Big time stupid ( or as Paul Krugman calls him, ‘a feces-flinging chaos monkey’). And big-time dangerous. How did it come to this? Lots of people left behind by cultural and economic changes wanting to believe in a fantasy of a return to the days of abundant high-paying low skill industrial jobs. And a slimy used-car salesman who believes in that same fantasy uses his best skill, selling snake oil, to become the prophet of the deluded. But his own delusions of grandeur and need for absolute power will ultimately betray his own followers (and the billionaire ‘tech-bro’ supplicants who hoped to get even richer by ass-kissing the King, but are now seeing substantial chunks of their fortunes being wiped away in the carnage he is unleashing). — Joshs

I've been advocating for improving society and politics past democracy for years now. What we see here is the perfect example of why I think representative democracy isn't working anymore. There's this fundamental belief that the will of the people ushers in the best leader for the job, but powerful people have learned to adapt to this, using targeted ads, manipulation and indoctrination to guide elections by will.

Society needs to move into politics that is not operating on marketing and campaigning. In which the majority vote by their needs and wants rather than on a candidate.

Society needs to move away from democracy into a "solution-based democracy" formed around solutions to problems in society rather than on fantasies about some leader solving things.

We do not have actual representatives for the people in politics. We have people using their power and influence to remain in power and play power games to get what THEY want, not what's good for the people.

The only politicians who actually care are in the fringes of society and politics, never getting promoted or put into the spotlight because the people at the top of any party has accumulated so much support around them that they essentially controls everything.

It doesn't sound like Trump understands how tariffs work.... He's saying that inflation is gone and that these tariffs will get nations who treated the US badly to pay back billions. Like, how? They're not paying the tariffs, so is he just fucking stupid in all this believing the money will flow into the nation and not just out of the pockets of its businesses and citizens?

Like, what the fuck is going on here? Really?

In many cases, he is breaking the law in order to fulfill his camaign promises/threats. Many think it's great to deport alleged gang members, and don't give a damn if it violates Constitutional due process. — Relativist

Because he breaks it, innocents have been sent there. What the MAGA zealots think or not is irrelevant. Neonazis also like when laws are broken for something they think is right. But as a society, the majority would act when laws are broken. Democracy doesn’t work when part of the population aren’t able to act on a rational experience of truth. When people operate within a concept of reality more akin to the fantasies of a cult. That is not democracy, and if people want to protect democracy, they need to stop viewing things like there’s nothing that can be done ”because he was elected”. Democracy is never just the election every 4 years, yet people believe they’re powerless in between.

It’s the tolerance paradox. A tolerant society should not allow someone like Trump to be able to run in the first place. Especially not with the track record before this election.

I do not blame any of the racist, conspiracy idiots that gained power, they do what the do. I blame the apathetic other people who are so mentally lazy they never believed someone this incompetent and racist would be able to reach office… even as he’s already been in office one term.

Democracy doesn’t work in the US. Any time a person who’s clearly out to change or corrupt democracy gets into power through that democracy, that democracy is already dead.

There are dozens of current lawsuits against Trump’s executive actions. But legal cases take time, and Trump is a seasoned expert in throwing sand into the gears of lawsuits. Before the election, he managed to delay all of the actions against him until he was able to escape them altogether. I think real resistance is starting to manifest and is going to grow. There are multi-city demonstrations this weekend and meanwhile four Republicans joined a Democratic motion to limit Trump’s ability to impose tarrifs. And if Trump drives the economy into recession, which looks highly likely, then there will come a huge backlash. But so much damage has already been done. — Wayfarer

Yes, but I'm wondering what the people are willing to do if he starts to control the departments of government to the extent that he gains essentially authoritarian power through removing institutions which are supposed to stop a president from abusing power and breaking the constitution and laws of government.

What I find far more interesting than nations falling into dictatorships is the psychology of people existing in a society that is right on the edge of something like that. There has been lots of failures in other nations to fight back against someone abusing their power. Just look at Turkey and Hungary, or even Russia to some extent (even though it never really truly got out of its fucked up state after the wall fell).

Trump is trying to do what they did, it's so obvious. And if he starts to control the system that's supposed to be a fail safe against abusers of power, then the only way for people to fight back is by some form of revolutionary actions. Doesn't mean straight violence, but rather a disruption of the nation, like stop going to work or sabotaging. And if Trump fights back against that, it would probably just spark even more hostility against him.

I actually think the only way to fight the populistic conspiracy theory people in government would be if such a failure of them against the people of the US happened. Because the problem is cultural, not really just Trump. There needs to be a backlash on a certain type of opinions and thinking that we see in the MAGA cult. In which people look down on them with far more aggression. Really making "being a MAGA follower" something no one wants to associate with. Make it shameful socially, an unwelcomed status because they stand for something that nearly destroyed the nation. An enemy of the nation. That no media or influencer will want to be associated with promoting or legitimizing. It's kind of like this already, but no more than people laughing at them. It needs to be branded radicalized thinking, just as we think of any other radicalized religious thinking that has a negative effect on society.

