Joe Biden, friend. — StreetlightX

Had not heard that. He also said "The devil is in the details" when discussing the difference, although that is the difference between at best one degree of loss of civil liberties and another.

Have you met the US Government? — StreetlightX

Sure. If Congress are going to pass any kind of sinister bill, not much anyone can do about it. May just as well fear everything then. As I said, I'll wait until I see the bill.

From the person who wrote the Patriot act, yes. — StreetlightX

What does Jim Sensenbrenner have to do with it?

Either way, seems a bit hysterical to bemoan the loss of civil liberties of some future bill being looked into regarding domestic terrorism. If and when someone tries to introduce security legislation that actually impacts civil liberties, the question of whether the majority prefer the liberty or the security ought to be had then.

Anti-terrorism is... bad?

So I agree that legally it looks like there's no free speech violations, since the platform has power to remove whatever content they like. There is a rational kernel to the free speech argument though. Large social media sites effectively function as the social commons; they're how we chat, make friends, inform ourselves and so on. It is quite creepy that someone can be exiled from that commons with little to no oversight.

I think the free speech complaint "goes through" so to speak, but not in the terms it's originally articulated in. — fdrake

For sure, the bases of moderation and suspension/banning should be explicit in those T&C's. It is frustrating when platforms augment this with unofficial, ad hoc moderation (the Guardian being a prime example). But even if they don't, yes it's unfair, so what? That's a judgement on those platforms. As Pfhorrest said, simple solution is don't use them if you don't like them.

I think the original argument can be put easier with clones.
The good old teletransporter problem would have sufficed to make the point that Solar is trying to make.
... — DoppyTheElv

That makes more sense, but as I said earlier:

Materially indistinguishability is not sufficient to show dualism. All the electrons in the universe are identical, but can still be different in physical ways (state). They can also have identical state: a ground state hydrogen atom over there can have the same state as and is materially indistinguishable from a ground state hydrogen atom here. — Kenosha Kid

The broken teleporter is a nice redux of the ship Theseus paradox which concerns continuity of identity. It is essentially a language problem as far as I can see. In everyday scenarios, we don't need to worry about discontinuities of form alongside continuities of physical constitution or vice versa: my physical constitution gradually changes but I remain me albeit with a time-dependent physical constitution.

The ship Theseus challenges the importance of continuity: if a ship identical to Theseus is built out of all the original parts of Theseus, is it the Theseus? Have we not rebuilt the original Theseus? Here we're talking about instantaneous form and constitution. But if the original Theseus has had all of its parts gradually replaced and us still out there, isn't that still the Theseus? Here we're talking about continuity.

The linguistic issue is that, based on our experience with language, we have one word to describe two things that we can easily differentiate. One simply has to choose more careful language if this becomes a real problem. For what it's worth, the "identical parts" idea of identity seems like a non-starter, since when I say "I", I am referring to a continuous thing that does not have static components. The "original you" or the "original Theseus" does not have any relevance in that case.

Sure, reincarnation could be a nice tool to convey a point which Solar might want to make. Specifically a point about personal identity. So you're kind of just red herring it. — DoppyTheElv

I'm not denying its relevance to a separate point. I'm saying it's irrelevant to the post he quoted. As I say, fantasy is not my bag.

it still presents a problem regarding demand on the national grid. Displacing carbon emissions is not the same as not producing them. — counterpunch

It feels perverse to actually have to point this out, but... More and more energy on the grid comes from renewables: that is the trend. Your country has had entire days worth of energy consumption provided entirely by renewable sources. You have major energy providers who only deal with greener energy now (e.g. Scottish Power). That is not true of petrol and diesel cars. If incremental replacement of carbon-emitting fuel with greener alternatives is the aim, which it is, arguing for sticking with petrol and diesel is bizarre.

In set theory, these would be the same set. Your insistence on a difference nonetheless is precisely the circularity in your argument. This is not a subtle point.
— Kenosha Kid

Let's assume that reincarnation is true.
Would it make a difference to you which creature you were reborn as? — SolarWind

The question is not pertinent to the quote, or to me, frankly, as I don't concern myself with magic. Reincarnation is not similar to two things being identical.

I don't doubt the principle of natural selection, but I do question that it provides a basis for philosophy of mind, other than some species of utilitarianism. — Wayfarer

Natural selection itself doesn't need to. The point stands: the appearance of intention does not imply intention. Fool me once...

