How does one overcome the fear of getting a needle stabbed into one's flesh, to make this into a voluntary event? — Metaphysician Undercover

The same way they overcome any fear. Unless they are those who don't overcome any fear, and choose to hide under the bed. Personally, I stare at the needle as it goes in and embrace the sensation. I challenge it to overcome me. LOL! It can't, of course, because I'm not a pussy.

Does anyone have misgivings about the vaccine which don't pertain to altering public policy or threaten advocacy for the general participation of the public? — Cheshire

I don't. All my misgivings about the vaccine exist in a maelstrom of shit about public policy. I can't even ask those who have the creds about misgivings because they too are in the same maelstrom; anything they said would be spun by stupid people into a "see, It's bad" talking point. It's like a climate change expert expert expressing a doubt about some nuance. Some idiot will jump on that and claim it's all BS.

What we need to do is to do to those who run the show what they have done to us: We need to harness them like work horses and put them to work for us. Subject them to the "human resources department" like they have done to us. Milk them for all they are worth. Trickle up, not trickle down. Stimulate those who actually do all the work and who will actually spend the stimulus stimulating. If those at the top want it to trickle up, then they can work for it. And work hard and smart for it. Working for the people, instead of the other way around. Pay a god damn tax for crying out loud.
— James Riley
So (if you still have the time to respond, or respond later) just what are you just exactly implying? More transfer payments in taxes? To whom are where? Just who works for whom? — ssu

I'm sorry, but I didn't think I was implying anything. I thought I spelled it out pretty clearly.

But of course, the placebo effect is real, and a great optimism about a medical treatment can contribute to better treatment outcomes. I actually envy the optimists. It must be great to be that way. Yay!!!! I wish I could be like that. Just close my eyes, not think, not feel, just go along with what those in positions of power say, and be happy, happy, happy. — baker

I think you are worthless.

I social distance for the same reason I have always social distanced.

I wear a mask for the same reason I wear a gun.

I took the vaccine for the same reason I joined the Marine Corps.

I’ve never liked crowds, concerts, packed bars, or the teaming hordes. Six feet is tolerable, but I prefer fifty feet or, even better, fifty miles. The idea of wrestling or grappling or otherwise getting close to another man gives me the heeby jeebies. I’m good with distance. I do like essential workers, but I don’t want to snuggle with them

I wear a gun as a defense against sick people. I’ve done an un-scientific, subjective calculation of the odds versus the inconvenience and determined a mask is nothing. My gun weighs more, is less convenient, and the chances of needing it are less than a need for a mask. But I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. I’d have to be physically or mentally handicapped to be inconvenienced by a mask.

I did not join the Marine Corps for any high ideals, to protect my fellow Americans, or to serve selflessly. I was too immature to understand deep patriotism beyond the propaganda I’d been fed. My patriotism was the kind that makes me cry when I hear the National Anthem. It was culturally imbued, intuitive; it was not learned, not cognitive, not philosophical, or deep. That would come later. But as a young man, I joined with reckless abandon, throwing caution to the wind, signing on the dotted line, a blank check up to and including my life. That’s why I took the vaccine. Was it a risk? Yes. So what? I roll the dice every time I go out the door. But I try to not risk other people when I risk myself.

I try to not be inconsiderate, disrespectful, or selfish.

I look to the BTDTs for guidance on science. Everyone else is a poser. Poser’s mistake being a critic for critical thinking. They forget analytics. Those who know are full of doubt. Those who don’t know are full of confidence. The world is funny that way.

I don’t pretend to be the man I want to be. But back in the day, there was a prototype. He was tough, and strong, and silent. He did not complain. He carried everyone else on his broad shoulders. I don’t know what happened to that man. Maybe he’s still out there: an Atlas not shrugging. Now we have tough, strong, loud mouths; incessantly complaining about those they perceive as weak or stupid. Shrugging off the load.

I feel like apologizing to the women of the world, but the closest thing I see to the prototype today are some women. The world is funny that way. More power to them.

