people storm against it.

That's Project 2025, which is a plan for removing all opposition to Trump in the government. His VP endorsed it, but Trump hasn't. His VP embraces "dark Enlightenment" principles, which basically says the Enlightenment was bullshit and we need to go back to monarchy. — frank

Partly why I'm not so worried about Trump, but more worried about what he's bringing with him. What he is legitimizing.

For some years now I've also believed the US has problems that would best be addressed by a dictator, such as changing social norms that result from neoliberalism. I'm starting to understand why Lenin was opposed to democracy. Lenin was a monster, btw, I'm just saying I'm seeing the dimensions of the challenges he faced. — frank

I think such thoughts are young thoughts of rebellion. The allure of quick fixes in frustration of the status quo. In reality, people need to be careful constructing the new house, and see to it being properly built with the care of wise builders.

For many voters the lines have already been crossed and Trump will get us back on the right side. For others Trump crosses the line. With Trump the line continues to move. The US survived Trump the first time around and so many think we can survive Trump 2.0. That there is no real danger. We can survive this or that, and one thing after another it is no longer clear where the lines are. This is authoritarian creep. — Fooloso4

Yes, and so far no lines are crossed. The potential scenario of Trump taking authoritarian power in a way that crosses the line of what the US generally stands for; pushing the boundary of what people generally deem normal for what the US is, might be pushed so far that people don't realize it's already over.

But for the ones who notice, when is the line crossed? Because there has to be line clearly drawn and people knowledgeable enough to know when its crossed.

I don't think there is one. He was elected for a reason: because he represents what the majority of Americans want the USA to be. This isn't evil or unnatural. History repeats itself. — frank

As I mentioned...

it was a long line of exploiting democratic institutions in order to gain power legally. — Christoffer

He could very well dismantle everything through legal means until it grants him the power to take the next steps. Seen as many Maga zealots would fight for him, he could install them as his own agency/force to do his biddings.

Him being elected were for reasons that, if we listen to the voters, are all fair game. I'm not talking about the election, there wasn't anything illegal or wrong with that. I'm talking about how he will wield his power over the next four years. Where is the line drawn if he goes too far? When would people, hypothetically, realize a line has been crossed and action needs to be taken so as to prevent things from escalating into a situation in which it's impossible to take action at all?

By that time it may be too late to remove him by force or any other means. He has made it clear that he will be firing military leaders who do no demonstrate sufficient "loyalty", that is, obedience to him. He will have eliminated government agencies, made the Department of Justice an instrument of his will, effectively curtailed the powers of Congress to act against him, and have a Supreme Court that promotes theocratic rule and an even larger majority if there is an opening. — Fooloso4

So, where is the line being drawn? There are many instances in that description where I would think that people had enough and remove him by force.

Or are people that gullible, naive and blind that it would get so far before people act? Disregarding the status of Hitler within the context of history, if we look at his rise to power, it was a long line of exploiting democratic institutions in order to gain power legally. All while the opponents struggled within their own parties. The narrative of Trump's rise to power is similar to Germany in the 30s. Like then, the depression produced an extremely dissatisfied group of working class people, which is similar to the post 2008 financial crash. On top of that, the pandemic and economic turmoil at the moment, most people viewed Hitler as a savior.

The interesting thing is how no one opposed Hitler until it was too late. So when is too late? How far is a line drawn until people realize that things have gone too far?

Most of Trump's worst statements are dismissed as jokes. In the same way as Hitler's opposition dismissed him as a buffoon. So maybe Trump just is a buffoon and we just get 4 years of shenanigans that can be laughed at while his support sinks and we get another 2020 election with some half-assed democrat that the people don't really like or support.

Or, with the much greater grip on power this time around, he slowly installs ways to hold on to power and step by step dismantle the institutions that are there to block anyone from gaining authoritarian power.

People generally don't notice the small steps until its too late. But even if many notice it and talks about it, when is it enough to organize any kind of removal by force against him?

When is the line so crossed that a large portion of the population is organized and standing behind a coup removal of him because the normal process of removal has been dismantled?

The US seems to naively think that fascism and totalitarian power is a thing that simply "don't happen here". Something that happens elsewhere. But when taking into account how most aspects of Trumpism looks eerily similar to how other states went from free democracies to authoritarian, the pieces are on the board.

If that is just a coincident that this buffoon of a clown happens to have similar pieces on the board as authoritarian leaders who took power, remains to be seen.

But the question remains... where is the line drawn?

Well, if you're talking about practical enforcement then it's whoever the armed forced listen to. — Michael

Basically, I'm wondering, how far can Trump stretch his power until the population and other government authorities had enough. Around 27 years ago, a blowjob was too much for the public and politics to handle, but now we have a president that seems to push things further and further. So when will people say enough is enough? What's the line? The actual line that is. At which crossing it would result in removal by force.

A constitutional amendment requires two-thirds of both houses and three quarters of the states. — Michael

What governs that ruling? I mean, what governs the form in which amendments are decided?

I'm just saying, what would stop someone if they would do anything to stay in power? What rules actually applies, especially having the supreme court in your pocket and hints at uprooting other fundamentals?

Well, he certainly can't be elected again. That would require a constitutional amendment which ain't happening. — Michael

Trump basically has dominance over most parts of the US government. So why won't that happen if people support him in it? It's not a natural physical law that it wouldn't happen and right now it seems he doesn't have much blocking him if he wanted to change it.

What would the US population think if this came to pass?

https://people.com/donald-trump-mentions-third-term-house-gop-meeting-8744857

I like Sanders and I like a lot of his policies. You and I just disagree about what policy approach is the right one given political conditions in the US now. — T Clark

Did you check the video? I'm not really arguing out of what I would like to see, but it seems that this is what the people want to see. The most supported candidate among the people were Sanders, he's able to talk to the people, not stand there and "pretend to be human" which other candidates do like if they were aliens who landed and tried to "speak human".

Policies doesn't really matter, it's how the politics are communicated to the people. Democrats don't understand how to do that and get lost in how to talk to people.

Like when Sanders talked to the Fox news crowd, he didn't shout complex policies in their faces, he asked them what they wanted, then gave them answers to it. Easily understandable answers that were basically much more left than what democrats offer today, but when it came in the context of the audience's worries and wants, they understood them rather than giving a knee jerk reaction.