You simply compare the set {A*,B,C,...,X,Y,Z} with the set {A,B,C,...,X,Y,Z*}, where the star indicates which life you would live in the corresponding world.
It is possible that the persons are materially identical in pairs, i.e. A* =(material) A, B =(material) B, ... , Y =(material) Y, Z =(material) Z*. — SolarWind

In set theory, these would be the same set. Your insistence on a difference nonetheless is precisely the circularity in your argument. This is not a subtle point.

I agree with you here. It’s their business, they choose. At least we know exactly where they stand. — Brett

And what they stand against: that which all decent people stand against.

I support terrorism. — Brett

I'm not going to lie, this was a great cliffhanger. Brett has gone all in. I will definitely be tuning back in.

These private services have been pressured by governments to regulate speech. — NOS4A2

In other news, negotiator pressures jumper off roof in violation of his free will.

It's a little bit wrong, but this made me cackle. What a whiny little bitch.

To be clear, I don’t like when online communities are controlled by a central party rather than letting end-users control moderation from their end-view alone, especially when that central control is heavy-handed. But nobody has to use those kinds of communities, so I largely just don’t. Anyone else who agrees with us about that is free to do likewise, and if enough people do likewise then there goes the network effect that attracts people to those services in the first place. — Pfhorrest

I completely agree. It seems quite ridiculous to me to compare the T&C's of services provided by private interests to state censorship, especially as these complaints come from users of sites who would ban criticism of far-right violence without a second thought. If Twitter doesn't want formentors of violent coups on its user list, their house, their rules.

I think the people complaining know this. I've lost count of the number of times I've read or written the explanation that this is not a first amendment issue, that no one has a right to a platform for incitement of violence or transmission of propaganda: ultimately they are there by invite or not.

Orwellian? It couldn't be more capitalistic for a publisher to not want to be associated with sedition. What a whinny bitch. — praxis

What is it with these people who cannot tell the difference between free speech and a book deal?

Now there's a can of worms for you. But I think we can both agree that Darwin's theory is first and foremost a biological theory regarding the origin of species, right? So it doesn't contain anything inherently referring to epistemology, or the nature of mind, except insofar as these can be understood through biological principles. Which then naturally assumes the form of 'biological reductionism' and general neo-darwinian materialism. — Wayfarer

It doesn't matter. The point is that optimisation in nature can occur without teleology. Even if you disagree that natural selection is incidentally true, it is trivial to see that it is possible. Seeming intention does not require actual intention. The idea is extendable to completely different fields of study (e.g. cosmology, market forces).

It's also that, in our world and perhaps especially in America, the standards projected by media (and politicians - often falsely) are often far removed from the standards you can reasonably expect someone to uphold. You get constantly bombarded by incredibly beautiful people who appear to lead incredibly fulfilling lives all while being woke on race, helping poor children in Africa and only eating organic, ethically produced food.

If you're scraping along on the edge of poverty in some area culturally very removed from any of this, it doesn't take a particularily viscious person to develop a whole lot of resentment. — Echarmion

It's odd, though, isn't it that they are inspired by a man born into extreme wealth who feels like he alone should get what he wants at the expense of others, a man with the power to make his immediate world exactly as he likes it by firing anyone who brings him facts that differ from that projected world. If people were fed up with feeling poor and powerless, how does Trump of all people become their figurehead? Meanwhile there are people out there who have spent their lives campaigning to reduce the very gap you speak of, but these voters wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

I guess the thing is that Trump voters aren't after betterment of the lives of the poor because that would include poor black people, poor hispanic people, poor women, poor gay people, poor Muslims, poor atheists... The Capitol coup was incredibly WHITE considering it wasn't a race issue. I wonder if it's not just that poor people have some Nietzchean resentment toward the projected ideal, but these white people in particular believe that they are owed it, and decades of attempted social reform followed by attempted regression have left them feeling they've been owed it for a very long time, entire lifetimes of generations passing on the IOU. Meanwhile their out-groups have seemed to receive increases: civil rights, feminism, gay rights, trans rights. These people are trying to get to where white men are at but white men see it as a concession: we are losing and those are gaining.

Or something. I don't know, I'm just guessing. But it's a narrative that fits the main story points: hatred of minorities, hatred of immigrants, hatred of any kind of difference, love of someone who also hates those things and promises to be different (a promise he kept to be fair).