Your hostility is duly noted. Which of my bills are you willing to pay? — baker

I'm not willing to pay any of your bills. If you don't social distance, don't mask and don't vax, and if you get sick and go to the hospital and take up a bed that my wife or kid or me need for covid or some other reason, I will not only not pay your bills, but I'll rip the vent out of your mouth and dump your worthless carcass out the window and tell the Hippocratic Oath doc to forget your ass and get to work on me or mine.

Really? — baker

Yes, really.

So we're supposed to believe that, for example, people who drive aggressively, who tailgate, cut in front, run others off the road etc. suddenly become paragons of compassion and empathy when a pandemic strikes? That men who refuse to wear condoms and who routinely risk the health and life of their female sex partners suddenly grew a conscience? Employers who have their workers work in unsafe conditions now suddenly "care about others"? Really? — baker

No. You are supposed to believe those same pieces of shit are the same people who refuse a vaccine.

Have you noticed that in the beginning, when they began vaccinating and vaccination was limited to the elderly and some other critical groups, the medical protocols were quite different than they are now? — baker

Yes. It's called "science." Like when Fauci first said "no masks" he was just fully aware of how stupid people are, having witnessed it first hand, with the run on shit paper. He the selfish, greedy, inconsiderate, disrespectful shitheads outlined in your paragraph above would execute a nun on masks to the detriment of first responders. Once the masks were spun up and there was enough for everyone, he said to mask up. That was not a flip flop. That was not evidence of inconsistency or duplicity. It was science and a scientist running head-long into non-scientist idiots. Besides, if you know anything about science, you know it changes, all the time.

Regarding the rest of your post, it's not worth my time. It's stupid Faux News, Tucker Carlsonesque BS.

Yet the problem is that our society is built on growth. — ssu

The old saying "The bigger they are, the harder they fall" applies here, I think. The bigger our population gets and the longer we delay, the more catastrophic the inevitable fall. As opined by frank, though, the plan is no plan. We have and will continue to just muddle through in an open conspiracy to look the other way because we mistakenly think it will be too hard to bite the bullet. It's just going to get harder and, eventually Mother Earth will do what the stock market refers to as "a correction."

We think that just because we've pulled ourselves along, we always will. Because we are in the air, we are air borne. We fly. The sky's not a limit; space is next. We and our technology will save us. No one stops to think that we might be falling and just haven't hit yet. With our mere 200k years we have no context.

If no human being was born from today forward, then we'd be at about 2 to 4 billion in 30 years. Far from ideal, but way more sustainable. We don't need continuing innovation but there is no reason why we can't have it. We need to grow, but grow smaller; grow, but grow smarter. We have several hundred thousand years of experience and a wonderful solar power plant that has been working for long before we came along (photosynthesis). We can, but don't have to rest on our laurels.

All we have to do is what Aldo Leopold recommended so long ago: Make a virtue of necessity. What this means is, change what we now deem to be good to what we know would be better. If we exalt greed, then that is what we will get. If we exalt humble gratitude, grace and giving, then those who epitomize that will become the heroes, the leaders, the people we will endeavor to emulate.

Sorry, but I don't want to hear a bunch of "Yeah, but . . ." followed by a parade of horribles. As one recent meme I saw said: "The question isn't if we can afford to change; the answer is that we cannot afford not to." The money involved and the damage done by continuing on our current path far exceeds any cost created by an entire collapse of our current way of life and being tossed back into a cave. But we don't have to do that any more than we have to murder people.

What we need to do is to do to those who run the show what they have done to us: We need to harness them like work horses and put them to work for us. Subject them to the "human resources department" like they have done to us. Milk them for all they are worth. Trickle up, not trickle down. Stimulate those who actually do all the work and who will actually spend the stimulus stimulating. If those at the top want it to trickle up, then they can work for it. And work hard and smart for it. Working for the people, instead of the other way around. Pay a god damn tax for crying out loud.

So here's the sum and substance in anticipatory response to the inevitable "yeah, but . . ." BS that I am about to hear: Tough. Too late. We had our chance to reign ourselves in and unfuck this mess by executing a gradual turn of the ship. We were warned, in plenty of time, long ago. So now is the time to pay the piper. Crash this motherfucker now. And if we can be nimble on our feet with our tech and innovation, which we think we are so good at, then let's see what we got. Put up or shut up. NOW! Let's see what we got.