The fundamental problem in the US is that no center or right wing policies will fix the actual problems that the US is facing. The economic inequality is increasing and people are getting poorer and more uneducated while working conditions destroy people. It's a death spiral that needs fixing, otherwise the US will become adjacent to a third world nation featuring a rich elite and a majority of poor people. It can be spotted in things like height.

While it's tempting to promote the same old tactics of promoting the free market to adjust this themselves, it doesn't happen. It's not how such problems are fixed. And it's easily to communicate this to the people as it's their own situation that's talked about.

The core problem for democrats is that rather than promoting a political stance, they're just trying to sound like the "good guys". But that doesn't help when there's nothing tangible for people to hang onto. It's very telling when the rightwing conservatives talk a lot of nonsense, but people listen to that because "at least they want something".

Like, are people so starved for a direction in politics that "whatever direction" is the most popular choice?

It's actually a trend among the more left leaning politics of the world that they mostly try to cater to right-wing ideas in order to win votes. They've been so focused on trying to "gain back votes" that they've forgot what actually gave them votes in the first place.

The most telling is that throughout the western democracies, the working class and the poor has always been supporting the left because they were on their side. But today, these people vote for the right, without the right having any actual tangible solutions for them. Where's the actual politics for the working class? For fighting actual economic inequality?

The left of the western world seems to have become rich posers who're basically the same as hipsters who try to look like they're hard working poor people in clothing and lifestyles, but are in fact rich upper class. The left has become a form of comic con for the working class, pretending to be on their side without ever being it. Using progressive politics as a form of lifestyle aura in order to look like they care for the struggling people. It doesn't work, clearly.

The left of the world need to find their roots. We live in a time in which actual left politics are needed, in which the working class is screaming for solutions. But the left are too afraid to get their hands actually dirty.

So what if you lose votes on the right? They don't matter if you lose a larger hand on the left because you left them in the dirt.

1. Inalienable rights—e.g., the right to life, liberty, and property. Everyone has certain rights because their nature is such that they are a person.

2. Freedom of religion. Everyone should be able to follow their own notion of what is good, as long as it doesn’t impinge on other peoples’ rights.

3. Freedom of speech and press.

4. The right to not be unreasonably searched.

5. The right to not self-incriminate.

6. The right to bear arms.

Etc.

Liberals are moving away from these core values in the name of social justice. — Bob Ross

Do you mean liberals or left-wing politics? Because left-leaning politics have nothing to do with it. Just look at Scandinavia:

1. How does that come in conflict with anything in left politics? What type of liberties do places like Scandinavia not have for instance? Because we have all of those liberties.

2. This is also not coming into conflict with actual left politics. It's true for places like Scandinavia as well.

3. If we're looking at actual statistics of this, Scandinavia ranks higher than the US, so it's not the political leaning that's preventing this.

4. This right is better followed in Scandinavia than in the US.

5. Not a problem in Scandinavia.

6. This one is the only thing that differs, because it actually has nothing to do with human rights, it's a constitutional law based on types of weapons that aren't remotely alike what exists today. The problem with this is that the research is clear on the connection between amount and availability of firearms and deadly violence. That if reduced, deadly violence is also reduced. To put into perspective, if you flip this and instead say "the right to not be a victim of gun violence", which is more akin to an actual citizen right as a protection, then such a right is fundamentally broken by the status of deadly gun violence in the US. The sixth amendment does not correlate with fundamental human rights or values of liberty, it's a made up concept of liberty that no other nation with similar values of liberty shares. The arguments for it are arbitrary and does not have a fundamental impact on the freedom of the people. The only notion of freedom it is connected to is within the context of civil war and uprising, so at its core, the importance of it is only valid when all other constitutional laws are broken. Basically it becomes meaningless and gets an irrational amount of importance in a context it does not have.

Liberals are moving away from these core values in the name of social justice.

Would you say that Scandinavia has more social justice than the US? In what way do you define social justice? How come Scandinavia have more left politics while still having more freedom of speech and protections of citizens rights?

Fundamentally, in what way do you connect actual left politics with limiting those core values? Disregard the sixth amendment because, as I described, it's not actually a fundamental component of liberty, none of the other amendments are worse in Scandinavia, they're even better protected, and yet, the politics are on the left.

So I really don't understand why right wing and conservatives use these things as arguments against left politics. There's no connection. The US could have a major welfare overhaul and mitigate economic inequality, protect workers rights, free education etc. and still have strong protections of the constitution.

The whole idea that left politics try to destroy the constitution is just fiction. It's a made up conflict and propaganda narrative to produce fear among right wing conservatives that the left will take away your rights. But looking at Scandinavia these rights are even better protected and followed and they still have better living conditions for more people due to the left politics being the core political stance.

Most of the US democrat vs republican debates and conflicts are generally about made up bullshit. It's why democrats stopped voting for democrats, because they don't offer any actual left politics. While the republicans spiral down into absolute nonsense through Trumpism, with policies that have nothing to do with reality based on conspiracies and Christian fundamentalism.

Basically, people in the US have gotten lost in politics through focusing on nonsense rather than discussing real issues. If you listen to both sides... where's the actual politics? Everything is a performance perpetuating these inflated fictional narratives rather than dealing with actual problems. If you think "social justice" is a real threat, it's not. It's not infringing on the constitution, it's not a real issue, it's a ghost story that you've bought into.

And who wins on these ghost stories? Keeping the people debating fictional issues rather than fixing real problems? The ones who can rise to the top by not making too much noise. Because when you look at someone like Bernie Sanders, who actually try to promote real left politics, he gets overthrown by his own party because he's "too much". While Trump's protection of billionaires work great for right wing politics so if he can hypnotize the working class with his nonsense, the billionaires don't have to fear real left politics threatening their dominance. Both sides trying to do as little as they can in order to just keep the problems away from their careers.

It won't hold.

The biggest problem with democrats is that they are unable to market and speak to the working class. They aren't creating a political core that can be gathered around, there are no slogans or easily summed policies and democrats openly fight among themselves about policies that mean nothing to the regular voter.

I don't think the progressive support need to be dampened. I think the opposite is true, the problem is actually that democrats need to get away from the center because it doesn't offer anything. The working class have problems or feel that they have problems that need some solutions and the center liberal position will mostly just perpetuate things as they've always been.

I think you need to check this video I posted in the election thread. He sums things up pretty well. Look at the map of support for Sanders, that's what the people want, not what politicians want. The liberal democrats have been failing for so long now, losing support because they cater to lobbyists and center liberals with no actual insight into what politics that the people want.