Do 'we' now? Such as? — Wayfarer

Natural selection :)

This juxtaposition of having higher status than almost every possible voter, while being a worse person than almost every voter creates a pull. — Echarmion

This is interesting, and quite compelling.

He thereby gives voters the feeling that all the things they feel bad about and more importantly that they are told they should feel bad about, aren't. — Echarmion

Yes, it seems difficult to avoid this point, also made by unenlightened, that ultimately his racism is attractive because they are racists, his misogyny attractive because they are misogynists, his irresponsibility attractive because they are irresponsible. And after decades of being made to feel bad about this, along comes this person who exemplifies and therefore exonerates them.

I said to unenlightened that this seems all too convenient for left-wingers like myself, because we can legitimately say that Trump's fanbase is a bunch of backward, evil tosspots who are therefore attracted to a backward, evil tosspot who says they're backwardness and evil is actually great. It's good versus evil with no nuance. Which doesn't mean it's not true, but...

I am a greedy, lazy, dishonest miserable, angry, self-centred, racist, sexist loser. Trump represents me; he tells me he is like me, and is on my side, he makes like we are the virtuous people and anyone who supports minorities and women and children is a whining communist who wants to stop us being good old American assholes. — unenlightened

There's a LOT of us. I mean them. This explanation -- and I'm not dismissing it -- gives weight to a great gulf between two very different kinds of people. It neatly legitimises the kind of visceral reaction someone like me has toward someone like NOS4A2, although just because it's conveniently neat, doesn't mean it's incorrect. But there aren't really two kinds of people. Ultimately, people like myself and counterpunch have more in common than we have in difference: straight white male Englishmen born in the 20th century. And yet I cannot empathise with him in the way that, say, I could empathise with a drug dealer or even a paedophile.

Books that helped me understand the Trumpers at the beginning of his administration were works like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_in_Their_Own_Land — praxis

Thanks, I'll look into that.

The bayou area has a high concentration of petrochemical plants as well as a high level of pollution in its waterways. Hochschild wanted to understand why there was little support for environmental regulation in this area, despite what would seem to be the self-interest of its residents.

Maybe Trump is a symptom of chemical poisoning caused by pollution.

Imho, the phenomena is not limited to Republicans, as Bernie Sanders is a pretty radical departure from the norm too. One doesn't have to be a confederate states MAGA hat racist to come to the conclusion radical alternatives are now necessary. One can come to that conclusion as a liberal too. — Hippyhead

Right, and that supports my feeling that this is a dead end. I like Bernie Sanders a lot. As a Brit, voting for him is not an issue for me, but pretending I'm an American citizen for a moment, if he went into on television saying that Mexicans were rapists or there was a leak of him treating women purely as sex objects or he boasted he could shoot someone and get away as a positive thing, it wouldn't matter what his policies were, I'd never endorse a person that foul. Quite the opposite, I would vocally oppose him.

For right-wingers, this sort of thing seems to be a total non-issue. Trump is right: he could shoot a soccer mom and they'd just say she was an Antifa terrorist. That's what I don't get. Trump is not secretly vile; he is proudly vile and they love him for it.

Let me rephrase, as I'm not expressing myself well. I know Trump thought his supporters to be fools. He said as much when he said he could shoot a randomer in the street and they would excuse it. I understand his awfulness; I don't understand why, hearing him say that, they agreed.

This seems rather vital to the fascist mindset, but it's difficult to empathise with someone who would say, "Yeah, if he shot someone at random I'd support that". It's an extremely common mindset so I would like to understand it, however evil it seems to me.

He’s simply a conman who tells them what they want to hear and in a way that they enjoy hearing it. Not just anyone can do that. Have you ever watched him speak at one of his rallies? It’s just raw divisive nonsense that only a completely unprincipled narcissist could spew. — praxis

I get that, but why do they want to hear *that*? And, as I said to Hippyhead, it seems more like whatever he says becomes what they want to hear.

As already mentioned, the worlds should not exist simultaneously, but alternatively. Thus the question does not arise "where" these worlds are. — SolarWind

Therefore there is no basis upon which to insist they are different.

A simple question: Would it make no difference to you whether you lead your current life or the life of another person, for example George Clooney, of course including his body and memories? — SolarWind

The question is meaningless. "I" am Kenosha Kid. If you were speaking to George Clooney, "I" would be George Clooney.