How, though? He’s been empowered by the popular vote to do what he’s doing. The Republican voters still approve his actions overall. His campaign speeches were almost entirely negative, about how the country has been overrun by criminals and the economy a shambles, with the sinister authoritarian Project 2025 in the background, which is practically a blueprint for dictatorship. He’s a classical demagogue, who harnesses popular resentment to overturn the established order. They have been known since ancient times. So a large minority voted Trump in to do what he said he would do. When the s***t really hits the fan, the economy tanks, epidemics start to rage due to Kennedy’s utter incompetence, the international order falls to pieces, then MAGA faithful might turn. But it might be too late to restore the catastrophes wrought by this man. — Wayfarer

What I mean is, why aren’t anyone doing something when he breaks constitutional laws and regulations? Why aren’t anyone opposing and rallying the remaining mentally functioning republicans? If he continues with this he will at some point overstep so much it turns violent.

Point being, how far must he go before people start to oppose him? Or is the people just gonna sit around taking it. Where’s the million people protest march? The people who voted for him deserves the shit he pours on the nation, but so does the ones apathetic and ignorant.

Less in history sparked major outrage, but these times it seems people are so fucking addicted to their phones they never look up from the screen to make actual difference.

It turns out, that after the Laura Loomer meeting, Trump didn’t just fire the head and deputy head of the NSA. He fired four others as well.

These tarriffs have been dictated by Trump, with neither Congressional nor Senate contribution or approval. There can be no doubt that Trump is now a dictator. — Wayfarer

If so, then why don't people do anything about it? Why is everyone just accepting that all of this is going on? That Trump does what he does is nothing strange, what is strange is the total apathy and inaction of others. If he is indeed breaking against the constitution and ignore rules and regulations, then do something about it.

a) The World economy tanking, but especially the US economy going down
b) US prices going up (with "a" above that's stagflation)
c) Democrats winning the midterms, but Trump totally disregarding then the Congress
d) People protesting in large numbers against Trump
e) Trump using force against these protesters and MAGA-supporters clashing with demonstators
f) The US ending up with political instability like a country in Latin America. — ssu

A) I don't think the world economy tanks other than in the short term. But if the world retaliate tariffs against the US, then it doesn't look good for most citizens of the US.

B) Definitely.

C) They will win the midterms if this chaos continues. Just look at the recent win for the democrats in Wisconsin, it was technically a landslide compared to before in the region. Trump will continue do what he does, so things boil down to if people have the balls enough to stand up against it for real or just make public speeches against him for the sake of gaining points and saving their own asses (not so much actually do something for real against him)

D) If prices skyrocket for regular citizens, yes, and in massive scale. Protests so far have been ideological, but when people can't afford living they could become furious.

E) MAGA supporters clashing with them could happen, but since many MAGA supporters are the ones actually getting the worst of the economical fallout, they might just change side through cognitive dissonance. Trump using force against protestors might happen, but I don't think it would be worse than regular such happenings. If he goes too far that would be the end of him, literally.

F) Not likely. A nation's stability is also proportional to its size. A nation as large as the US takes longer to "fall" than smaller nations. As I see it, this is a conservative cult that has infected gullible republicans. And since most republicans seem to be just botox Karens and disgusting uncles, they are essentially doomed if you remove the cult factor of Trump. With Trump gone and if the nation finally stands up to ban conspiracy nutjobs from political power, it will return to "normalcy". Democrats have a problem at the moment, but they're still operating as a "normal" party. What will happen with republicans in the future I don't know; but I think that the self-radicalization of the internet is pretty damaging to the limited conservative mindset of that party. Essentially, the internet works better for progressive views to move fast, which is against what conservative ideals stand for and that incompatibility required essentially a cult to form stability. Without the cult, it's impossible for republicans to keep up with societal movements.

I think that's a good encouragement Benkei. I've been drawn away from the forum due to a rise in low quality and occasionally being baited into engaging with some of it which I often just regret.

But I do think that the problems stems less from stricter rules on how everyone behaves and more about a specific behavior of some that tend to poison discussions. While it's a hard balance to strike, I think it's obvious that some act without regards to facts that are easily looked up. Meaning, most of the engagements that are toxic tend to revolve around people who emotionally just say anything they like without regards for checking if what they say have any basic merits or backing. And when confronted with factual information just dismiss it over and over, repeating their rants ad nauseam.

I don't know what a good fix on that is. While I agree with the other decision to ban social media links, layers of rules that affect everyone could end up just being limiting rather than just double down on the key points that the perpetrators of toxicity fails to follow; mainly avoiding low quality posting; spamming and overuse of biased fallacy-ridden arguments.