The people want support in their life. The politics Sanders stand for is basically to install basic living conditions found in Scandinavia, or at least half way to it. If the democrats actually took a step to the left rather than waddling around in the center (as they've already have been for long now), then they would actually show people solutions.

Democrats suffer from the basic thing of "trying to satisfy all you will satisfy no one". They gained so little from catering to trying to win republican voters that they lost democrat voters.

Just stand up for something instead of trying to dilute everything down to nothing.

You asked me for substance. I gave you substance. — Tzeentch

No, you pointed at Chomsky without the substance of connecting your argument to it. Manufacturing consent is outdated in today's world. The media landscape has been fractured and become much more complicated with the introduction of individually formed media online. So it requires further philosophical thought to expand it into modern relevance. Which is what all those philosophers I mentioned have done, and which you ignore.

If you think I view your offhand dismissal of Chomsky as anything other than clownesque posturing I'm afraid you are wrong. — Tzeentch

Why are you so black and white binary in every thought you write out? It's like you don't even realize how ironically polarized you are in a thread about polarization. If I say that Chomsky ISN'T ENOUGH to describe the modern condition, that doesn't mean he is irrelevant, it means that he alone can't describe our modern society and the post-truth condition of it.

Your arguments rely on a single thesis without including consequent thought and arguments made after it. As I've said, you're not doing philosophy, you're doing dogmatism and appeal to authority. You aren't engaging with the text in the discussion, you're just saying opinions that are loosely based on your favorite philosopher on the subject and just points to that without ever actually making an counterargument to what I say, while ignoring the references I provide. It's infuriatingly annoying to have a discussion with someone who's not even engaging with what is actually written and who is unable to understand nuance.

You simply prove that you're not really interested in anything I have to say, which is why I haven't been taking this conversation particularly seriously. It begs the question, if you're not interested then why do you keep writing these cramped replies? — Tzeentch

Not interested? You're the one who's ignoring the points being raised. You're the one clowning around here with these non-answers and then have the arrogance to say that those who actually write arguments aren't interested.

Making one-sentence appeal to authority statements isn't philosophy, it's lazy and ignorant.

If you really need to be given proof for the major influence governments have on public opinion then you must have been living under a rock for the past couple decades.

If you need a place to start I would read Manufactoring Consent by Noam Chomsky. — Tzeentch

And anyone who seems to JUST read Noam Chomsky will only have that perspective and regurgitating only his ideas.

I was waiting for you to name-drop him, as this inability to understand what I'm talking about is common among those who don't read much more than his writings.

You are still just saying the same thing over and over. Where's your actual argument, where's the theory behind your words? What's the reasoning? You're just saying that everyone who does not say what you say is living under a rock. What about the rest of contemporary philosophy? Have you forgotten about that? Have you forgotten about how online media have fractured the core thesis of his book as it's based around an outdated dominance in media? Ignoring writers like, Jürgen Habermas, Byung-Chul Han, Shoshana Zuboff, Slavoj Žižek, Evgeny Morozov, Geert Lovink who are all talking about what I'm talking about here; and how the power has shifted from governments to corporations, that governments aren't powerful enough to manufacture anything that corporations and the market aren't better at.

If there's anyone who's been living under a rock in here...

As long as children get exposed to the chaos of social media and online discourses, the fractured experience of life throws them in all sorts of directions. Scientific research on the behavioral and psychological damage that children get from modern online life is too slow to catch what's going on, chat-bots being just one of many areas showing.

For starters, I think that smart phones and online gaming should be banned for children up to 15 years of age until research have conclusions to build legislations on.

The intellectually sloppy parents who just throw an iPad into the hands of their children aren't equipped to understand the consequences and since everyone is doing it, children will just pressure parents into compliance if they didn't expose them to the technology. Laws against this would fix this, at least temporary.

After a careful examination, I managed to find two words to disagree with - "they can't." They can do a great deal more than they are doing. Instead of sowing division and conflict and xenophobia, they could help poor countries adapt somewhat; instead of subsidising oil, they could subsidise renewables; instead of pretending that endless growth is possible, they could start managing the economy to be fair and stable instead of expanding and exploiting. And so on. It's going to be bad, but there's no reason in that, to go on making it worse. — unenlightened

I'm not talking about the now, but the future in which it's too late to do anything. At that time, "they can't". They can't do anything to help millions of refugees that simply can't do anything but to enter the nation. Where are they going? How are they sustained? How do the food get distributed? Imagine a nation with 20 million inhabitants and they get 2 million refugees storming in. It's going to throw the economic and resource balance out the window. Not only will these 2 million refugees starve, but the rest of the nation will be thrown into chaos trying to solve the problem.

Nations today can't even handle a few thousands refugees coming at once without creating both political and societal turmoil. How do the world handle billions of people relocated from uninhabitable locations?

It's this that I mean governments can't solve. We can solve things now, but when the tipping point happens, we won't be able to without fundamentally throw the world into chaos. It's not the climate change itself that will be the greatest issue, it's the delicate balance of the current world order.

If you find it difficult to believe that government elites conspire against the common people, I don't know what to tell you. Open your eyes? — Tzeentch

This is conspiracy theory stuff and rhetoric. That top people try to wield power is true, but you have no proof of unlimited power in doing so. If you think the public and the free market companies, especially the largest corporations on the planet are more innocent in producing our modern living conditions you aren't paying attention. State actors primarily try to influence elections, or they're targeting what they consider enemies. Western democracies have too much freedom among the people to be steered like that; what is steering them is the sum of our culture and that culture is consumerism. Governments aren't controlling consumption, it's corporations and the free market that does. It's not actual political ideology that actually drives people, even in online debates, what people believe is political discussions are usually different value systems being promoted and those value systems do not come from political leaders, they come from manifested perspectives on life.

A racist, homophobic conservative from an industrial town in the middle US do not hold those values because of political leaders forming those narrative, they hold them because of their surrounding culture and the dissonance between values when they grew up in clash with the values they meet in modern life. It happens in every generation, but in our modern world, all these values clash online and they've been entangled in the algorithms of social media, formed by business strategies that focus on manipulation of the customers.

You're only repeating yourself over and over saying that "it's the government". It's nothing more than conspiratorial parroting and regurgitating some narrative you believe is true. Where's your argument for it? And I'm not talking about linking to some dislocated events of state actors trying to do something specific because specific events does not form the foundation of an entire culture and a foundation for the modern condition. You're not arguing philosophically, you're doing a reddit post.