We can listen to people's opinions without labeling them. — Philosophim

Are we also not to use words like monist, dualist, physicist, materialist, realist, pragmatist, etc?

Almost everything he did seemed to highlight him as a disastrous candidate based on prior experience.
— Kenosha Kid

In comparison to what? More decades of the same old political status quo which has failed so many people? — Hippyhead

There's no obvious route from that to racism, misogyny, ablism, ineloquence, stupidity, or the demonisation of the free press which his supporters would ordinarily declare a violation of first amendment rights.

Yes, because Trump promised an alternative to the status quo, which he then delivered on. — Hippyhead

See my earlier question:

But why be sympathetic to that and not, say, someone saying "We need universal health care, it's wrong for Americans to be left to die just because they're poor, I'm going to do something about that, there I did something?" — Kenosha Kid

Seeking to change things is not something Trump has a patent on.

Remember George Bush senior? "Read my lips, NO NEW TAXES!" Whereupon he proceeded to support new taxes. — Hippyhead

Trump demonised mask-wearers, raising an anti-masker movement in the US, then started wearing a mask. He is not immune from U-turns either. And how's that wall going?

Please observe the assumption that a desire for defendable borders to one's country is a function of racism. — Hippyhead

No, that's not what I said. Immigration policy is separable from racism. I have no beef with people who prefer a stricter immigration policy than I do because there's no authoritative right answer to that. I am a multiculturalist because I enjoy being surrounded by diversity: my parents do not and so are not, but even I am okay with tighter immigration in the UK because of the housing crisis.

Rather, southern states are hotbeds of racism, especially against blacks and hispanics, and building a wall appeals to that, especially when the cited reasons for that wall include "[Mexicans] are rapists". Don't fall for the right-wing fallacy of pretending one thing is equivalent to another just because there's an overlap.

All the Iran deal did was kick the can down the road. The Iran deal served to hand Obama's problem off to some future President. — Hippyhead

Not taking the bait, that's not the point. The Iran deal became a hot issue because Trump made it one. Not that it already was and Trump dealt with it. He successfully manufactured the problems he would solve. That cannot be used as evidence for his supposed charisma.

Is your goal to understand the Trump phenomena, or just be against it? — Hippyhead

It's not my goal to be against it. I am against it. My goal is to figure out how someone boasting of sexually assaulting women is seen as charismatic, especially by women. That's a reduction of what I can't get my head around.

Anyone else think this impeachment is a terrible idea? It's totally doomed to faliure and it will dominate Biden's first month in office while he should be focused on the economy and pandemic. It will also hold up cabinet appointments. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think it's a terrible idea, but it does seem kind of pointless. Just wait a couple of weeks and arrest the tyrant.

The guy is off social media and most media outlets won't let him on. Let him fade away. He's an obese 74 year old so its entirety possible nature takes away the 2020 threat, and in any case, it seems not improbable he might be in state prison or have fled the country by then. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is good reason to suspect he is a criminal, and he was President. We should not let him fade away. He should be investigated by the FBI and, if a case is surmountable, he should be brought to trial, extradited if necessary and possible, voluntarily exiled if necessary and not possible.

Ordinarily there would be justified trepidation about pursuing a former or outgoing President for his crimes in terms of setting a precedent. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, Trump has already set that precedent by attempting to have his opposition arrested in both in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Until the Republicans get their house in order, there is no reason to believe that the next Republican candidate will have more integrity. It would be extremely dangerous to have a situation in which one party incrementally criminalises the other and the other turns a blind eye to the crimes of the first. The best way of ending the trend of trying to outlaw political opposition is to have an actual strong case against the party who are setting the precedent, i.e. make them afraid of their own principles. For that reason, the Biden administration should offer it's full support to the idea that any criminal activity in office, from either party, will be met with consequences. That way the Republicans will be forced to choose between crime and retribution.

Joking aside we need to engage more with people like Brett @NOS4A2 and especially @counterpunch as they are a real deal philosopher! (Joking not completely aside, I guess) — The Opposite

Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired. — Jonathan Swift

Engaging with them is pointless. They are not reasonable people. They embrace hypocrisy, invention, whataboutery, and swerving contrary evidence and argument. You could show them watertight proof that, say, racism is real and all they will see is proof that so-called facts are not to be trusted.