Maybe the way to go is to simply make the lounge raise the bar a little bit in order to double down on increasing poster quality? A harsh strong language is still fine, but there has to be some foundation of thought behind things rather than regurgitating echo chamber rhetoric of public spheres.

I have no solutions really, I understand that it's hard to balance all of this and I'm actually impressed that this forum hasn't spiraled into utter chaos seen as the rest of the internet seem to have done so the past couple of years. With the amount of rather loaded topics that a philosophy forum like this gets, I think you mods need to take a moment and give a little praise to each other for managing such a place to not end up in utter chaos.

I just think that the issues at hand stems from a few riding right on the edge of the forum rules.

Trump will probably be followed by Vance, unless a Democratic superstar emerges. And even if a Democratic president follows, remember, Biden didn't rescind the tariffs from the first Trump administration, in fact he added to them. Completely exposing American labor to competition with China was a pretty brutal thing to do. The consent to do that again would have to be manufactured (to garble one of the chapter titles of David Harvey's book on neoliberalism). — frank

The tariffs against China are warranted though. They basically hide slave labor and has the government involved in all companies, making security in other nations a nightmare while pressing prices down to dominate against nations with better working conditions for their citizens. Such nations SHOULD have tariffs against them instead of enriching them and giving them influence.

It's the tariffs against other nations who are allies and collaborators that's nuts. No one benefits from it. The only thing would be if the tariffs became the cash to pay off the extreme dept the US has. But I've yet to see the money being bookmarked as such.

The left died. This is what's taking its place. — frank

Agreed, but mostly because the ones in the Democratic party with most power are liberal centrists. Every time someone more to the left, like Sanders speaks up, the people actually listens. The people, the actual people who votes and not the pseudo-intellectuals online, love Sanders; but the Democratic party does not push him out there enough.

What the Democrats need is a young, charismatic, more-to-the-left candidate who are versed in constructing a narrative to communicate the policies through.

The solution is quite simple, even if they don't get a candidate like that, at least they need the narrative bit. The right and conservatives have been framing everything in narratives and easily understood slogans.

The people are stupid, uneducated and must be considered so when drafting what to communicate to them. Not in terms of talking to them like the 5-year old's they are, but rather in terms of producing a narrative for them to gather around.

Any policy can be communicated through an easily understood narrative, getting to the heart and emotion of it for people to rally behind.

This is what the democrats need to do and as long as they have the elderly home of centrists controlling the party, they will fail. Hopefully they all die off until the next election and we have some proper young candidate who can give the people a confident and warm smile, that's mostly what the dumb mob goes for anyway.

The best thing for EU would be to actually not retaliate with tariffs and instead build new free trade routes. Like, towards Canada and like has been already reported on, towards India.

A big problem for the EU has always been to be a bit behind the US on certain innovations and technology, but with new trade agreements the EU could actually have the chance to surpass the US if done right.

That would be the most profound retaliation, far greater than any counter-tariffs as those would just make it more expensive to produce that which is in need of US supplies.

The important thing is that Trump chokes his own voters, that's the only way to get rid of him. Making his zealots turn on him.

It's popcorn time for anyone who likes to witness Trump supporters looking confused about their standards of living not becoming what they fantasized it to be under the orange demigod.

So many hard working people who got indoctrinated into voting for him will now wonder why every damn thing around them got so expensive.

Trump is entertaining the idea of seriously sitting a third term. While unrealistic to happen, if no one opposes his abuse of power, it could. If he takes action during these four years that erodes the fundamentals that prevent him from doing so, it could.

It's remarkable how closely all of this resembles the vague foundation for the movie Civil War. The only thing missing is a dismantling of the FBI and then an attack on US citizens and it will be pinpoint accurate to that premise for a president.

We had a rise in neo-nazis in the 80s and 90s as well. Right now it's being catalyzed by social media, which is a catalyst for everything. I usually look at fiction to see when society begins to wake up. We've had the trend of "down with the billionaire bad guys" for a few years, but now we've seen the Netflix series "Adolescence", which deals with exactly this self-radicalization among young boys that's the foundation for this behavior. This means that the public is starting to take note of what's going on to the point it becomes part of the official discussion through fiction.

I've said it before, I think we're witnessing a culmination of the problems with social media and the right-wing extremes rising. These kinds of trends will start to drop once the public realize the problems have moved into their own homes.

So now Trump is demanding that anything "woke" should be removed from The Smithsonian museums. And historians are pointing out that the specifics of it all is downright exactly what both the Italian fascists and Nazi Germany did.

Like, how much further is he going with this before the people wake the fuck up?

If you think I'm going to engage in a discussion with you, then you wasted a lot of digital ink and time.