And to escape the meaningless graphs for a moment, a short report on India, and how poor people are affected. Human, and animal impact. — unenlightened

This is why we will see millions, if not billions of people going to seek refuge somewhere else. And this time there's no "go back to your country" if there's literally nothing to go back to.

I think people miss the fact, or they're too stupid to understand it, that the cascading consequences of what's happening won't just be some higher waters and some heat waves in the summer or more storms, but a total change of how people live. The relocation of people, by their own or through government means will transform the entire world.

And even if the wealthy world ignores the poor people of the world there will be people in more wealthy locations that will be feeling the burn as well. When this happens, things will be felt much more.

I'm predicting there will be wars because of this. People who are so desperate that they have nothing to do but to fight for a place to exist in, will do so. It's extremely naive to think that people will just remain in the heat and take it until they die. No, people will be pushed to the point that killing others in order to save their family and people will be a no-brainer.

I mean, if you had the option to see your friends and family die off because of living conditions falling to unsustainable levels, or invade somewhere else in order to survive... what are you going to do?

Governments of the world won't help people, they can't. If they can't sustain the normal levels of refugees due to current conflicts in the world, how would they ever be able to handle the extreme amount of refugees that climate change will bring about?

Oh, I disagree with that definition of post-truth. — Tzeentch

Why? It's literally the most common interpretation of it:

""Oxford Dictionaries popularly defines it as "relating to and denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.""

And I'm describing the circumstances here. If you're trying to redefine interpretations in order to validate your own argument, you're pretty much playing into the same behavior as post-truth society generates. What's the point of even discussing then if you transform definitions to fit your narrative?

People in general do not become delusional voluntarily. Some outside force is necessary, like a corrupt government elite that feeds them propaganda, and uses censorship to block off all roads to the truth. — Tzeentch

Who said anything about it being voluntarily? It's like you invent things that haven't been said or don't understand what I'm writing? I've already done an extensive breakdown on why it happened and none of it pointed to it as being voluntarily.

Since the end of the Cold War, western governments (with the US at the helm) have dominated the information landscape and abused that position to influence their population in a way that can only aptly be described as 'brainwashing'. — Tzeentch

Conspiratorial nonsense. What has dominated any form of brainwashed values since the 80s is the market. Have you done any form of analysis on any of this, at all? We're literally living in a Baudrillardian simulacra of free market constructs forming life narratives that are actively killing us. One of the biggest sources of self-harm in any form is how the identity of the person, the individual does not fit into the narrative they've been taught to believe. Nothing of that comes from any state actor, it comes from society's love of the neoliberal market which fuels the individualistic value system that everyone in western democracies live by today.

This idea that western governments is in control, especially US government, is literally giving them too much credit. They're not that smart. You're describing an X-Files storyline, not reality. Politicians in the US are interested in power and money, but most of them are too stupid to have any grand plan. Even the fascist type politicians like Trump don't have a grand plan, they misuse their power and to the danger of the public, but there's no deep state bullshit going on.

If you look at citizens in any western democracy, what are the things that research points towards being detrimental to their life and health? The thing that's killing us is stress and unreasonable expectations on life. It's unfulfilled dreams and skewed perspectives on wealth. NONE of that has anything to do with the government, it has to do with how the free market conditioned us into certain life values that does not mesh with what is good for us as animal human beings.

Being blind to what actually brainwashed us, blaming the government for brainwashing us instead, leads to the fundamental question... brainwashed us into what? What exactly has the government "programmed us into"? Raegan only gave the market the keys to the kingdom, he didn't orchestrate the world we live in.

And seen as large cap tech corps have so much power that politicians don't know how to handle them, who do you really think have the power to brainwash us? The market (with its tech companies) or any government?

Communist regimes functioned in exactly the same way, essentially holding a monopoly on information within the totalitarian state. — Tzeentch

This is not the same as post-truth.

Today, that western/elite domination of media has been broken, hence we notice something is terribly wrong and call it 'post-truth'. But we have been living in this 'post-truth' reality since 1991 onward, and it started perhaps even before that. — Tzeentch

You're confused as to who has power over the media. And you seem to haven't taken part in much of contemporary philosophy that is actively analyzing the relation between media and society. Ignoring the largest contributor to our modern world, social media. The elite do not have that much control over those channels, they're driven by income that formed the algorithms and those algorithms focus on conflict and negativity promoting influencers of the sort. The chaos of these voices aren't controlled by an elite, it's the system itself perpetuating the chaos as it drives sales in the attention economy. People at the top each money on this engagement, they don't care about a narrative, they care about the money.

The difference is that now large amounts of people are able to tell something's wrong, which they simply couldn't before due to the totality of the propaganda system. — Tzeentch

What propaganda are you talking about? You're so vague and sloppily broad that you end up with such large brush strokes that it becomes platitude nonsense.

Your arguments basically just boils down to "government bad", "government tell propaganda", "people brainwashed". There's zero substance of theory.

Surely you are aware of the questionable relationship history's various collectivist projects had with the truth? Hell, it was the commies who formed the OG post-truth societies. — Tzeentch

If you actually read and understand me first you would understand that I argue that post-truth is a problem within the public itself and their relation to truth and how to evaluate who's honest and who's a liar. Communist regimes used and use state violence methods to craft narratives that the public follow by force or indoctrination, it's not the same thing as what post-truth is about.

On the subject of how individualism fostered the post-truth society, it also increased the Dunning-Kruger effect among all people. The more individualistic people are, the more confident in being right individuals become and the less able they are to spot the blind spots in their knowledge.

Unlike you , I make no moral judgements of individualism or neoliberalism as an ‘unrealistic’, ‘unbalanced’ , ‘regressive’ value system. I think all such value systems work for their adherents, but each works in a different way , and it’s the clashes between incommensurate systems that causes the problems we’re seeing today with political polarization. I suggest that it is not cognitive dissonance that is causing the anger among social conservatives, but the justified sense that they are being talked down to by people like you who believe they have some superior moral or objective vantage and try to shove it down their throats. I am a progressive , but I dont claim that my perspective is morally or objectively superior to other ways of thinking. — Joshs

In what way is what I said a moral judgement? It's a direct observation and I think you are looking too much into the specifics of the symptomatic psychology of conservative voters and not at what is causing the general social reactions in society as a whole. The individualistic values I'm talking about is the overarching ideals for almost all western democracies today, it's built into how society functions and is structured today much more than before. It affects everything in life, it's not a value system of choosing as you describe it. I'm talking about a sociological undercurrent that fuels modern culture. It's a holistic perspective that everyone is involved with and the cognitive dissonance is everywhere; you, me, everyone around us. It's just that it affects some more than others and the consequences show up in different ways. You're looking at the direct symptoms at the end of the chain, the behaviors within the polarization itself. There's no morality to this explanation, I'm pointing at what values that drive society today as a whole, the fundamentals, not ideology. It doesn't matter if you are on the left, right or center, individualism is the undercurrent of modern life in western democracies and everything is trickling down from those values.