My view is not that we should encourage such people, but that we should oppose at all opportunities and all means within our principles. Call out every fabrication, every racist principle, every hypocrisy, not because it will move them (it can't), but so that it is held in a constant state of being opposed rather than accepted, and so that every lie, every expression of hate, every fallacy read by others is followed by a counter-argument or contrary evidence or just a straightforward naming for what it is.

Disease is best fought by antibodies, and fascism is a disease, not a philosophy.

I have a solution, and I know it's right. I can prove it right down to the philosophical roots. I can explain where we've gone wrong and how to put it right in the same terms. I am a philosopher. My core subject is how to save the world. And I know how.

Later...

I don't know. It seems a bit immodest to start a thread to propound my own philosophy. — counterpunch

:rofl:

Charitably, it's a boo word for a good reason: the interaction problem is rightly considered fatal to substance dualism. — bert1

Exactly this.

But the point about intentionality or 'aboutness', is that there's no obvious analogy to that in physics. That's the significance of the concept of intentionality, introduced to philosophy by Brentano. Intentionality seems on face value to be irreducibly mental in nature, as it requires or implies both the obvious meaning of intentionality with respect to some object, but also implies representation regarding what the object is about. That's why it suggests dualism - there's nothing that maps against that in physical laws. — Wayfarer

Once upon a time, sure. But based on current knowledge, it doesn't suggest dualism, since we know of other physical laws that yield that sort of mirage of intentionality.

First, they see leadership in Trump because Trump actually did lead. He defeated the entire political establishment of both parties and defied media speculation which was convinced of Clinton's inevitable victory. — Hippyhead

I think that's presupposing the answer to the question. Did he do that or did they? Almost everything he did seemed to highlight him as a disastrous candidate based on prior experience. Did he actively prove them wrong, like find some kind of cheat codes that cut through the crap and got to the heart of the matter, or did his supporters do that? I think the latter. The candidate is obviously important to the election result, but that result is realised through votes. They must have loved him before they voted for him.

Once elected Trump led by overturning a number of decisions and assumptions of the established political class. Instead of ignoring immigration and conceiving of that issue as being very complicated and sophisticated etc etc blah, blah, blah, he said, "Fuck that, let's build a wall!" — Hippyhead

He promised the wall as part of his campaign, so his supporters either voted for him in part because of that or despite it. I get that a lot of people in the confederate states hate Mexicans, hate non-whites in general, so I understand that there's an appeal to even a pipe dream of that kind of determination and vision. But a) even here he made it seem unworkable by claiming Mexico would be made to pay for it (how did they think that would work?), and b) the southern states that would love that idea would mostly have voted Republican anyway. Does someone in Wyoming or Michigan or Wisconsin want a wall between the USA and Mexico? Why?

He left the Iran deal, the Paris accords, the WHO. He challenged NATO to pay their own way. Same thing here. Examples of bold leadership, just not the flavor that you and I prefer. — Hippyhead

I guess another one here is Obamacare, which Republican voters hated anyway because it was Obama and it was a bit too socialist for them. The same people would have opposed the Paris accords. I'm less certain about the Iran deal, the WHO, NATO, and the free press. I didn't see any pre-existing overwhelming opposition to these before Trump took them on. Rather he had an approach of demonising something, promising to do something about it, then doing it. But why be sympathetic to that and not, say, someone saying "We need universal health care, it's wrong for Americans to be left to die just because they're poor, I'm going to do something about that, there I did something?"

Let's narrow it down, a toy model of Trump (free with every box of Cheerios): some ridiculous-looking, illiterate old guy says, "I like grabbing women's pussies. And the Iran deal was bad, I'm going to pull out of that if I'm President." What about this would make someone go, "Yeah, fuck the Iran deal, we need this guy to sort it out"? A pre-existing prejudice against the Iran deal, sure. But there didn't seem much of one.

If I was to hypothesise why it was so easy to convince people that the Iran deal was bad, and therefore so easy to then gain support by promising to pull out, it's that the Iran deal was brokered by Obama, and therefore bad by proxy. I really don't think your average MAGA-hatted dunderhead really thinks Iran should be left to develop their own enrichment facilities, not just because it's obviously a bad idea, but because that's a tad abstract and overseas for them.