I second that. :up: — frank

The reason is that I don't find the questions being asked on the level of rational discourse that is apt for this time in history, or morally overall. We know enough, we need to do more and the ethics are sane. Anyone objecting to that are either uninformed, a nihilist or an egotist only caring for themselves. I'm not interested in entertaining such perspectives on this topic as I find them irrelevant, uninteresting and self-defeating. There's no point in arguing with ideals and ideas that have no meaning to anyone outside of themselves. Their lack of universal meaning or pursuit of universal meaning means they are irrelevant for finding answers that is of any importance to the collective of everyone.

Could you share the sources of these kinds of predictions? — frank

You can just search further on possible scenarios for increased global degrees continuously going up.

And asking for sources is irrelevant because I'm no climate scientist, and I don't think you are either. But I trust what independent researchers arrive at in their scenarios and data. It's not a philosophical discussion, it's a scientific one. And climate change that's not mitigated will lead to extreme temperature.

Why do i need to cite any sources to entertain the idea that such a world would be fucking awful to live in? If it's even possible to do so for us. :chin:

It's like... I'm going to put you in a container and I'm going to put that in the sun so the temperature increases as well as change the composition of air vs co2 and pollutions, and then you are going to rate your experience after living there for a while compared to living outside of it. But before I do I will say that I think you won't like it... and then you ask me for sources on why you would have an experience I would consider awful. :brow:

No rational person living today will experience the worst case scenario. That scenario wouldn't come into existence until well after we're all gone. How do we put in place a solution to a problem that our descendants might have? — frank

If you're a depressed nihilistic teenager I'd see where you are coming from, but a responsible adult that isn't clinically a narcissist or a psychopath will have some inclination to care for the future. Especially those with children. I mean, my children's children might experience it, or their children and so on. At what point do I accept that my family going forward a couple of generations are far away from me temporally that I can say "I don't give a fuck"?

If I were in a position in which I need to care for myself or my loved ones right now in present time, then that is fine if in conflict with caring for the future; but that's a false dichotomy and it also doesn't matter. The problem with climate change is a global one that requires a change of a lot of things in society so an individual shouldn't really have to experience more than mild inconveniences around the changes necessary.

If you ask someone if they are willing to risk an absolute hell hole of a planet in the future just to not have to be mildly inconvenienced in the present and they answer yes, then I would simply call that person a fucking idiot who's uncapable of even the most basic moral thinking.

Why would the positive consequences of my actions and decisions today be any different if they happen right now somewhere else in the world, or if they happen temporally later? If I make, for instance, decisions today on what clothes to buy on the moral ground that I don't want to support child labor, then it doesn't matter that I don't witness the positive consequences of my moral actions, it has an effect on the world, on other people. Why would a temporal difference be different?

I really don't get the perspective that we shouldn't care about the future because we won't feel or experience the positive consequences. We have a moral responsibility to care, otherwise it's just nihilism and I don't really care for their viewpoint as it's just a dead end. There's no point in debating morals with a nihilist anymore than arguing with a brick wall.

How do we put in place a solution to a problem that our descendants might have? — frank

What? The consequence is predicted based on the science, exactly how it turns out is unclear, but there's no prediction that says anything other than "bad" in capital letters. And the solution is to make sure the scenarios doesn't happen at all or becomes mitigated enough to not reach critical levels.

Sorry, but this question seems to just ignore basic understanding of climate change overall?

You might say we aren't evolved to handle that kind of problem. We have no experience with it. We don't even know how to approach the question. — frank

This makes no sense whatsoever. What do you mean not evolved? We haven't evolved to type messages on a forum either but through the process of science and innovations in engineering we are able to do so. Just like we are able to produce pollutions that destroy the environment and the means to discover how bad it is and is becoming.

We have a lot of approaches. The only ones denying this are climate science deniers who simply don't understand the science but gladly comments on it like they do. They're unimportant and irrelevant as they're not rational enough to be relevant to the issues and researching solutions.

The wise say, "First do no harm." Approaching the problem in a childish, semi-psychotic manner is a recipe for making things worse than they would be otherwise. It's better to start with a sober evaluation of the parameters of the problem. What are the long-range predictions? What sorts of efforts now would actually make a difference in the long run? — frank

Climate scientists have already done this to death. The only ones who oppose the solutions or models are the ones who are uneducated science deniers and downright idiots, either clinically or psychologically skewed by echo chambers.


Sorry, but I thought this was supposed to be a new and more rational discussion on climate change, but I see it will just keep going in the spirit of earlier threads.

I'm not interested in continuing if this is the level the discussion is at.