I don't want to hear a bunch of counterpunchian BS about trying to not upset the apple cart. The whole conservative attraction to Trump was about having lost patience with the foot-dragging, inside-the-belt-way, bureaucratic, deep-state dominant paradigm. They'd lost patience and wanted to risk it all. Okay, I'm calling their bluff. I'm calling humanities bluff.

Never mind. Let nature take it's course. Sorry, kids. We knew better but, we're only human.

P.S. There are many different theories on population reduction out there, for those who want to look into it. Fair warning: look out for nationalist/border groups; they come up with a lot of the same search terms but their goals aren't really concerned with humanity at large.

End rant. I have to go for several weeks. While I can read remotely I don't think I can contribute much, if at all.

Then like everywhere else on the net - you left wing bullies have driven out alternate opinion, — counterpunch

I usually leave people like you in the rear-view mirror. But I see here a teachable moment, and hope you can be taught. I’ve been banned from more internet discussion forums than I can shake a stick at. In fact, just yesterday, while I was not banned from LinkedIn as a site, I was banned from a conversation thereon. 98% of the time where I’ve been banned, it was conservative cancel culture. It was never due to my having conducted myself as you have here. It was always due to me giving as good as I got, logically or otherwise, in playing by the same rules as those with whom I was engaged.

I’ve seen more conservative gadflies buzzing around liberal sites than you would ever see if the roles were reversed. It has only been within the last few years that I’ve seen liberal-oriented discussion forums start to ban conservative gadflies. And that was simply in a tit-for-tat fit of frustration. There might also have been an acknowledgement of how well echo-chambers and confirmation bias and cancel culture seemed to be working for conservatives, and so the push-back was on. In other words, conservatives had brought it on themselves and now they are reaping what they sew.

But this place has not banned you, to my knowledge. In fact, where I envision a gadfly as somewhat of a loner, you are no gadfly here. This place has its fair share of conservatives. They just don’t act like petulant little children. If they do, I just ban them from my engagement and don’t rely upon the forum to do it for me. Besides, the forum's tolerance is higher than mine. Anyway, I digress. Let me get to my point. Here’s the lesson:

Next time you feel the urge to “ASSume”, or to say what it is that others must, in your mind, be saying, or before you arrive at a conclusion, do this: Ask a question. But first, ask yourself: Is this an honest question and is it founded in sincere intellectual curiosity? Or is it just a rhetorical device to gain points in a debate? But try to avoid straw men and telling people what it is that they think, or that the only logical conclusion is X. Ask instead. You might learn something you did not know.

As you may remember with me, you could have simply asked how I intended to accomplish my goal. But just as you have done to so many others on this thread, you did not ask. And you were not willing to take the steps to redeem yourself. Why, pray tell, should I continue to engage one who doesn’t even know what he did wrong, is in denial, or is afraid to admit it? Having been down this road before, I’ve found the perpetrator just continues with his transgressions. I can’t argue with such a person. (Much respect to those who have beat their head against the brick wall that you have become.)

P.S. I did not even know you were conservative until you just called out the site. As I’ve said before, I don’t know shit about magma and thought your interest in it was better than the denial of doubling down on big oil, like a true conservative would do. I thought you might just be a different left lane. But apparently not.

Anyway, back to the rearview mirror with you. If you have anything worth while in rebuttal on the magma science, I look forward to reading it.

Clean it up later is a game plan for children. — Book273

:100: And my mother always said, "If you borrow something, put it back the way and where you found it."

the public after the four years' strife would tolerate nothing less. In short, Europe did it to itself. — tim wood

The same malady struck in 1865. Within twenty years, the statues started their long rise, the flag again flew, the liberated oppressed were still oppressed, the enemy remained in control of the land, and war still smolders. Sometimes you have to finish the job or your decedents pay the price for your weariness.