More importantly perhaps, Trump offered his base leadership on a more personal emotional level. Educated liberals such as ourselves have been looking down our snooty noses at rural and working people for decades. We are the cool smart people, they are the clueless bumpkins etc. Trump led by raising his middle finger and jamming it in our eye, thus channeling the understandable emotions of many millions of people, who then rewarded him with their loyalty. — Hippyhead

I have seen no evidence of this. In fact, he's notorious for putting his foot in his mouth about things like "suburban wives".

This proof supports dualism and refutes monism, since in monism world A and world Z would have to be identical, since they are materially identical. — SolarWind

As others have pointed out, you postulate a difference between materially identical worlds, then conclude that these materially identical worlds are different thus dualism. Your conclusion is in your premises: a circular argument.

There are already materially identical things in this material universe. Particles of the same kind are indistinguishable (this is empirically verified), to the extent that some people believe that every electron in the universe is the same electron bouncing forward (electron) and backward (positron) in time, the idea that spawned Richard Feynman's quantum electrodynamics: the most thoroughly tested physical theory of all time.

Materially indistinguishability is not sufficient to show dualism. All the electrons in the universe are identical, but can still be different in physical ways (state). They can also have identical state: a ground state hydrogen atom over there can have the same state as and is materially indistinguishable from a ground state hydrogen atom here.

You don't define what you mean by world, but I assume you mean "everything", i.e. a universe or reality, rather than a planet or phenomenological purview. If that is the case, it is difficult to insist on two identical but separate worlds. You would need some justification for saying WA is indeed different from WZ, which is again assuming your own conclusion.

Charisma is perhaps more accurately compared to the phenomena of screen presence in TV and films. It's not so much about the character being laudable as it is about their ability to hold our attention. Think of John Malkovich for example. He typically plays evil characters, but he's a very watchable actor. When he's on screen he's probably what you're looking at. — Hippyhead

But this is about being drawn to follow someone, right? If you saw John Malkovich (the "overrated sack of shit" -- Being John Malkovich) in Con Air, you might find his hamming entertaining and his character darkly curious, but you wouldn't think "This is the guy for us, he will lead us into a new golden age." You'd think something more like "This character is funny but I'm glad I don't know him."

Trump was certainly funny when he didn't mean to be. "What will come out of this moron's mouth next?" was essentially our "Next time on 24..." He has watercooler appeal, for sure. I just can't get my head around what sort of person -- and there are tens of millions of them, so it's my fault -- would see leadership in that. He did the opposite of charming people: he gave them every reason to be turned off, and invented a few new ones.

Charisma is a mysterious force in human affairs. It doesn't necessarily have a logical basis, because human beings aren't fundamentally rational. — Hippyhead

But it has a statistical footprint. The human race is a large sample. It's not random noise: there's causality at work here.

His supporters had hungered for a charismatic leader like him

It always baffles me who the right-wing find charismatic. Hitler, Putin, Berlusconi, Trump. Or even the right of the left-wing (Blair). All these so-called "charismatic" leaders all seemed like pretty hideous characters, quite pathetic. It's not like Trump's image changed between 2016 and 2020: he seemed like a vile human being (racism, misogyny, boasting about sexually assaulting women, mocking people for their illnesses) and a total moron long before he was elected.

When I think "charismatic", I think charming, smart, strong, self-confident, maybe good-looking. Trump was self-confident beyond the pail, but utterly charmless, mentally stunted, frail, and he looked ridiculous, somewhere between an aging female Nevada motel owner and a clown.

Are they defining the word differently or are they genuinely seeing the person differently? What kind of mindset do you have to have where you see some orange old dude boasting about grabbing strange women's pussies and you think, "Wow! I will follow him to the ends of the Earth"?

I think this sends the wrong message. We are here to think. We are here to listen to other's points and arguments, and logically think through them. It is not about being conservative, liberal, or political in any way. Such things often get in the way of free thought, and become arguments of ego and ideology. — Philosophim

You know that political philosophy is a thing, right? We cannot "listen to other's points and arguments, and logically think through them " about politics and at the same time be prohibited from using its terminology. Makes no sense.

I'm here to discuss philosophy - and frankly, you're letting the side down by dragging the conversation into the gutter of the giving and taking of personal offence. — counterpunch

Terrific wilful missing of the point, full marks for that. Not a milligram of intellectual rigour or shame to you, I see.

