Where does instinct end and where does belief come in? Where does emotion fit into the picture? — Jack Cummins

A belief is something that you actually consciously believe. People aren't guilty for their instincts or fantasies, if they were the entire world would deserve to burn.

But those aren't beliefs; I'm talking more about instincts.

If there's something shitty about shorting a struggling brick and mortar retailer during a pandemic, then there's something much shittier about removing the people's ability to support that retailer/buy that stock in order to help out your boys over at Melvin.

I wish to suggest that, on some level, every human being has some prejudice and that is what we have to work with too. — Jack Cummins

I'd agree, but it's not worth flagellating oneself over an attitude one has on a subconscious level. If the prejudice becomes an actual belief then something has gone wrong and that belief needs correction, but if it's just instinctual then you're probably just normal. I think humans are instinctually pre-disposed to fear all outsiders to some extent, even if they're the same ethnic group.

Our financial system is obviously messed up beyond belief and nothing really surprises me anymore including brokerages removing the ability to buy GME options; come help us create another one from the ground-up via Ethereum.

In any case I'm liking the bipartisanship here.

I think homosexuality comes down to one's biological responses - who are you attracted to? We can't control our sexual desires and arousal, but we of course (hopefully!) control our ability to exercise them. When people say "homosexuality is a choice" they're probably talking about people who choose to have gay sex, not homosexuals who don't partake.



If not being able to conceive or being too short is a deficiency, is not being able to dunk a deficiency? Why can't I just say that all men under 6'5 are vertically deficient? People can have weird stupid opinions all they want but in the end it's just another weird stupid opinion.

Dingo, you do know that homosexuals can have kids, right? I feel like given that new information you may want to revise your response.

Well a) that isn't how problems arrange themselves, and b) it isn't obvious what a community is. To me, the logical 21st century community is the global community, in which case there's no difference. If my neck of the woods is much the same as another, it makes sense logistically to focus my efforts here and not there, since there has its own contributors. But it doesn't seem to me that East Africa faces the same problems to the same degree in the same way, otherwise, sure, what would be the point of pitching in, or of foreign aid? Some causes lend themselves to local action, some don't. But either or both are good. And neither, as long as you do no harm, us fine too. — Kenosha Kid

a) I'm not sure what you're talking about specifically here. It seems entirely plausible that there could be two communities which face essentially the same problem like bad roads or littering or something like that. Just imagine two theoretical communities which are basically good places but they just have a problem with the roads. You'd help out your own community first, and then it's fine to go off the help the other, right? And this is the right thing to do, right?

b) I feel we can be a little charitable here. I know 'community' isn't always straight-forward but just bear with me here. Of course East Africa has way different, more severe problems; I'm talking about two relatively comparable communities that face the same problems. Lets also leave transportation/logistics out of this. I'm trying to make a theoretical point and I think you're on board.

It's all about 'reading age'. My young nephews have curious minds and are open to ideas, but there's no way they would fathom Kant or Hegel, neither of them have a university education. — Wayfarer

I was being sarcastic; obviously Kant or Hegel is not appropriate reading for children. I don't even know if Hegel is appropriate reading for anybody. I guess I should start putting /s tags on some of my posts if it's not clear.

I was talking about this subject under the pretense that the problems/causes are equal, so we're not talking scale of problem here. For instance, if there was the same problem of the same magnitude that needed solving both in your own community and also in a community halfway around the world, which should you attend to? Presumably the one in your own community. If all those problems in your community are solved, it makes sense to go to the other community to help them solve it.

What would not make sense would be if there were severe problems in one's own household and one goes halfway around the world to help another random family solve a similar problem. Do you see what I'm getting at?