In practical terms, no there isn't an end-date. In strict scientific terms, if we exhaust all available sources of CO2, then yes, the atmosphere's CO2 level will return to present day levels in about 100,000 years, with the cost of acidic oceans. The climate will go through an extreme spike in temperature that will last for a few thousand years. This is per David Archer, although I haven't seen him update his figures to account for fracking capability, so it may be off. — frank

Sounds like a wonderful future for any species that thrives in such conditions. Not much for humans, and especially any human who like to have some nature left to enjoy. There might be some who want to live in grey boxes, half-suffocating through all the technology used to make life sustaining in these conditions. Like cosplaying astronauts on another planet for thousands of years. :party:

There are no scientists predicting that the human species won't survive the worst case scenario. Will civilization as we know it survive it? We don't know. — frank

"Bye bye" doesn't have to mean we go extinct. Only that anything we value of life today goes extinct. I don't think any rational human being in their right mind would prefer any worst case scenario if the option means mild inconvenience right now. On top of that, there are tons of changes to society that may even bring better conditions for people right now. For instance, the lowering of smog and particles in the air is linked to increased death and health issues. And even if you survive well in those conditions, just listen to people who goes to Oslo or Stockholm describing the experience of almost no air pollution in the city compared to something like New York. I remember when I was in New York the first time and the very first thing I noticed was how got damn disgusting the air is. Getting away from such smog is like being freed from being choked. Mitigating that is to both mitigate escalation of climate change, but also directly helping people directly, both in terms of health and in terms of just a better life quality in the cities.

Like... the question that should be asked should rather be; What do we gain of not doing anything? What do we gain by perpetuating everything that pollutes the air and speeds up climate change?

Some would argue that we gain economic growth, but do we really? Growth can't be sustained forever and there's actual growth in transforming the industry into sustainability as well, not to speak of the other innovations that can accidently come out of such research, similar to how we pushed the process of the moon landing, leading to a lot of innovations and inventions we today take for granted. And that was for a done for the reason of bragging rights.

Just think about how the need for better electric vehicles. It will require new battery technology, and that financial push may solve batteries for vehicles, but at a certain point it would transform how we use batteries overall, with gear that become smaller, more effective and have new functions, just because a new battery technology was invented.

I just see no point in not doing anything about climate change, to not fund research and innovation that mitigate climate change, or to not put pressure on industries that pollute our air and make our living conditions rather depressing. Like... why?

1. Do something about climate change consequences? Or do something to mitigate it escalating further? The answer is both. Just continuing on as if nothing happens is not an answer. It will not "take its course". You think there's an end date to this? If we continue, the temp is going to rise further and then it's pretty much bye bye in a couple of centuries.

2. Best way to do it is to stop catering society to corporations who's profit relies on the continued use of that which escalates climate change. Maybe install a global financial model and fund that help companies who's goal it is to research and build sustainability and/or fight the change that is and has already happening, while putting financial pressure on everything that ignores the problem. A global tax on corporations who doesn't care about environmental destruction and let that tax money go straight into the R&D of solutions. An economy that push funding from the bad actors over to the good actors. On top of that raise awareness, fight for better education in school, ban social media algorithms that relies on a rage-bait attention-economy which leads to promotion of misinformation and disinformation and the degradation of the ability of critical thinking. Use heavy sanctions and tariffs against nations who do not comply with this global operation for solutions.

3. I don't think there are much philosophical implications of this. There is an ongoing problem that needs to be fixed globally. That's pretty much it. I think that any debate is part of people getting fooled into being zealots for powerful forces to debate something that fundamentally needs no debate. The problem with climate change is on the level of engineering, science, research, societal change in day to day behaviors, and with the resources and governmental funding of it all. It's a fact of the matter problem that needs a global collective of solutions. The philosophical questions may have to do with how to manage the societal consequences of solving these problems, but the ethics are pretty clear. Especially considering that the mild inconvenience of having to comply with helping this change for the better is far better than the destruction of entire communities and nations who's among those that will be affected the worst by these climate changes. On top of that, the work itself to change the world for the better will employ and give jobs to millions of people.

So I don't think it needs to be debated much. It's a huge global problem and the discussion should be primarily on what solutions that can be made to both mitigate escalation of the effects, and to stop the effects we are already seeing, and will definitely going to see in the future.

What a dumb mess.
Who does it all benefit anyway? — jorndoe

You operate on the idea that they have any clue about anything other than filling their own pockets. The US got rich on industry, not science, that's their idea without them ever understanding how the two fit together.

Fundamentally the people in power are conspiracy nutjobs. If you dig into how much conspiracy they believe in it's staggering. They're just fundamentally fucking stupid and they won by the votes of people who never read the news, but "always voted republican" and the other conspiracy nutjobs who are unable to behave according to democracy through the inability of the conspiracy theorist to conduct critical thinking about political parties and candidates.

Asking the 3o model to do an estimate of statistics on how many continuously hold strong conspiracy belief it sets the number as high as 20-40%. That would mean that democratic methods do not apply anymore and the US isn't operating as a functioning democracy, even disregarding the problems of how the US handles its democracy as a system. Even if the real number isn't that high, and considering that a percentage of all conspiracy nuts also has the extremists, even at a level of 5% of extreme conspiracy idiots would mean that if they're inspired to vote (which Trump did), they are enough to sway an election seen as how balanced and close most elections are in general.