But I don’t believe that their anger is directed at the “ narrative they were programmed to believe” if by this you are referring to that traditionalist worldview and its associated values. — Joshs

As I'm saying "western democracies" I'm not talking about the US specifically. This is a global problem.

I'm saying that individualism and neoliberalism is not so much an ideological stance but a form of values and ideals which have replaced a more balanced and collectively inclusive perspective on life. This, in turn produces polarized groups when the inflated expectations of life clash with reality and thus produce a reaction in the form of blame that these groups gather around. It exists everywhere, among all polarized groups, but is generally pushing conflict-driven behaviors among those with more conservative world views as they not only have to face a reality different to expectations, but also the reality of historical progression. It's why the anger and violence often is initiated by the conservative minded individuals and groups, as they have the traditional pressures of fighting against the tides of time, and now also against the inflated ego they formed out of individualism.

But the problems exist throughout all groups and all groups help perpetuate the polarizing consequences. Even within larger polarized groups there are further polarization.

What constitutes "post-truth" however, is the inability to break free from any form of radicalization because people have lost the ability to spot what is an actual truth. So they gather around individuals who perpetuate the narrative they emotionally feel gives them comfort against the reality that formed their cognitive dissonance.

Economic problems and class differences are just among the things in reality that clash with those inflated expectations and the emotional distress paralyzes people into comfort zones rather than the work that needs to be done to fix a problem (mainly because they've never learned to collectively fix a problem in society themselves).

the polarization is due to economic pressures, not ideology. — baker

A vast simplification of a complex problem. Polarization forms out of many different reasons. Economical inequality is one, but not everything.

We can't ignore how individualism and neoliberalism combined disconnected people from each other. The formation of individuals who were brought up into believing they were the protagonists in contemporary history, that they, if they want, could be whatever they chose to be; a movie star? A successful business owner? The next president?

The cognitive dissonance facing adult life or older people realizing they never became anything they thought they would be transforms into anger and disappointment towards the narrative they were programmed to believe. This anger and disappointment therefor gets aimed at whatever is available to be blamed. Clustering in radicalized gatherings around a similar aim; "that group is to blame", "this ideology is to blame".

The hate from these people then meets the reaction of the groups they hate, defending themselves. And society spirals down into the consequences of these sides triggering each other.

While who's at fault is obvious in the direct confrontation and conflict, the underlying mechanisms that created the polarization in the first place is an overall cultural issue.

While authoritarian states propagate the authoritarian leader's ideas and emotion down through the people, either by force or brainwashing, the western democracies have been blind to the psychological consequences of the delusional narrative that everyone can individually become whatever they want and that the ego is preferred over the group.

As in pretty much all systems in reality, balance prevails over the extreme. While societies have tried extreme collectivism, it only led to the destruction of the self and the violence against individual thought and agency in life. But the extreme individualism has divided and alienated us from each other to the point of not only extreme polarization, but an epidemic rise of depression and loneliness throughout almost all western democracies.

None of this can be helped by just balancing the economy. It's part of it, especially leveling out class differences and intersect different classes to bridge over polarized distances. But at its core, western democracies need to form a better set of values that better reflect positive human nature and sociological structures.

Counter the addictive online algorithms, promote collective events and culture in society, cater to individual's strengths but don't ignore their weaknesses, help people find realistic life goals rather than inflating their childish ego delusions.

The biggest mistake that is being made is that people believe that the solution comes from somewhere else, some political party or leader who's gonna fix everything, some "parent figure" who's gonna swoop in and take care of it all. No, the change has to come from the people. Promote more positive collective things in society, decrease the use of social media online (until there's a system that does not rely on predatory algorithms), stop inflating the ego of children growing up, focus on what you can do, not unrealistic dreams and so on.

Continuing living in the same way just perpetuates the society we've arrived at. Blaming the top just ignores the participation that all have in society and it is society that places people at the top, either with money or by vote, so the change needs to happen in society, among the people first, not top down.

Not at all. It's natural for people to take sides, it's a necessity of survival to do so, and survival takes precedence over everything else. But maladapted idealists don't see this. — baker

Not sure I follow your train of thought from what I wrote?

The point I was making is that defining post-truth as merely the means that people use to control a narrative is not really correct. The behavior of people has been the same throughout history, but times with low post-truth tendencies have more to do with the public's ability to see through such behaviors and form a consensus around what is actual, rather than fictional.

In our modern post-truth era, society is eroding this ability to such a degree that it's becoming increasingly impossible to stand up for what's actual, due to an increasing inability for people to understand what is a fact and what isn't, what is a rationally reasoned argument and what isn't.

Post-truth is therefor not so much about the liars, but a time in which the public don't know how to spot truth.

For example, let's stop the ongoing trend of nose jobs. The regret rate among patients is at an average 16.4%. Since this leads to mental health issues such as "Body Dysmorphic Disorder", depression, anxiety and "Post-Surgical Dissatisfaction" with many returning for correction that only deepens the problems, I suggest that we should ban nose jobs in society.

Why isn't this an equal issue in society seen as how many go through with it? Why aren't we looking into these mental health issues? Why is it that transgender people gets this much critique? Why is it that the dissatisfaction rate or regret gets unproportionally large empirical room compared to almost all other treatments? Why is the satisfaction rate and the mental health improvements among transgender children ignored or overlooked while the extremely low regret rate gets all the attention? The critical examination has only concluded the lack of extensive long term data. It's not at all enough for the kinds of conclusions you make. Especially seen as the data so far points in the other direction.

This specific sub-topic started with the fact of the general public's inability to make reasonable conclusions based on their lacking ability of statistical understanding. The interpretations of statistical data leads to the conclusions they want to make, primarily because it is focused in on specific numbers, not within context or with surrounding factors taken into consideration. In this case, the lack of long term data in research becomes empirical evidence for why children shouldn't get treatment. Even though we have observations of declining mental health among children who didn't get treatment. The regret rate among the group going through treatment is around 1%. A 0% rate is statistically impossible, but 1% is remarkably low in statistics. If you focus in on the 1% and get their regret voiced out, you can make a good case against treatment through emotionally loaded arguments, but it would be a skewed argument that do not portray the general reality of transgenders situation.