1. Is philosophy as a science having some basic principles or some undeniable truth about the things that it examines?
2. Is there a discussion among other people in the methodology of philosophy?
3. Are there strict rules in philosophy such as in mathematics, or can anyone create his own philosophy and worldview? — kris22

My opinion:
1. Kind of. It pretends to logic but logic can defeat itself unless there is a "gentlemen's agreement" to ignore it.
2. Yes. And they are all right and wrong.
3. The latter.

That we are more appropriately considered vermin than are rats. — Ciceronianus the White

:100: As far as the Earth is concerned, probably more like parasites than vermin. But yeah, right down there with them. They probably serve a purpose in the grand scheme of things, but I'm not sure what this is. I guess that's why they have TPF. :grin:

However, the magma is a lot freaking closer.
— James Riley

The sunlight is on my roof.

So, no, it isn't. — Banno

Let me slow it down for you:

"We all know the ball of heat that is the Earth’s magma is freaking tiny compared to the ball of heat that is the sun. However, the magma is a lot freaking closer. [It is. WAY closer. Like 94.5m miles closer] Then again, there is quite the crust between us and it, while there is mere empty space between us and the sun. We have to work to get to the magma up, whereas the sun pours down [Doh!] . . ."

:razz:

We all know the ball of heat that is the Earth’s magma is freaking tiny compared to the ball of heat that is the sun. However, the magma is a lot freaking closer. Then again, there is quite the crust between us and it, while there is mere empty space between us and the sun. We have to work to get to the magma up, whereas the sun pours down whether we want it or not. Both have to be captured. Balancing it all out, which one is “more”, which one is less subject to man’s fucking it up, and which one is easier?
Which one is proven? Which one has been ignored by real scientists? Asking for myself.

On the "fucking it up" question, I find myself in that odd place of feelingstupidly ridiculous to think we could ever jeopardize the earth by tapping it’s inner heat. I mean, it’s so large and endless. It’s not like we could ever mess up the dynamo. Like the five billion carrier pigeons; there is no way a bunch of idiots with black powder muzzle-loaders could ever possibly wipe them out. There is no way humans could ever possibly affect the climate. It’s just too damn big. There is no way we could ever trash outer space. Talk about endless cubic miles! Oh, wait.

:up: And where one technology (especially an unknown and unproven one) is given the grace of time to develop and improve, I would think the same courtesy should be extended to others; and those which are extant, with a head start, would be favored, I would think. It's my understanding windmills just keep getting better. Compare what they started with to where they are today. Solar panels, likewise. I've even heard you could make roads out of and drive on them. Just imagine if all oil subsidy were ripped away (including the use of public lands) and diverted to alternatives.

See, now that wasn't so hard. :grin:

Anyway, my mom just sent me sermon she got at church (she's a Christian) and it had an analogy from physics about the wave to the particle. I'd read about it years ago, but it was new to her. What was new to me was the context of racism and the drilling down more particularly on the idea that the first thing you notice about someone often dictates what you see, and often to the exclusion of the rest of them; i.e. wave to particle. Sometimes it's best to step back and see the river instead of the molecule going by. Sometimes it's best to see the molecule, or even the sediment carried by the river and the "damage" that it does, taking boulders, in microscopic pieces, to the sea.

But having studied the geology of my own area, I've read there was a ancient rocky mountains here that eroded to the ocean, only to have another set rise up to what we have today. If it repeats on a scale like that, then the wave is going nowhere in the hydrologic cycle. Above, below, and on the Earth, it is a wet and (to me) sacred hoop.

Yes. And to think, those who are just now at the end of their rope with lock downs and whatnot, well, they'd still have plenty of rope left had their predecessors played ball. Anyway, we're preaching to the choir. I'm just glad my family and I are "relatively" well situated, remote and self-sufficient.

But he was not alone, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modi in India, Johnson in Britain, etc. — Manuel

I did not read the article, but I saw a headline suggesting that maybe Trump gave courage to those guys instead of the other way around, or even as convergent stupidity. I always just assumed they were following dummy, but that could just be my "Merica First!" training. LOL!

And who knows if the mutation after the Delta variant will be much worse. — Manuel

:100:

I know what Trump could have done with a PSA, a white mask of any caliber, and a cigarette. But no, just be Trump.