Yeah, I don’t think anything from such social media is of any relevance. But YouTube has a lot of quality channels that has really good material. But I agree that there has to be relevance to an argument being made, not instead of an argument.

Thanks! This is a good decision.

Just for clarification, if wrapped in an elaborated explanation and relevant context, with an actual argument, what then? Is it something like “use common sense” for when it is relevant? And longer YouTube videos are sometimes something else than social media opinion pieces, so what are the definitions on that? Is it mostly to get spamming twitter and other short form stuff that is forbidden?

Or eaten by a polar bear. That would be the story for the MAGA conspiracy theorists. — ssu

A swimming polar bear who adapted to the changing climate... just let it happen, please dear indifferent reality we exist in, let us laugh for once!

is in the middle of nowhere even by Greenlandic standards, 1500 km or so north from Nuuk. One of the remotest places where US servicemen are deployed, who likely will give a warm welcome to family Vance. — ssu

If they get lost on the way there... it would be the most poetic downfall for Vance and Trump's politics.

The sooner the USA fucks off from the world stage of international politics by making themselves irrelevant the better. — Benkei

That is the only thing positive that comes out of this. The feeling in Europe is chaos, but also a renewed comradery between nations. A sense of building something new together. It's unexpected, but nice to see happening.

However, the US will always be a major factor on the world stage and the idiocy leads to things like threats to Greenland and Denmark of annexing Greenland.

Fundamentally, I don't think anyone really cares if the US collapse as long as they screw themselves up and no one else gets hurt, but there's lots of tentacles out from the US that hurts people and if the US falls, the world will be thrown into chaos anyway, regardless of their "America first" politics.

So I much rather see Americans deal with the trash cans leading the nation. Remove them by force if they go too far. They're already standing on the edge of authoritarian abuse of power so all it takes is a misstep that hurts the US population in some way the population can't accept. Or maybe the US population is so docile that they'll just act all Germany in the 30s, crawling on their knees in front of the orange fatman, kissing his Bigmac-greased fingers or standing in-line to get groped while Elon Musk dances around with a chainsaw flamethrower. A population of mindless husks, zombies who're neither dead or alive, puppets of the orange man, the fat oozing from the yellow king.

So yes, let it all fall until the right people rises up, shedding their apathy.

And that is why I find it remarkable that everyone is so passive. With all that has happened so far, is the US able to wait 4 years in this manner? No one is doing anything, because the US people seem to respect the process of democracy so much that when its obviously broken in letting these people in and letting them do what they do, they are fundamentally blind to the dangers they've let into the house.

It's as if a cabal of Belphegor has been given the keys to power and the population is slowly becoming an army of sloths, drugged by their declining intellect through social media, failing their ability to distinguish truth from lies, danger from safety; all while Belphegor himself grows fat on their delusional love and hate - The critics are passively believing that speaking up makes a difference - While the followers praise him as the second coming of Christ.

A postmodern regime that if nothing is done will collapse into utter chaos. All while Putin laughs and promotes his troll factories.

No one is doing anything.

It happens that way for various reasons, including property and inheritance, which requires the control of reproduction. Even if men were dominant in many cases in earlier societies, in civilized society this was intensified and institutionalized. — Jamal

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that because of the nature of reproduction, men has always been powerless in their will to produce offspring since women could gatekeep this ability with the complexity of caring a child for 9 months. So men institutionalize suppression of women's rights, manipulate culture towards ideals that favor men in order to allow them psychological control over women in order to control their own lineage.

I would imagine that cultures which focused heavily on portraying mothers as something divine, in opposition, produced cultures of matriarchal power or influence and less violence against women.

Large societal culture and sociological behavior forms out of small beginnings, and I would argue that the emotionally and intellectually underdeveloped early societies formed certain cultural behaviors that evolved into larger cultures. The male-oriented authoritarian figure stems from their dominant presence and violence of warfare and suppressing women also had to do with controlling the women in places men won wars in order to dominate a conquered land into lineages of power through offspring. A powerful woman could reject this.

Most of how modern culture, or rather outdated modern views in both men and women, echoes these past behaviors. But the whole reason why we hear so much about it today is because we've put a spotlight on the problems with men trying to control women.

This is why feminism philosophy tend to rile up emotions in immature people, because it is a radical thinking that questions a programmed behavior that's been around for thousands of years, always perpetuated by emotional reactions and immature ideas of biological factors.

It's about the sense of powerlessness expressed in men through violent outburst. The existential dread of being spawning a need to control everything around; especially women since they hold the keys to continued existence through granting men children.

The violence stems from the evolutionary drive to reproduce and the lack of control an individual has over their own destiny. This is the source of men's violence against women and only though understanding how immature and childish such ideas are can society heal from this tension between evolution and self-awareness of continued existence.