Thanks for the anecdote, and I don't mean that sarcastically, but I am actually curious to your answer here when it comes to responsibility. Do you consider yourself more responsible for people/problems in your own community as opposed to ones half way around the world? Do you owe more to your family or friends than complete strangers? I'm talking about Peter Singer's idea here of the "circle" or "expanding circle" of responsibility. I think if we take this to its logical beginning then responsibility starts or has its prime responsibility in the home.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. It seems like you're suggesting that Marxists are fuck-ups who can't sort themselves out so want to change the world for their benefit instead. I am sure there's people just like that but it's probably not generally true. I don't think Marxism would be very attractive to such people. Capitalism with a strong welfare system would be more beneficial. — Kenosha Kid

Peterson is talking to young revolutionaries who have accomplished nothing notable and are yet intent on deconstructing the entire system and re-building in accordance with the vision of some author/authors that they like.

I'm a huge proponent of personal responsibility. However that includes a responsibility toward others and, as I said above, one can help others without having finished the unending project of helping oneself. — Kenosha Kid

Of course there's a responsibility to others. But how does it work, exactly? Are you responsible for a child in sub-saharan African? How about responsibility for the homeless in your town or region? Or are you more responsible for, say, a family member or a friend than a distant stranger? There's circles of responsibility, do you agree? Or are we equally responsible for everyone?

Your example is not exempt. I would agree that a lot of the things he criticises as being covert Marxism are nothing to do with Marxism. — Kenosha Kid

The aforementioned point about self-mastery can viewed as an attack or Marxism or not. I don't really care. It can be viewed on its own too, and I think it's good advice regardless of whether it's "really" an attack on Marxism or not. You have to admit there's a lot of extremely non-self reflective people out there pushing for vast social changes when they're essentially incapable of doing basic life tasks or establishing an inkling of self-mastery. This isn't me calling them poor; regardless of money some people are just complete messes and if they ever were in a position to make that change I think it would be insane to trust them to do a good job at it when everything else in their life is a complete mess. I don't care how well they understand Marx or various left-wing thinkers. That doesn't translate to performance/implementation.

No, in my opinion JP rationalised his appeal to the alt-right post hoc. That is what I said. That is what I meant. No dishonest layer of interpretation needed. — Kenosha Kid

This is a stupid conversation so I'm going to drop it. Just try to be mindful of what you're implying when you write. I'm not the only poster on this thread who has commented on it.

Anyway.

If you think that pointing to anything you don't like and hissing "Marxism" is smart, he's the guy for you. — Kenosha Kid

A lot of his points aren't actually about Marxism. His core philosophy is actually individualism and Christianity, but it's actually pretty deeply introspective. A main point of his is that one should try to fix themselves before and attain some degree of self-mastery before going out and trying to change the world. This is actually a pretty radical point that a lot of leftists hate and it has nothing to do with Marxism. Leftists only pay lip service to self-mastery or self-improvement; what's ultimately important to them is immediate socio-economic change. They don't see the link between the quality of change and the individuals behind it.

Again, that isn't in anything I said. — Kenosha Kid

Here you heavily imply that he reaches out to the alt-right for nefarious reasons.

JP's specific appeal to the alt-right has been boasted by none other than JP himself, who has rationalised that appeal as him actively reaching out to that audience in particular in an effort to make them less racist, misogynistic, etc. Utter bullshit, of course. — Kenosha Kid

So you're saying he's not reaching out to them from an intellectual/philosophical angle to make them less racist or misogynistic, so you are effectively calling him a racist or indifferent to racism.

JP's specific appeal to the alt-right has been boasted by none other than JP himself, who has rationalised that appeal as him actively reaching out to that audience in particular in an effort to make them less racist, misogynistic, etc. Utter bullshit, of course. — Kenosha Kid

Ok so JBP's goal is actually to make everybody more racist and sexist, ok got it. Life must be so easy when the opposition are all Nazis and racists. Never any ambiguity.

Had I encountered him at their age, I might have been drawn to him. I don't think he's terrible, which apparently I'm supposed to do. — Wayfarer

Heresy. Why can't kids listen to serious philosophers instead of this pop psychology/religion mumbo-jumbo? How dare a thinker's target audience be the general public and not the academic world. Anyway, just show those kids some Hegel or Kant to get them on the right track. Maybe go through Metaphysics of Morals with them. Hopefully Peterson hasn't poisoned their minds too much at this point.

Hey, you watch your tone. Rafaella is a beautiful & intelligent woman and she makes interesting points that deserve to be addressed. I always love reading your posts, Rafaella.

Ok but in a sense it could just always be elitist, it's just a matter of how much elitism we're talking. The homeless guy isn't going to be able to afford even a $400 down payment and could call those who could "the elites." It's all relative.

The housing market is always going to price out some part of the population, it's just a matter of how big that part it. Even if prices were dirt cheap some still won't be able to afford it, and those with the houses won't be able to accumulate wealth through their homes. I get what you're saying though - it is what it is.

Effectively making housing an investment opportunity meant naturally drawing those with capital to snap it up in large quantities and drive up its price. Housing should not be about making money: it's a basic necessity. — Kenosha Kid

But what do you have against homeowners building equity in their property and gaining wealth through that? That's not only for the upper class, the middle class does it too. Why are you against wealth creation? I know leftists might like it if everyone is poor but equal, but most people don't.

So is the solution to ban renting? Does that really make a lot of sense? You know that renting out part of the house can also make paying off a mortgage easier.

the fuck they dont. why would you want to keep paying for something when you could instead just have it and stop paying? you can keep paying someone else to do maintenance of that’s what you want. your landlord does anyway. — Pfhorrest

In order to do this you'd have to plop down a significant amount of cash and likely cash out investments. This is often a bad financial move because these investments that you sold have a high yearly return and now that money is basically locked into your house and you're no longer getting those returns.

Your desire to own your home outright is a personal preference, not a universal measure of financial health or optimization. If that's how you want to do your finances, fine, but don't treat it as a universal.

Imagine a forum without right wingers — Maw

All the leftists would be eating each other over the correct interpretation of Marx. You're lucky you have the right-wingers here to serve as the common enemy, it's the closest you'll get to leftist unity.

Do you know the races of the officers involved in the shootings? I'd be interested to know whether this is a white officer problem or not.

One of these days I should just pick a random argument with you and misinterpret everything you say.

Duh, obviously.

It's good that you mentioned that you're a centrist, that will surely de-escalate things.

I don't even know if a forum full of classical liberals/right libertarians would even be sustainable when it comes to talk on philosophy. We'd all probably just end up talking about finances and drugs. I'm sure I have differences with the others on the right it's just not all that important to me, and if there is a difference between, say, me and Judaka we usually just express our own opinions and move on. Left wingers are often vicious with other left wingers.

The word fascism has lost a great deal of its meaning, an already hard-to-understand idea and now it's even more difficult for the average westerner to understand and identify. — Judaka

Yeah.

One thing I gleaned from my discussion with Kenosha Kid was that he essentially views the enterprise of politics as nothing short of war, with the final objective to be to annihilate opposing ideas. I'd really love to trace the roots of this idea because I've heard it before. It reminds me Hobbes' idea of "a war of all against all" but I know the context doesn't quite match. In any case this is a very different from the democratic liberal tradition which views discourse and reconciliation as a normal part of politics.

And as we've already agreed, Antifa is not a reformist organisation. They are not trying to ban anything. — Kenosha Kid

Nobody is against cleaning up swastikas from building, but you can't go around punching fascists simply for speaking, sorry.

I'm not asking for absolutes. I'm asking you to detail what convinced you antifa was necessary in the historical example I gave you. — fdrake

First, thanks for the detailed historical write up. I enjoyed learning about this event from your descriptions.

I would say in that instance it was acceptable to call in a militant leftist group as a last resort given that it's reasonable to believe that the community may be in danger from a group with a history of violence, plus the fact that the police can't be entirely relied upon to maintain safety.

So now you're back to saying the ideal of anti-fascism (which is the point in hand) is to drive fascism underground. — Kenosha Kid

No, I'm saying the actual policy of banning fascist speech & expression drives fascism underground. You can't ban fascist thought you can only ban fascist speech and expression.

True, but leftists come in all different flavors and it can be fun to engage with some of them. In particular I've come to like engaging with libertarian socialists and Marx-inspired thinkers who might not be full Marxists yet. It was initially a little difficult for me to deal with hardline leftists, but eventually you just gotta enjoy it and go along with the insanity and play back at them a little.

They don't have the power to do that, but they're free to suggest it. :razz: — frank

yeah it's all fun and games as long as they're not in power.

What kind of fascist did you talk to? Just curious. — frank

haha, as a rule I don't really engage with actual fascists but I gotta say the discussion with kenosha kid was telling. I don't mean to start any beef here but I can't help but notice the similarities between that thinking and some of the fascist thinkers I've read.

We don't even have to personally engage fascists, in fact I usually don't because it's unproductive. What antifa wants is to ban any expression of it including books or blog posts.

Obviously I believe in engagement. — frank

So what are we arguing about?

ut I also recognize when engagement is dangerous. I think you do too, right? — frank

Sure it's dangerous if they pull out a knife...

Right, so this will leave no-one to express fascist ideas. And that's the extent to which anti-fascism censors fascism. No one is invading Klan meetings on private property. If fascists deface property with vile fascist slogans, they get cleaned up. If fascists have public matches, anti-fascists march against them. If fascists respond violently, they are met with violence.

Tbh I think your argument was lost when you described Antifa as systematically violent but the KKK not. That's so divorced from reality and betrays such a bias toward violent right-wing racist murderers as to make your position indefensible. — Kenosha Kid

No, again, the fascists will just be driven underground, like drug use in the war on drugs or alcohol during prohibition.

Well thanks for the post-mortem, I'll try to do better next time, Kenosha. This discussion has been enlightening for me because it's very apparent that you basically consider the enterprise of politics as basically a war of all against all with the end goal of absolutely annihilating the opposition. This actually puts you in good company with thinkers like Hobbes and Schmitt, in complete opposition to the democratic liberal tradition of course. Good discussion.

So you're willing to agree that antifascist actions can be necessary, when they are a "last resort", what is sufficient evidence that the situation is a "last resort"? What made you believe the example that I gave you was a last resort when there was notable police presence at the demonstration? — fdrake

You're just going to have to go by the specific situation and ask yourself questions like how many right-wingers we're expecting to show up, do the right wingers have a history of violence, what is the police presence like, how about the presence of counter-protesters who may provide a "check" but not be antifa themselves? here in boston we had a right wing rally back in 2017 where like 50 right-wingers showed up and tens of thousands of counter-protesters with a strong police presence, do we really need to call in antifa here?

It would be absurd to lay down any absolute philosophical principle for when to call in armed, antifascist groups.

By the way, if you need any more proof that antifa is not fundamentally in the liberal tradition check out my discussion with Kenosha kid. It's just really an interesting example of how a liberal like myself perceives politics as opposed to Kenosha who basically perceives politics as war with the goal of absolutely destroying the opposition permanently. I can't help but notice the frequency of this thought within antifa/the far left.

Is that what you think the aims of anti-fascism are? Just to drive fascism underground? — Kenosha Kid

The "end" of anti-fascism is for there to be no more believers in fascism, but by outright banning fascism you're just driving it underground so that whenever it does resurface it becomes a bigger thing.



Read again the context of what I was saying. I wasn't saying we need to ban Heideggar, I was saying that if we established a governmental committee to ban anything related to fascism they could very well decide to ban Heideggar or anything even remotely related to fascism.

No more fascism, but you're not banning people from thinking it (because no one can) you're only sending the discourse underground. We don't have a holocaust denial problem here in the US and everyone just ignores those people. In Europe it's a bigger deal and holocaust deniers get much more coverage because they're doing something illegal and it gets blown up into this big thing. It's a little silly to think you can just ban it and it goes away; how has banning done when it comes to alcohol and drugs?

Hold up, Chomsky is supporting actually engaging fascists in discussion? He must be a fascist himself, probably a Nazi. /s

Really insightful answer by Chomsky, by the way. I never thought I'd be agreeing with him but you learn something new everyday.