Or things continue to be the same differently. You’re not a fan of Heraclitus or James? — Joshs

I'm gonna stop right here and say something I have no good reason to say, other than my gut:

You seem like a very well-read, intelligent person with excellent retention. However, I don't see a whole lot of analytics, or thinking on your own two feet.

Here's my point: I don't know who Heideger is, and I put Heraclitus behind me forty years ago. If I want to run a guy up the flag pole, I quote him like I did y Gasset, or I give a summary of the position held as it relates to the subject at hand. But when I see a bunch of names thrown around without any piggin string on the merits, I'm wondering if someone is trying the old "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit" ruse. Or, as we used to say in the law: "If the facts aren't on your side, argue the hell out of the law. If the law is not on your side, argue the hell out of the facts."

Like I said, you are probably just smarter than me so I shouldn't call you out. But you might be aware that if you can't make your own case without name dropping, I'm going to be suspect. Just know you are talking to a dummy, not a philosophy professor.

And the damn virus would be much weaker by now if everybody got a vaccine. — Manuel

I also believe it would have disappeared without the vaccine if everyone would have done what they were told. I know damn well how offensive that phrase is, and I hate it myself: "do what you're told." But once you politicize something, all bets are on: on your life, your neighbors life, etc. All you have left is karma and I don't even have a clue if that is something I even believe in. Oh well, the toothpaste is out of the tube.

An example of the conundrums: Fauci says "don't were a mask" when he really means "save the masks for the health care workers" because he doesn't want a run on masks (ala shit paper). He knows that if he said what he meant, every mask would disappear, ala the tragedy of the commons. In other words, he is correctly anticipating the stupid people. But then, later, when masks are spun up, he says wear them. Then all the stupid people think they caught him in an inconsistency. And we fight over shit like that, and where it came from, blah, blah, blah. I know civilians aren't subject to the ethos of the military but when the Sgt. says this and you want to argue with him, you get your head shot off or you get someone else' head shot off. I love to question authority but I try not to do it at someone else' expense. And I try to believe the Sgt. isn't out to get me.

I see socialization of costs by those who hate socialism. I really don't have a problem with people getting what they have coming to them. I just wish they'd keep it to themselves. If I die from the vaccine, I'm not killing anyone else because I took it.

We need to invent plots in order to impose some
order on and find patterns — Joshs

I don't know Heidegger, but perhaps y Gasset read him very well and just disagreed with, and improved upon him. Wouldn't your progressive building upon a past have the student move beyond the teacher? Or is y Gasset just a step back, an aberration, an F student of Heidegger? The invention of incessant change and transformation is the invented plot and order imposed by those who lack the context of eons; those who fear, and try to avoid the honesty of how insipid their life is. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

People feel like certain groups, be it nations, sportsteams, parties are part of their identity... that's to say there's no stark difference between them feeling pride in accomplishing something themselves or the group they identify with accomplishing something.

Ok maybe you'd follow this up by asking why one would identify with something other then themselves... at some point the answer will just be because we are that kind of beings, social beings. Individualism is a later ideological invention. — ChatteringMonkey

:up: Your post brings to mind one of my favorite quotes:

"In itself life is insipid, because it is a simple "being there." So, for man, existing becomes a poetic task, like the playwright's or the novelist's: that of inventing a plot for his existence, giving it a character which will make it both suggestive and appealing. ... ... serious examination should lead us to realize how distasteful existence in the universe must be for a creature - man, for example - who finds it essential to divert himself." J.O. y Gasset.

I wanted to compare it to golf, but since it's such a solo thing you don't see much in the way of pride for what the single person does. I wanted to then extend that thought to all the solo sports in the Olympics, but that has a sovereign flag attached to it. Seems like BS to me, but I often fall right in with the crowd. :yikes: :blush:

I read my wife's FB periodically and see a metric shit ton of videos showing things I have seen in the wild; things that fly in the face of all I was taught about animals growing up in a rural area/culture. I also have a hearty "meh" (if a "meh" can even be hearty) for all the scientists who try to distinguish our proclivities from those of the animals; whether bloody or loving or both.