This is probably the most highly-esteemed platform for investigative journalism in the Netherlands. — Tzeentch

The documentary is takes a critical look at the treatments, primarily focused on the Dutch treatements. It doesn't lead to the generalize conclusions you are making. The problem is that things like this becomes a foundation for conclusions that doesn't correlate with the specifics of the criticism.

Yet there is still a screening for adults who seek to transition. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, and why do you think that is? Why do people who want a nose job get none such treatment but adults who want to transition need to go through years of investigation? Any other decision an adult makes about their bodies require much less investigation. Shouldn't people who do plastic surgery also go through a psychological investigation about their self-image, seen as this is a very existing problem in society? It needs to go in one or the other direction, make screenings of everyone looking for any changes to their bodies, or don't treat some different than others. Which way do you suggest?

Yes, and gender identity is the subject here not biological sex. We're moving past transsexualism (now often considered an outdated term) into transgenderism. Or are we going to insist that those seeking to transition possess the correct biological markers before allowing them access to HRT? — BitconnectCarlos

Non-binary can rely on an underlying bias towards a certain sex, but it's not equally common they do transitions. The foundation for transitioning is still based on the same experience of either alignment or not.

Proper investigation into what? That they're "really" transgender? That they were "really" born in the wrong body? The medical community creates the criteria. Do we allow a child to transition if their parents say no? — BitconnectCarlos

The investigation is both medical and psychological. Most children have some confusion about their gender, it's part of growing up. Investigation is about trying to differentiate if this is such common confusion or being a more fundamental case of transgenderism. I'm not sure what makes you think children are put into transitioning just haphazardly.

What criteria do you suggest we follow other than the most up to date research?

On education, agreed. Let's call that the carrot. Your opinions on the stick?

As to education, I have direct experience with the USA version, indirect with the "British" system. The general verdict seems to be that the British, though not itself perfect, is wa-ay better than the US. Best in my opinion, would be a lot of British, tempered with some American. What do you say? — tim wood

The Finish school is considered best in the world. They generally excel at national tests. And in Sweden you get paid to go to school.

However, I'm in the strong opinion that education should be even more of a financial focus for tax funding and support. Teachers should be paid more, but also have more demand on them to reach a certain level of quality as teachers. Classes need to be smaller in size overall in order to structure education to support the differences between children's learning capability and psychological leaning (some are better at math at certain ages, some are better at language and so on). There should be a greater push to support education in poor regions and education needs to be mandatory for all children.

I'm less fond of sticks as they usually just create villains when a problem have been stricken away with that stick. But I would have laws and regulations demand that constant factually wrong statements in politics, especially to the public during campaigning will lead to the dismissal of that politician from politics. It would incentivize politicians to structure their politics around actual facts and truth rather than manipulation of the publics opinions to support their agendas.

I can't see how such regulations and laws against politicians would have negative effects. The only thing to keep an eye on is so that politicians then don't put money into research institutes to "produce facts" through research papers that conclude something that aligns with their politics. But putting a long prison sentence onto such corruption and strict observation of the money, where it comes from and its use would spot it easier and the blowback would be too severe for politicians to attempt it.

Open a new thread if you want to continue discussing. — Tzeentch

It's related to Trump's stance and the conservative narrative that will become more common in the next four years. People like you will continue to spread further bs and be part of that transphobic movement. Your ignorance here is the proof enough.

Not really. I don't hate or fear trans people - I support any adult's right to choose. — Tzeentch

Your rhetoric and reasoning suggests otherwise.

However, when you start blaming a society that's bending over backwards to accomodate trans people, I am not going to sugar coat things. — Tzeentch

Suger coat what? An argument you still haven't supported with anything other than that you think this is how it is? Who's really coming off as delusional?

When this thing that on the surface looks like it would destroy your mental health starts actually destroying people's mental health, how is that in any way surprising? — Tzeentch

Can I see some research and statistics on this destroying people's mental health or are you just gonna continue pointing out things you have no support behind?

This is your emotions speaking, and since it's an argument out of emotion, it is transphobic. Just like if someone wants to limit freedoms for homosexuals based on nothing more than they're "not gonna suger coat truths about how society accommodates homosexuals too much". Just like a racist cannot just say they aren't racists and then they're not, it's the behavior, rhetoric and conclusions made that defines who someone is.

If you have nothing but unsubstantiated causation without evidence statements and pathologizing remarks about transgender people, then that is simply transphobia.

And why not let a neutral analytical system (GPT-o1) review what you wrote and see what it finds when I ask it "How accurate is this text?"

Conclusion

The text contains several inaccuracies and misconceptions about transgender individuals and the effects of gender-affirming care. Current research supports that acceptance and appropriate medical treatment generally lead to positive mental health outcomes for transgender people. It's important to approach this topic with empathy and rely on evidence-based information to foster understanding and support. — GPT-o1

So, basically you're just pushing the same unsubstantiated ideas that can be found in conservative ideologies.

I straightforwardly mistrust those statistics — Tzeentch

How convenient it must be to just ignore what doesn't fit your opinions.

I'm simply taking issue with blaming high suicide rates on "society" when that society is doing everything it can to be accomodating, while people are subjecting themselves to these kinds of procedures. — Tzeentch

What you might not understand is that you are exposed to an observation of society through media. I absolutely doubt that you actually talk to or have insight into the perspective of transgender people and their experiences in society. Just because Disney+ makes shows with lots of LGBTQ+ characters in it, does not mean that society is doing everything it can to accommodate. Most of society consist of people like you, just like people during the 80s and 90s who believed whatever emotional nonsens they could think of and criticized society for accommodating gay people and that this would lead to mental health issues for these people.

This happens every time there's a societal shift into acceptance of previously stigmatized groups.
It starts out with raging hate, public outcries against the groups, then it transitions to official channels being more inclusive, while the public slowly change into what we see many do now; people who say similar things like "they can do whatever they want but not close to me", while later it goes into a false form of defense of these people, a stage in which the societal norm is to accept the group and in doing this, the previous anti-people will do what you do now, talk like you care about them, but still retain the same false claims and judgements as before. The dissonance becomes so obvious.