What we see today is an awakening to these facts, but most of society is still stuck in these old narratives and ideas. There's no wonder that violence against women is more common in large cultures and societies that are intellectually underdeveloped or in which knowledge is suppressed by authoritarian leaders or religious rulers.

Violence against women was the norm of the old world, it was more common and generally accepted or ignored compared to today. Waking up to the reasons of this is part of the same movement of enlightenment that began in the enlightenment era; breaking down old concepts, re-examine them and forming new and more rational understanding of it all.

What we see today with the tension between men and women is what's normally happens when an ingrained culture is discovered to be outdated and bad; it's not easy to change, especially when much of society is structurally built around the ideas of the past.

Violence against women today is not a new phenomena, and it's actually less common than before; but it's talked about more. The very existence of this forum thread in a male dominated space of discourse is in itself proof of the intellectual awakening in this topic.

Anyway — Please let him just continue. It almost always guarantees a laugh whenever I check. — Mikie

This feels like animal abuse... poor animal going through the motions of trained behavior, like a circus animal that only the oblivious audience can appreciate.

The main reason given by my fellow vegans for wishing for non-existence is the abundance of suffering on Earth which they find very distressing. We vegans seem to be more sensitive - perhaps that's why we go vegan when more than 99% of humans currently alive are not vegan. — Truth Seeker

But suffering is part of life. There's no joy without suffering, no life without death. The entire reality we exist in is formed around this cyclical dual phasing. We are part of this reality, this nature as all beings, only we are aware of this cycle in a way no other animal is.

But that also gives us a responsibility to handle this knowledge; it is both a burden and a blessing to have it. Not to see the suffering of others, but to form a balance and harmony with the reality of it. We can't reject our existence in that sense, we need to harmonize with it. With all concepts of it. Life, death, the cycle; entropy perceiving itself. So... perceive it and don't waste this experience of being. We can fight for all to experience it as well, to gain the well being of experiencing reality; but we cannot disconnect anyone or ourselves from death itself, or their part in the cycle.

We are all food for nature, in some form or another. Like the bacteria in our guts slowly eating us through life only to fully consume us in death. They've cultivated us as their cattle, nurtured in symbiosis until the final feast of their lives.

I think we humans have an arrogance problem. Both in terms of belief in our importance and of our own responsibility. We either believe ourselves to be above nature and the universe, cultivating religious thoughts of our own importance. Or we view ourselves as responsible for processes that are naturally occurring phenomena of an animal, believing that because we can perceive ourselves as consuming nature, we have a responsibility not to.

I think we should find a harmony between our perceptive self-awareness and natural state; to accept who we are in a responsible manner; not praising our egos into power or blaming our awareness into oblivion.

IIRC, Hesse wrote in Steppenwolf that the character gained a measure of comfort by deciding on a date to commit suicide, because that gavr him a date his suffering would end. So not as much "I will feel peace" as "I will no longer feel pain." — Patterner

Yes, as I mentioned, when it comes to actual physical pain and suffering, something that may be impossible to overcome, for instance with certain diseases, all of this has another dimension in that the suffering stops. However, almost all cases of "pain ending" or "suffering ending" is attached to the notion that there will be someone perceiving that relief after it has ended, but there isn't one. You don't only end the pain and suffering, you end it all; essentially nuking your entire being rather than just ending the pain and suffering. And many are so suppressed by their pain and suffering that they view themselves as only being that. But everyone who's pushed past such phases in life has always regretted such ideas of ending themselves.

I haven't read Steppenwolf, but imagine that he decided such a date and when the date came, the man had changed and didn't feel the pain anymore.

Physical pain that persist to the point of unrelenting suffering is closer to euthanasia, which I don't view the same as with the psychological pain people experience. It's another ethical and existential question really.

That's rough. But the outlook is aligned with what I've been saying. Rough times can produce the illusion that non-existence is a "relief", but it's only a relief in the experience of someone who can perceive it; the only way to perceive a relief from it is to somehow persevere through it and be able to perceive it as an existing consciousness. Anything else is an illusion of relief by the need to be someone relieved of it, without accepting that this someone is nothing.

This is a question that can only be answered by the context of nonexistence. To answer fully, one must understand the perspective of never having existed, and so the question somewhat becomes absurd.

If we answer that we wished we never existed, we're wishing for something in which we cannot perceive the other side of that question. Does a non-existent being wished to exist?

I also think the question needs to be asked in context. Like, for a person in great physical pain, tremendous suffering, the context changes the nature of the question.

It should be asked in the context of neutral experience. If I, as a neutral perceiver of reality would answer the question, I would say no, I would not want non-existence.

Because the negative of being robbed the ability to even contemplate that question through non-existence, makes existence more valuable as a concept as it gives me the ability to contemplate the question. Therefore, existence is preferable.