I was thinking, with all the new video "evidence" there might be a positive "turn" in our understanding. Lots of anecdotal, isolated evidence can only be dismissed for so long. Perhaps a scientist should do a study: Are we turning, as Joshs suggested, in the racism thread, that we might be capable of doing? Or will the $ in factory farming get the science to bury it? Will the open conspiracy keep us killing without gratitude? Even though we all know better, and have since we killed the first animal to fill our bellies? Let us all say grace before we eat instead of living and killing in grace with what we eat.

New model of empathy? No. Old news for those with situational awareness.

In reading this thread I'm beginning to see a distinction between an era and a people. The OP had me thinking merely of an era (post-modern); but subsequent posts discuss a person (a post-modernist). The latter could be a person like me, who: 1. simply thinks the era is/was real, 2. embodies the characteristics of the era; 3. embraces the characteristics of the era; or 4. merely happens to live in the era. I might be #1 and #4 but don't know enough about myself or the characteristic to know if I qualify for #2 or #3. Still reading. But I think it might be helpful to me if the distinction was made. Maybe I'll just have to struggle to discern from context.

I see you like to read extra things into what I say. — Benkei

Murdering commie! . . . :wink:

Showing gratitude for the accomplishments of our forebears is appropriate. — Benkei

Yes. There is, I think, a world of difference between gratitude and pride. If our forebears set the table then it should be: "Thank you for setting table!" And "I had a nice table set when I arrived." Not "We set a nice table for ourselves, didn't we? RAH RAH RAH! YEA US."

I think people would do well to teach grace, humility and gratitude instead of pride. Reserve pride for those who "deserve" it.

Anyway, thanks for bringing gratitude into this as an alternative understanding.

:up:

Blumenbach makes me think of the concept of "pride," mainly in his distinction between those "of capacity" in any race, and the average joe in that same race.

There is black pride, white pride, etc. But what really is it? I can understand pride in my own accomplishments, or in those of others where I played a hand, but why should I take pride in what other white people do or did? Why should I identify with the Denver Broncos? (I don't, by the way.) I don't live anywhere near Denver and even if I did, I have exactly jack-diddly squat to do with them.

I'm one of the few, the proud, the Marines. And I can understand pride in what I've done to earn that title, but I wasn't at Iwo Jima or wherever. So I can't point to all the Marines who have done this or that and say, "Yeah, that's me!" I once asked a Marine Chaplain about pride being a sin and yet the Marines are all about it. He parsed the hair in some forgotten way. But I raise it again in case somebody wants to school me on the difference.

Modern white conservatives often express pride in our founding fathers. But they were liberals, even radicals, every one. The U.S. has accomplished a lot, but why would some white moron think he had anything to do with it? We beat the Russians to the moon? What do you mean "we" (especially if you don't pay any taxes).

This brings me to the question of push-back. If blacks have been oppressed for so long, but some excel in some area, should other blacks take pride in that? It almost seems understandable in that case. But I don't suppose I should say it's okay here but not there.

Is pride the genesis of the "us vs them" that leads to racism?

I don't understand pride. I'm not saying anything about it, good or bad. I'm looking for insight from others. What good is it? What purpose does it serve? Where did it come from? I have the same concerns about the word "deserve." But that's another thread I reckon.

One of the worse developments was that of limited liability, for profit corporations and that has exactly zero to do with capitalism. — Benkei

:100: :up: It is anti-capitalism.

"Self-disgust" is probably the wrong term, I agree. — Kenosha Kid

Yeah, too strong. Nevertheless, I remember from my poly sci days that some of the "natives" who got restless were not just the indig subjects in the colonies. Sometimes they were home-grown, marginalized (that's why we don't hear much about them) champions of the oppressed. They can be a real thorn in the side of their own government. They did feel disgust with it.

I don't know. — darthbarracuda

I might have read too much into your OP (I hate when people do that, so if I did, please correct me), but I got the impression that you think the duplicitous master is bad (patriarchal, authoritarian and racist) so wouldn't those who where all-in, and did not have to be fooled to get on board, be the worse of the two?

po-mo is just a flickering bricolage with no coherence — Tom Storm

Modernism minus the Enlightenment equals p0stm0dernism.

Loving it. I want to dumb this conversation down and saying something about a po-mo mo-fo but I'll save that for a later time when I can work "flickering bricolage" into a conversation. :cool:

Did the 'postmodern condition' actually happen? (4 votes)
Yes, and before postmodernists described it — Kenosha Kid

I chose yes/before. This is my first exposure to the subject and I was favorably impressed with your description of the issue; so much so that I fell right in with the description of postmodernism so completely as to see it, not as a creation of those who might name it, but as a state of affairs that came about as a result of experience and was only then named. And I found the description of how it came to be and what it was to be so plausible as to be true; at least until someone better comes along to dispel it. The three naysayers, while thoughtful, failed to do that, at least in my mind. The more I think about what they said, the more it appears that they were just nitpicking and trying to be difficult and searching for readers. The first seems wrong on the relativism point, the second seems to be nuancing without distinguishing, and the third is too late.

Following the thread and learning.

Let me contextualize and then re-state the question: On the other side we have their opposition and their minions celebrating rugged individualism, risk-taking, boot-strapping, personal responsibility, anti-democratic, anti-government, pro-nationalist, pro-capitalist, anti-socialist ideas while simultaneously hiding behind big government skirts with statutory limitations on liability, cost socialization, corporate shareholder protections from having to take personal responsibility for their own actions, regulatory inhibitions to competition, legal tax evasion, capital investment in communist and dictatorial labor markets, and use of U.S. infrastructure, police, national defense and the list goes on. Yet their proletariat hauls their water for them at the polls and on the streets, all while voting against their own interests.

Normally I would just say the prols on the right are fools, just like the prols on the left. But my question was about those who actually support their masters on principle; not simply because they were fooled. Who is worse? Who's principle is a greater threat to America?

Are you asking which is worse, to be foolish or to be evil? — darthbarracuda

No, I'm asking which is worse? Those who fall for the ruse, or those who actually believe in and support the capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian, racist line without even having to be fooled into supporting it?

Big-tech companies (like FAANG), Democratic politicians (like Biden or Obama), and liberal-minded universities across the country encourage people to celebrate BLM, LGBTQ+, feminist, pro-democracy and anti-capitalist ideas while simultaneously being capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian and racist themselves. — darthbarracuda

I'm not going to take issue with that because I think there is truth to it. However, I have a question: When it comes to the proletariat, which is worse? Those who fall for that ruse, or those who actually believe in and support the capitalist, bureaucratic, patriarchal, authoritarian, racist line without even having to be fooled into supporting it?

:up:

If one were to take an honest old Winchester and refinish it, that by god, is sacrilege! Go fuck your dog (if he'll/she'll let you) but remember, a Winchester must find generations hence. Why ruin it with your pedestrian esthetic?

Such a perspective, it seems to me , is at odds with all that came after Hegel in psychology and the other social sciences , in biology , in politics and philosophy. — Joshs

I think that may be the case simply because you are unduly impressed by Hegel, et al, and what might have spilled out over the years hence; alt.right, or MLK, or otherwise (if indeed that spore can be read by a simple tracker like me).

I've been struggling with him for many years and the best I come away with has more to do with my understanding of general and special relativity, quantum physics, infinity, eternity and god. He has confirmed my belief that everything and nothing is happening and not happening, everywhere and nowhere, all at once, now, never and forever. But I'm willing to stipulate that you and these other great minds went down a more informative track with him than I did. To that extent, you may very well be over my head. In which case I bow down to you.

However, I stand steadfastly by my belief that for all their and your work, you have yet to come up with anything that constitutes progress beyond the simple truths understood by the man who launched his spear at that bison priscus, who danced naked by the fire light, fucked his woman, told lies to his friends, and pondered the stars at night; not pretending to know but instead just loving them. He would probably belt Breitbart in the mouth before Breitbart could shuck his AR; then he would hand MLK a priscus horn of fermented berries and water, toast with him, laugh, and say he did it for the children.

Breitbart would then return with his minions, slaughter my man (and MLK), erase all the evidence, tell his crew he did it "for the children" and then create some myths about how advanced he is.