They’re not liars or delusional. The claim is that what is delusional is the belief that you can change sexes. I’ve seen no convincing evidence to counter that argument— but I’m open to hearing one. — Mikie

Gender identity and medical sex are two different things. But even so, if you check the Sapolsky video you can see how even medical sex is more complex than just what you have between your legs. Anyone who boils this down to purely their culturally biased ideas about gender and sex and who ignores the vast amount of research on this subject is clearly not engaging with it honestly. Putting the conclusion of "delusion" before the cart of actually doing the argument.

For instance, what Sapolsky talks about is that areas like the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) and the amygdala shows a size and neuron density of the BSTc in transgender women have been found to resemble those of cisgender women. There are actual differences to our brain that has to do with our brain in relation to our bodies and in transgender people it's found that even if the chromosomes and organs align, their brain have conflicting functions, meaning, the brain and body have different perceptions of what sex it actually is. The XX and XY chromosomes direct the development, but since male and females are more similar than not, people fall on a form of gradient between the two, heavily influenced by the chromosomes.

If someone develops a brain that comes in conflict with the body's perception of its sex, is it delusional that the brain, which regulates emotions and is the seat of our consciousness is drawn to wanting a correction to get rid of the resulting dysmorphia?

What I see is, especially in relation to the topic within the election and conservative media is the same old dusty story of them looking at this as they did on homosexuality when it became more commonly accepted in society, and they believed this was a delusion that would corrupt children and societal values. All while none of them actually engaged with either research on the subject or ever even engaged with the gay community in a way of attempting to understand it.

What is more delusional, people who make absolutist conclusions without research backing it up, or people who follow what the research suggests and talk to the people it affects?

Both. Education for the ignorant (which includes all of us), and appropriate penalties for liars. "Appropriate" meaning penalties that will strongly disincentivize lying. — tim wood

Free education for all that is of equal quality for all. Media literacy as a major part of all education, not just interwoven in minor ways. All of this includes higher education as well, like nations who even incentivize students with funding for it.

There are many things that can be done, but such a large education reform makes the most difference fundamentally. It's not just about getting people past post-truth. Such a reform would generate more educated people working on solving complex problems as well as more educated people taking the place of manipulators and liars who scheme their way to the top. Why chose a maniac like Trump if the pool of educated and functioning politicians is larger? Why implement politics that cater to billionaires if there's educated people with philosophically sound political visions to market to voters?

Overall, a reform that makes education of the best quality available to every single individual in a nation, is the absolute best way to improve any nation and any society.

what is clearly a delusion — Tzeentch

I'm not surprised to see the usual transphobic reactions as soon as the topic is raised. It's not a delusion, especially when the neurological research on the topic shows there are physiological differences in transgender people's brains showing attributes that misaligns with their medical sex. But I'm not surprised that your knee jerk reaction ignored that material I provided.

Some people are always going to refuse to accept what is in their view clearly a lie (and a harmful one, at that), and such is their right. — Tzeentch

Please provide the evidence for this lie and a solid argument on who benefits from it.

What happens when youthful beauty fades, biological realities set in and people realize they have mutilated their own bodies, sterilized themselves, committed themselves to a life-time of medication on the basis of a fantasy that can never be realized? People get suicidal. — Tzeentch

This is how you prove that you've not read a thing about the topic.

It's extremely sad, but unsurprising. — Tzeentch

The only thing that is extremely sad and unsurprising is how people like you come to these conclusions without having a anything else than an emotional knee jerk reaction to the topic; calling transgender people liars and delusional, ignoring the research and have zero ability to understand statistics on the subject.

It's basically just transphobia. The new fad among people who need an outlet to blame problems on. As it was with black people, homosexuals, jews, and so on. We're seeing the same kind of behavior against transgender people; calling them delusional and liars, purring them through the same kind of treatments. All while scientists are finding evidence that the phenomena isn't at all a construct, but has physiological attributes and signifiers.

I mean, the echos of old talk is telling:

"What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that their way is acceptable."

"“I know that homosexuals (transgender people) cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children.”" — Anita Bryant, 1970

“Homosexuality (transsexualism) is abnormal, a perversion, and a disease.”

"The homosexual (transsexual) movement threatens the very foundation of our society." — Jesse Helms, 1994

“The risk of children being influenced into homosexuality (transsexuality) is unacceptably high.” — Mary Whitehouse, 1980s

“There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war… for the soul of America.” — Pat Buchanan, 1992

“The gay (transsexual) agenda is destroying the moral fabric of this country.” — Paul Cameron, 1989

“The institution of marriage and family is being attacked by those who want to redefine these foundational concepts.” — James Dobson, 2004

"The ERA would lead to unisex bathrooms and homosexual marriages… society is meant to keep men and women in different roles.” — Phyllis Schlafly, 1970

I mean, we could go on, but historically we're just witnessing the echoes of past behaviors.... again.

Maybe part of this modern rise of the old racist, homophobic and misogynic behaviors is because the conservatives are running out of people to blame? Since history has gone through its hate against most groups in society already, and they are once again losing their transphobic stance, it starts to become a sort of "then, let's hate everything then".

Going to be interesting to see what the next group these people will hate and put blame on.

Why should an adult even need to go through a medical screening (to determine whether s/he is "really" trans) to be prescribed HRT when gender is a social phenomenon? — BitconnectCarlos

The investigation is primarily for children, not adults. Adults have to rather go through dealing with a long line of other adult assholes who question their agency as human beings.

Especially with the idea of "non-binary" today -- are we going to now claim a scientific/medical basis for that? What biological markers would determine that? Absurdity. — BitconnectCarlos

Non-binary has to do with gender identity, not biological sex.

Let adults live their own lives, but it is criminal in my opinion to permit children to sterilize themselves (and set them on a life path of marginalization) when any decent society acknowledges the need to place rules on children and make decisions for them. — BitconnectCarlos

This is not what's going on. That is a conservative-held and marketed narrative that skews how these processes are actually done. The investigation into transsexuality in children is not just saying yes or no. There are both medical and psychological evaluations, very extensive. On top of that the statistics on regret among surgery sex change is around 1%. Compare that to knee replacements and nose-jobs where the regret rates are much higher but there's no evaluation before. Conclusion on that is that parents and doctors aren't just letting kids do anything without proper investigation.

As I've said, the "increase" can simply be that modern society understands and listen to transgender people much better and it enables more to open up about their situation, compare to before when sometimes there were even the risk of violence against them by both family and their social sphere.

A child can still take steps to transition without HRT and surgeries. — BitconnectCarlos

Depends on the situation. Many still hold on until they grown past puberty. But for many who are really medically confirmable, such puberty without hormon treatment can be extremely distressful. Among transgender children, thoughts of suicide exist in around half the group and almost a quarter have made attempts. The reason for it primarily links to how they're treated by family and people around them, while the lack of help and gender-affirming care are also factors.

Bottom line, while there is a ratio of detransitioning, the regret-ratio is much lower than the harm caused by the lack of support these children get. And that support is not in the way of talking them out of it, but rather in support of their gender identity. A big problem is the time it takes for a proper investigation, in which hormone therapy comes into play too late. It's also not common they get this therapy without being diagnosed with gender dysmorphia.

So calling it "criminal" in the way you did is not a proper way to deal with this topic. The only criminal thing is the high suicide rates among LGBTQ+ due to the still existing stigma and behavior against them. A behavior that will just become worse with Trump and Musk at the helm spewing their bullshit to mindless zealots.

Nearly 30% of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ+. Aside from this, the number of minors seeking gender affirming care nearly tripled between 2017 and 2021 from 15,000 to 42,000 and the trend has continued. — BitconnectCarlos

How do you know that this isn't a natural number? On which basis are you making the argument and at which percentage do you know is the "correct percentage" for society?

It's culture and society that has educated you into certain classifications and categorical ideas. If people are to classify the "natural" percentage among the human species, then how do you classify this? Seen as it may be affected by herd tribe sizes and procreation habits over time, changing sociological dynamics.

Until you have a measure stick, you can't know what the actual percentage is. What kind of measuring stick do you have?

My main concern is with child transition though. We can't be asking children to determine their gender and then load them up with sterilizing hormones and permanent & quite painful surgeries. They simply don't have the mental capacity to make those sorts of decisions: How is it that children cannot buy alcohol or weed, yet they can apparently consent to permanently altering their bodies and destroying their fertility? — BitconnectCarlos

This recommendation for being careful I can agree with. However, it's not just asking them what they think that determine things. In most cases there's a long investigation before determining if it's a sociological confusion or actual. There's an idea that children merely say they want to change sex and doctors pull out the tools, that's not how these things go.

There's also actual physiological aspects of gender that puts things into further perspective:

...would have this part of the brain the size, not the sex they were born with, but with the sex they insisted they always actually were — Robert Sapolsky

The problem is that the pushback from adults stuck in traditional thinking makes it harder for actual investigation to take place and once again a stigma that often makes these children grow up in agony and social confusion because no proper investigation was done as it gets stuck in outdated morals and stigma.

transgender life is inherently difficult and expensive and painful. — BitconnectCarlos

Only for those who live in areas that don't accept or don't fully commit to accept their existence. It's actually the opposite for many who transitioned and getting what they need, they have much better mental and physical health. The one's in pain, especially not getting subscriptions they need, live in areas with transphobes running the ship. The usual shit.

More sinister is the idea, floating around in some radical circles, that we have no essential gender identity and it's entirely up to the individual (including the child) to self-define. Nature apparently gives us nothing; we are our own Gods. That scares me. — BitconnectCarlos

This is the normal simplification that's going around. There are physical indicators (like in the Sapolsky lecture) making some cases actual physical and medical in nature. But the core problem that people, for some reason, never understands about gender science and philosophy, is that there's a difference between medical sex and gender. Gender is a construct that society has made up rules and culture around.

Most behavioral differences between women and men are superficial, programmed by culture and social norms rather than incorporated in our chromosomes and genes. Most of the genetical and biological differences have to do with certain hormonal behavior differences, chemical differences, but very little actually affect identity to the point it is a fundamental difference. Most notable difference is mainly muscle mass and seen as sexual orientation doesn't seem to correlate that much with some basic sex, not even that is inherent to the biological sex.

While it's important that society and culture adapts to new knowledge about ourselves as humans, it's important that this is done without harming people. But so far, the foundation on which people make decisions and definitions about others seem to be primarily made up by people not educated or knowledgeable on the subject, rather than following the actual research and science being done, and in so hurts far more than believing they protect. Not only does the science show that most opinions are just culturally programmed, the discourse itself surrounding the sciences and research shows to be culturally affected and limiting the ability for people to understand the conclusions being done by people who actually study these subjects. The bottom line is that most people in society do not actually know what they're talking about, but they sure have strong opinions anyway.

Given the number of kids identifying as LGBT and choosing to sterilize themselves and undergo surgeries — BitconnectCarlos

There's however a great deal of statistical shifts due to the very fact that with an increasing tolerance towards a group that previously were stigmatized, more people feel secure in opening up about who they are.

It was the same during the 80s and 90s, as society started to believe that there was a sudden increase in homosexuality, when in fact, the higher tolerance and raising inclusion of homosexuality in society meant that people could open up more about their homosexuality. So the statistical numbers went up based on the hidden statistics that were invisible due to stigma.

This is why I don't think the public is able to understand statistics correctly and make accurate assessments about reality. Because it's not just math correlating with society on a 1 to 1 alignment, but many factors that need to be incorporated in order to actually know if something has changed or if it's affected by other factors.

Many researchers have basically concluded that a large portion of the perceptive increase is because the number of people were always there, hidden under years of traumatic and violent suppression of their sense of self, in which they could never tell anyone what they felt. The agony of not being able to tell anyone and not being able to live aligned with who they are.

In my perspective, all I see that's happening right now is that transsexual people are the new black people, the new homosexuals, the new hated group that society can use in their ill-constructed and uneducated reasoning about a world and society falling into ruin.

It's once again the herd mentality and echo chambers of the public believing they understand statistics, biology, psychology and history when in fact they don't, and only push themselves into lesser and lesser ability to interpret the world through a functioning empathy.

The way that I think we need to deal with the definition of "post-truth" is that it's not about the perpetrators of lies, manipulations, deception, disinformation or misinformation etc. It is rather about the inability to decipher them as doing such. It's mainly about how society and culture erodes a collective understanding and consensus of "truth", of "facts" and how we rationally reason in order to arrive at them.

What it means to live in a post-truth world is therefor not about the liars at the top, but rather that when truth loses meaning among the people, the liars at the top are able to gain power. They are the consequence and symptom of post-truth culture, and as such we won't get rid of them by treating the symptom itself...

...we need to treat the sickness.