On a personal level, also no. The terror and absolute horror of death is the horror of non-existence. I think that people overvalue "non-existence" as something able to be perceived as some "place" of non-suffering existence, but it's not, there's nothing, an absolute void of the being itself.

I think people who wished for that state has set a context around that wish that has nothing to do with the concept of existence vs non-existence. Either it's about relief from pain and suffering, for which there exists ways within life to overcome, even if society is often bad at handling people who suffer. Or it's framed as a message to others, like a threat or promise to other people that my non-existence will either "show them" or "heal them", which is a concept that is simply nonsensical when following it to its logical conclusion.

No, I'm really opposite the notion of non-existence. I would never wish for it as even entertaining the idea of my mind slipping into non-existence in death is an absolute blackness of horror. The only negative thing about my existence is the awareness I have of the concept of non-existence. It gave me perception of my original state and the horror is losing everything back into it, oblivion.

This is part of why I dislike religion so much. Even if someone isn't religious or spiritual, so many people have still been indoctrinated into a concept of non-existence being perceivable in some form. That is a "state of being" when it's nothing at all. So when people say they want to end their lives to end their suffering, they fundamentally still believe that it is an end to something in the way we perceive ends as a living being, in that we experience something ending and then beginning anew.

That we can perceive the relief of our existence ending, when there's nothing there to perceive it. I rather perceive my suffering than perceiving nothing at all.

Like the poem Aubade by Philip Larkin (here read in the series Devs)

...not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anesthetic from which none come round. — Philip Larkin

Imagine coming to an internet philosophy forum to promote propaganda that everyone laughs at, day after day. — Mikie

Unfortunately, the science of marketing psychology shows how effective constant hammering of bullshit actually is for indoctrinating others... though attempting it on a philosophy forum might be a tall order.

A warrant should always be present when conducting infringements on people's properties or information. It's foundational in order to behave as a state of law rather than a state of power.

So, never mind that Trump's hare-brained tarrif wars are tanking the share market. Never mind that his war on US Aid is greatly excacerbating the worldwide spread of tuberculosis. Never mind that he's trampling civil liberties and constitutional norms. What's really important, is trying to help out that 'great patriot', who is doing so much to 'make America great', by doing an advertisement for Tesla on the White House lawn. The world's richest man, who possesses more wealth than almost everyone else in the USA combined, can sure use a bit of Presidential philanthropy himself. Never mind complaints about once again debasing the office of the President for crass commercial ends. — Wayfarer

With all that's happening... I'm wondering if there's not a lot of gathering data on everything they do. So many things are so obviously corrupt (as in the video I shared previously), that I'm wondering if people wait for the mid-terms and then rage hellfire onto everyone involved in all of this.

The thing is that Trump acts like a child, if no one tells him to be careful he's just going to do whatever he feels like and he doesn't seem to care for laws and regulations. So there will probably be tons of violations gathered and filed.

I think he feels invincible; being elected regardless of all the legal battles and being sentenced guilty last year, it probably fueled his narcissism so much I think he feels untouchable. And that's a good thing - because that may push him into a recklessness that comes to bite him in the ass later on.

If there are no consequences, then that's proof the US is a fundamentally corrupt state. Even if we say so, it's not before it's obvious that the people might do something about it.

In the name of making America great again, Trump is undoing the very things that made America great. — Banno

Primarily because the slogan never had any real meaning. It's just marketing, it's just like a cult who bullshits good sounding incoherent rants and the followers just eats it all up.

Nothing Trump says is real, it's made up in the moment in order for him to get an ego boost. He's basically like a child craving attention...

...but society tries to analyze what he literally says. So, is he the stupid one or is society stupid for playing along that game?

Don't agree. The US system has its problems, but it has held up for 237 years - until now. And now a convicted criminal and secessionist with an emormous ax to grind and hatred of government has been put in charge of it. He may well succeed in destroying the constitutional order, but it's not the time to try and devise a new model. What's important is not letting Trump destroy it. The kind of cynicism 'the whole thing is broken' is only going to make it easier for Trump's nihilism to come out on top. — Wayfarer

Trump and his kin isn't a one-off. We've seen a constant escalation of his type creeping its way into the top. And democrats seem to be totally oblivious to the problems in society popping up under their terms.

You can't just put hope into democrats, they will probably win the next term, put the nation into some pause while these idiots now in power return in force again after that.

It's a downward spiral, two steps back - one step forward. There's no solution in the status quo of the side who wins on doing essentially nothing.

If democrats keep dancing around their liberal centrism, they're part of perpetuating the status quo.

In other words, Vote Democrat. — Wayfarer

Temporary band-aid - It's not a solution. It's just putting the feet on the breaks into a stand-still for a moment only to continue down this path later.

This is a fundamental problem within the very essence of US culture.