There are certainly critical distinctions between the Trumpers and the BLM protesters, but there is a similarity often overlooked, and that is that both comprise a marginalized underclass, even if the Trumpers don't realize the source of their anger and even if they are members of the majority race. — Hanover

Yes. But the BLM protesters sought police reform because they were victimised by the police. The marginalised underclass that supports Trump is an economic underclass protesting on behalf of someone who wishes to cut taxation and public ("wasteful") spending. Even in that similarity they are starkly different.

Could it be argued that society as a whole does the same thing? There are all sorts of behaviours that society finds distasteful or aberrant and tries to control through social norms rather than any concrete laws. — infin8fish

No. You can probably find social analogies, but coercive control is underhand destabilisation of someone's complete autonomy and individuality. It is essentially the covert reprogramming of people to subvert their identities in preference for total centring around the dominant individual. It is not comparable to the overt structure of having to labour for one's keep which is supposed to have more to do with providing a safety net, although it doesn't seem much like that now.

Coercive controllers employ many underhand tactics to get what they want, including but not limited to a very gradual increase in controlling behaviour, attempts to turn the victim's friends and families against them, putting the victim into a constant state of fear about what the next 'mistake' they might make will be, and often ends with total control over the victim's finances and actual domestic imprisonment.

Which is not much like having to get a job or obey laws about harming people. I've seen coercive control twice and I imagine it's far more common than I could know: it is akin to slavery, without even the respite slaves might have enjoyed.

No one would accept that kind of situation willingly, unlike a work environment. Like domestic violence and domestic rape, it is a situation that millions of women have nonetheless found themselves in because misogynistic society perceives male authority as total and women's suffering as negligible. Unlike those, it is not intrinsically gendered and in our still kinda-misogynistic but also kinda mid-feminist society, it does happen the other way around: one of the two cases I've witnessed was a woman coercively controlling a man. Interestingly when these laws were being debated in the UK, feminist opinion in our feminist media flagpole The Guardian was torn on the issue, with most feminists welcoming this logical extension of female liberty but a few decrying it as a patriarchal device to punish "nagging wives".

It's difficult not to take that personally. — counterpunch

Why the hell would you NOT take it personally?

I think maybe, your problem is that you assume your values are far more universal than in fact they are. — counterpunch

That has often been the case, and the world these past few years has frequently taunted me for it.

I'm trying to discuss those problems civilly. — counterpunch

But I'm justified in treating you uncivilly because I GENUINELY BELIEVE THAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO because I GENUINELY BELIEVE YOU ARE A RACIST SCUMBAG and I GENUINELY BELIEVE RACIST SCUMBAGS ARE AN EVIL THREAT TO HUMANITY.

Now, if you will kindly recall:

There is no alternative to acting on the basis of belief — counterpunch

This is your philosophy. Whereas the Trump rioters had only evidence against their beliefs, you have provided ample evidence that you are a racist. So even by your stricter criteria, I am justified in my response. I perceive your racism whether you own it or not. I believe you are a racist.

So ACCORDING TO YOUR AVOWEDLY GENERAL PHILOSOPHY, how would you say I should treat you?

Just wanted to see if you believed your supposed principles or whether they'd crumble the second they didn't fit into your ideology.

I haven't insulted you — counterpunch

Actually, you have. First, you and people like you are an offense to all decent people. Racism is not a religion or an economic philosophy. It's harm is not accidental. It's violence as culture, not just in the individual ways it expresses itself, but to humanity itself. It kills over and over and over throughout history and excuses itself via it's own circularity. It is not difference of opinion: it is inexcusable violent hate that has to be named, condemned and stamped out by every conscientious person capable of caring for others to protect us from its violence.

Plus the aforementioned bs double speak is an insult to intelligence. Like anyone is stupid enough not to see through that brain-dead crap.

It's not me playing identity politics - it's you! — counterpunch

I'm a straight white middle class man from England. My identity is not an issue: that's been one of my many, many privileges. I haven't used it to besmirch people without those privileges because I'm not a scumbag.

If the US saw what the US does to the US, it would invade the US to liberate the US from US tyranny. A coup is a coup, no matter where it occurs. A fascist is a fascist, no matter who he is. — Miguel Hernández

:rofl: and :up:

Well, you would have to nit-pick! :cool: — jgill

To be exact, I don't *have* to, I just *want* to.



:rofl: