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#14870814
You left out the part about the laziness to learn foreign languages in order to figure out other people's cultural contexts. Spoken language is critical to making us human. The chimps and the Great Apes don't have a voice box there...so they are incapable of human language. But no one said they are not human like in behavior patterns. We share about 98% of our DNA with the primates. Chimps especially. Yet that final 2% is interesting. Most of it the ability to do what you said above.

What we call "human culture" is based on language - culture is, in a sense, that very web of fantasies, delusions and self-deceptions which language spins out of itself like a spider. I do not mean that this is a bad thing, of course - to live without fantasies, delusions or self-deceptions is to live as the animals live. Most people would prefer to live as a human being than as an animal. In African mythology, the spider is a symbol of creativity and good fortune, and rightly so. But language, and the culture which it creates, is a form of self-alienation; as Lacan pointed out, language creates a 'split' in our psyche, between the conscious and the unconscious minds - the unconscious is structured like a language, and is constantly babbling away beneath the surface, and by some mysterious alchemy this babbling gives structure and form to our self-awareness.

But your point is well taken - each human language is the embodiment of a different human culture, a different way of being human. How can we understand what it is to be human if we know only one way of being human? To understand ourselves, we must understand others, and to understand others we must learn their language, which is the embodiment of their humanity. Laziness must be overcome, somehow. ;)
#14870822
Potemkin wrote:What we call "human culture" is based on language - culture is, in a sense, that very web of fantasies, delusions and self-deceptions which language spins out of itself like a spider. I do not mean that this is a bad thing, of course - to live without fantasies, delusions or self-deceptions is to live as the animals live. Most people would prefer to live as a human being than as an animal. In African mythology, the spider is a symbol of creativity and good fortune, and rightly so. But language, and the culture which it creates, is a form of self-alienation; as Lacan pointed out, language creates a 'split' in our psyche, between the conscious and the unconscious minds - the unconscious is structured like a language, and is constantly babbling away beneath the surface, and by some mysterious alchemy this babbling gives structure and form to our self-awareness.

But your point is well taken - each human language is the embodiment of a different human culture, a different way of being human. How can we understand what it is to be human if we know only one way of being human? To understand ourselves, we must understand others, and to understand others we must learn their language, which is the embodiment of their humanity. Laziness must be overcome, somehow. ;)

Many pieces of language are narrative based. The meaning given to words form over many thousands of years. A word can change meaning and sound and come to symbolize something very different from its original meaning, and the stories are given new meaning as the old meaning is forgotten.

Actually what you said reminded me of the Jungian idea about ego and the Self. Many people will confuse reality with the perceptions of their ego (the subjective reality), which only makes sense because language is an expression of the ego. However, in doing so they begin to believe that everything that they think must be the way that things are, because their way of understanding the world is based on that subjective reality. In that way, they lose the ability to comprehend reality through the Self and become trapped in a world of subjectivity, where reality becomes a narrative.

That's why modern discourse is so difficult, because we are all trapped in this world of subjective reality, where our narratives can go unchallenged. So we can simultaneously live in the objective reality of a world that is ending by our inability to adapt technologically to climate change, but be ruled by people who don't believe or choose not to believe in that reality, or even deny that the reality that is so plain to see exists. Because if they really wanted to, they could enter into that subjective way of understanding the world and only seek out the information that allows them to live in a world psychically dominated by ego.
#14870846
Actually what you said reminded me of the Jungian idea about ego and the Self. Many people will confuse reality with the perceptions of their ego (the subjective reality), which only makes sense because language is an expression of the ego. However, in doing so they begin to believe that everything that they think must be the way that things are, because their way of understanding the world is based on that subjective reality. In that way, they lose the ability to comprehend reality through the Self and become trapped in a world of subjectivity, where reality becomes a narrative.

That's why modern discourse is so difficult, because we are all trapped in this world of subjective reality, where our narratives can go unchallenged. So we can simultaneously live in the objective reality of a world that is ending by our inability to adapt technologically to climate change, but be ruled by people who don't believe or choose not to believe in that reality, or even deny that the reality that is so plain to see exists. Because if they really wanted to, they could enter into that subjective way of understanding the world and only seek out the information that allows them to live in a world psychically dominated by ego.

Indeed, and I would submit that capitalism, especially in its late form, encourages this sort of postmodernist egotistical subjectivity. A human being is conceived of merely as an isolated individual who consumes, rather than as an integral part of a human society with duties and obligations and rights as part of that society and who derives his meaning and purpose as part of human society. Instead, this ultra-individualism means that all narratives about the world are considered to be equally valid, and so if someone 'feels' that climate warming is a hoax, then it must be so. Conspiracy theories, no matter how bizarre or lacking in evidence, take the place of objective rational analysis. This postmodernist subjectivism seems to have infected even our ruling elite, who really should know better, and is causing our society to drift rudderless into an uncertain future. Fuck knows where all this will end.... :eh:
#14870849
@Potemkin & @LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX

What we call "human culture" is based on language - culture is, in a sense, that very web of fantasies, delusions and self-deceptions which language spins out of itself like a spider.


You are doing this too. Ie: climate change & late capitalism

You are lepers complaining about another's warts.
#14870852
You are doing this too. Ie: climate change & late capitalism

You are lepers complaining about another's warts.

Indeed, and my point is that this is unavoidable. To discuss the limits of language, we must use language. To discuss the limits of logic, we must use logic. How can it be otherwise? But what the postmodernists have done (and I include both the SJWs and the alt-right among their number) is to give in to this postmodernist subjectivism. Only their 'feelings' matter when it comes to understanding the world, since as unique snowflakes their 'viewpoint' (by which they means their feelz about things) is just as valid as anyone else's. So scientists with PhDs say that anthropogenic global warming is an existential threat to human civilisation? Hoax! So biologists say that there is a biological basis to gender differences? Hoax! What we are seeing is a rolling back of the main achievements of human civilisation and culture. The rational understanding of the world which the ancient Greeks began is being reversed in our modern civilisation, and we are reverting to barbarism. Barbarians have 'feelings' about things, and see no need to have anything else in order to understand the world. Pretty soon, the world is going to look like a high-tech version of the Dark Age.
#14870853
Potemkin wrote:Indeed, and my point is that this is unavoidable. To discuss the limits of language, we must use language. To discuss the limits of logic, we must use logic. How can it be otherwise? But what the postmodernists have done (and I include both the SJWs and the alt-right among their number) is to give in to this postmodernist subjectivism. Only their 'feelings' matter when it comes to understanding the world, since as unique snowflakes their 'viewpoint' (by which they means their feelz about things) is just as valid as anyone else's. So scientists with PhDs say that anthropogenic global warming is an existential threat to human civilisation? Hoax! So biologists say that there is a biological basis to gender differences? Hoax! What we are seeing is a rolling back of the main achievements of human civilisation and culture. The rational understanding of the world which the ancient Greeks began is being reversed in our modern civilisation, and we are reverting to barbarism. Barbarians have 'feelings' about things, and see no need to have anything else in order to understand the world. Pretty soon, the world is going to look like a high-tech version of the Dark Age.

And you are still doing it, lol. Barbarians and feelings, lol.
#14870860
And you are still doing it, lol. Barbarians and feelings, lol.

It is not possible to step outside of language, and the web of fantasies and self-delusions which it spins. What we can do, however, and what being 'civilised' obligates us to do, is to stubbornly persist in using logic and reason to try to understand the world around us in an objective fashion. As Karl Popper put it: "I shall, however, propose a methodological rule which corresponds so closely to the "principle of causality" that the latter might be regarded as its metaphysical version. It is the simple rule that we are not to abandon the search for universal laws and for a coherent theoretical system, nor ever give up our attempts to explain causally any kind of event we can describe. This rule guides the scientific investigator in his work." Thinking logically and being rational does not come naturally to us, but we have an obligation to at least try.
#14870887
Potemkin wrote:It is not possible to step outside of language, and the web of fantasies and self-delusions which it spins. What we can do, however, and what being 'civilised' obligates us to do, is to stubbornly persist in using logic and reason to try to understand the world around us in an objective fashion. As Karl Popper put it: "I shall, however, propose a methodological rule which corresponds so closely to the "principle of causality" that the latter might be regarded as its metaphysical version. It is the simple rule that we are not to abandon the search for universal laws and for a coherent theoretical system, nor ever give up our attempts to explain causally any kind of event we can describe. This rule guides the scientific investigator in his work." Thinking logically and being rational does not come naturally to us, but we have an obligation to at least try.

In a way science is a throwback to barbarism. The barbarian, like the animal, lives a strictly empirical existence, direct observation of the real world as it presents itself and not as he or she would wish it to be, because giving the natural world anything less than your most rapt attention is generally fatal.

The civilised person, his barbarian ancestors having built walls against the lethal chaos of nature, is safe to ignore the real world to a great extent and so he loses himself in narratives woven by himself his fellow liars. He sees nothing but believes in all manner of fairy tales: the second coming of jesus and late stage capitalism, alien abductions and alienation, the divine rights of kings and the vanguard party. This is religion, it is fiction.

The civilised person has no obligation to be scientific, just the opposite he faces all manner of incentives to maintain the social illusions, after all he will not want to appear to be a barbarian whom is so uncouth as to see things as they are and not how the social fictions require them to be seen. No, the civilised person has the challenge of attempting to see the world with the clarity with which the barbarian takes for granted. It is challenge nobody really needs to answer though, living a lie is perfectly acceptable in civilised society, especially if it is a popular lie. :)
#14870892
In a way science is a throwback to barbarism. The barbarian, like the animal, lives a strictly empirical existence, direct observation of the real world as it presents itself and not as he or she would wish it to be, because giving the natural world anything less than your most rapt attention is generally fatal.

Indeed. But this sort of 'empiricism' is in no sense objective. It enables the barbarian (or our Stone Age ancestors) to survive in a hostile environment, but it is by no means a view of the world which is pure or innocent. They already have language, after all, and language is a magical power. It can conjure things which are not physically present, and even create things which have never existed. When a barbarian uttered the name "Thunar", he would not have known whether he was naming a god or conjuring the thunder itself. In his mind, they were the same thing. This is not an objective or scientific view of the world. That only becomes possible once our minds have been sufficiently alienated from the natural world than we can think of it as a thing rather than as a person. In other words, once we have completely separated the natural world from our own psyche.

The civilised person, his barbarian ancestors having built walls against the lethal chaos of nature, is safe to ignore the real world to a great extent and so he loses himself in narratives woven by himself his fellow liars. He sees nothing but believes in all manner of fairy tales: the second coming of jesus and late stage capitalism, alien abductions and alienation, the divine rights of kings and the vanguard party. This is religion, it is fiction.

Very true. But this is merely the same tendency of the barbarian mind to fail to make a clear distinction between his or her own psyche and the natural world, taken to absurd extremes due to the security which civilisation can afford the individual. This is the tendency which must be resisted.

The civilised person has no obligation to be scientific, just the opposite he faces all manner of incentives to maintain the social illusions, after all he will not want to appear to be a barbarian whom is so uncouth as to see things as they are and not how the social fictions require them to be seen. No, the civilised person has the challenge of attempting to see the world with the clarity with which the barbarian takes for granted. It is challenge nobody really needs to answer though, living a lie is perfectly acceptable in civilised society, especially if it is a popular lie. :)

Society cannot function without its lies and delusions. Lies and delusions are the glue which holds human society together. But these lies and delusions should at least be consistent with some sort of objective reality which can be understood rationally, otherwise that society is heading towards disaster due to the contradiction between its beliefs about the world and the way the world actually is. This is the challenge which faces us.
#14870902
Potemkin wrote:Indeed. But this sort of 'empiricism' is in no sense objective. It enables the barbarian (or our Stone Age ancestors) to survive in a hostile environment, but it is by no means a view of the world which is pure or innocent. They already have language, after all, and language is a magical power. It can conjure things which are not physically present, and even create things which have never existed. When a barbarian uttered the name "Thunar", he would not have known whether he was naming a god or conjuring the thunder itself. In his mind, they were the same thing. This is not an objective or scientific view of the world. That only becomes possible once our minds have been sufficiently alienated from the natural world than we can think of it as a thing rather than as a person. In other words, once we have completely separated the natural world from our own psyche.

Empiricism is never objective because the observer is never seperate from the observed and that remains as true in the labs of the little men in white coats as it does on the savanah sniffing the wind for the scent of a predator.
#14870909
Empiricism is never objective because the observer is never seperate from the observed and that remains as true in the labs of the little men in white coats as it does on the savanah sniffing the wind for the scent of a predator.

Objectively speaking, you are correct - the development of quantum theory has shown the limits of objectivity, since any act of observation is an intervention in the world, it is itself an event. At the most fundamental level, there can be no such thing as a detached observer. However, on macroscopic length scales, we can separate the observer from the system being observed, at least well enough to be able to formulate (classical) scientific theories. And even in quantum theory itself, we always make such a separation between the observer and the system being observed, in order to be able to say anything meaningful about that system. The price we pay is that we lose the ability to build a locally realistic model of that system as a thing-in-itself (the Kantian 'Ding an sich'). The observed system, and its associated probability wavefunction, only exists for us, the observer.
#14870929
The Immortal Goon wrote:As for RhetoricThug’s attempts to be edgy or whatever he is attempting to do, he is like someone playing billiards telling everyone to stop using physics since Newton is dead. And like any patron at a billard hall who had to hear that, we should just ignore him.
That's not what I'm doing. I've produced several paragraphs explaining my interpretation of reality. Again, We see with our brains, not with our eyes. You're running the Marxist program. As long as you identify with fictional thought programs, you'll never be able to see reality for what it is, because your perception is compromised. Hence why you mistrust thought files that come online and try to tell you that your perspective is always limited by what you think you know.

Think it through
How can one be a liberal, or conservative, how can one be a communist or capitalist? It's all mythology, classification, intellectual/cognitive images, human operating systems. Realistically, you're consciousness having a human experience (within a biological flesh-cell vessel), and the consciousness you're borrowing isn't your consciousness. You're a self-aware node (inside celestial 'circuitry'), channeling planetary reality and we're (we are I) one ever-expanding mind! Intellectual property doesn't exist, the political left, the political right, it's all bullshit used to create the illusion of separation inside our 3D environment so people can live and die as slaves to thought (but those thoughts are technically not your thoughts; they're other people's thoughts, it's a self-evident truth), and as thoughts engage a feedback loop, Is (from all walks of life) filter the information and repackage it as their own 'image.' "The word is now the cheapest and the most universal drug." TIG doesn't exist, Rhetoricthug doesn't exist, we're biological entities constructing images so we can compress/represent and communicate existential sensation/happening. Humanity has been reshaping reality in our image since the dawn of language. :roll: But sure, you're a 'Marxist.'

stop using physics since Newton is dead.
Perhaps you should read my actual thoughts dreams.

Gestalt of quantum computing
Quantum consciousness (remember our tools/tech re-shape our perception due to the nature of the information feed-back loop all 'things' co-inhabit/create together), you know- the 1 and 0 simultaneously (a field of vibratory frequencies weaving reality), will replace dialectical logic (dialectical knowledge will continue to exist as a form of 3D awareness, underneath multi-dimensional logic systems. Think about what occurs when any new technology obsolesces old technology...) binary thought structures or manifestations of binary thought will be malleable and programmable parts, and linear-sequential-orderly thought will be a thing of the past because systems thinking or holistic logic will be able to enter an information 'happening' from any point in the data-sphere and all information shall be available through fully integrated computer knowledge stored in hyperspace. The 3D world will become a malleable playground, due to the bond formed with our artificial hyperspace, humans will be able to simulate a technological form of kaleidoscopic awareness and analyze the potential energy unfolding in the physical/3D world.

Post-rational sense-making^
The internet (as an early telepathic building set) is a non-local dream space

We dream the impossible dream
We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep
Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths
All human beings are also dreaming beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is a reality
Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.

-One Love
Last edited by RhetoricThug on 14 Dec 2017 18:10, edited 1 time in total.
#14870941
Binary logic is dead. Sure.

When I was a pre-pubescent lad, I was a fan of the SF writer A. E. Van Vogt. His magnum opus, as it were, was The World of Ā (null-A). Van Vogt cribbed a few ideas from General Semantics to cobble together a pierce-the-veil-of-reality worldview he called non-Aristotelian logic (null-A, get it?). This desire to transcend reality is a persistent feature of the modern world, especially for us outsider types that haunt PoFo. Like Hong Wu or RT. Or myself. We are a bunch of bargain basement Fausts lusting after the red pill (I'm mixing metaphors, sue me).

Of course, it's all BS. There is no red pill. There's no secret reality - just the boring reality we're too lazy to understand. That's why we have 6000 lobbyists writing the GOP tax bill: they do the boring work of creating the reality you'll be living for the next decade. This gives you the privilege of wondering who the hell stuck the giant corncob up your ass - that red pill didn't help so much, did it?

Just an aside, RT. You might want to stop dissing Marxists for fomenting class war, seeing as you and nearly everyone else are crawling through the rubble of a ferocious class war waged against you.
#14870948
Just an aside, RT. You might want to stop dissing Marxists for fomenting class war, seeing as you and nearly everyone else are crawling through the rubble of a ferocious class war waged against you.

"But... but... the machines have our best interests at heart. They're just misunderstood, that's all...!"

Image
#14870950
quetzalcoatl wrote:Binary logic is dead. Sure.
Is the glass half empty or half full? The answer- It 's both.

When I was a pre-pubescent lad, I was a fan of the SF writer A. E. Van Vogt. His magnum opus, as it were, was The World of Ā (null-A). Van Vogt cribbed a few ideas from General Semantics to cobble together a pierce-the-veil-of-reality worldview he called non-Aristotelian logic (null-A, get it?). This desire to transcend reality is a persistent feature of the modern world, especially for us outsider types that haunt PoFo. Like Hong Wu or RT. Or myself. We are a bunch of bargain basement Fausts lusting after the red pill (I'm mixing metaphors, sue me).
Speak for yourself, for you seem very angry. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

Of course, it's all BS. There is no red pill. There's no secret reality - just the boring reality we're too lazy to understand. That's why we have 6000 lobbyists writing the GOP tax bill: they do the boring work of creating the reality you'll be living for the next decade. This gives you the privilege of wondering who the hell stuck the giant corncob up your ass - that red pill didn't help so much, did it?
I don't believe in 'spooky' knowledge (not considering the extra-terrestial argument, everything you think you know is simply human knowledge, it came from the human mind), I believe in 'what is.' I agree, the red-pill is a myth, and so is the blue pill, naturally. We invented both pills. Tell me, if we have nothing to lose, what is there to gain? They do what they do because they're afraid. Afraid of what exactly... I'm not sure. Afraid of what it means to be here, afraid of what it means to be human, perhaps. They can enjoy their dreams, and I hope they conquer the universe. :lol:

Just an aside, RT. You might want to stop dissing Marxists for fomenting class war, seeing as you and nearly everyone else are crawling through the rubble of a ferocious class war waged against you.
It takes two to tango, what we do to others we do to ourselves. 'What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.' If people want class warfare, they shall get class warfare. I'm not going to participate in such a barbarous pastime. Violence begets violence.

I asked you on page 7- Where were you before you were born? And yes, it was a rhetorical question. Yet you continue with worldly frustration. See, where we're going, we've already been. What's all the fuss about, what's the worst that could happen? Lastly, 'You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.' If the 'super rich' wish to screw everyone over, so be it. Physically forcing them to relinquish their power will not change anything. It will perpetuate conflict. Pacifism is the only way.
#14870981
RhetoricThug wrote:If the 'super rich' wish to screw everyone over, so be it. Physically forcing them to relinquish their power will not change anything. It will perpetuate conflict. Pacifism is the only way.


Well, pacifism is a position. I don't share it, but I respect those that faithfully adhere to it.

My question to you would be "what kind of pacifism?" Is yours a pacifism that passively accepts whatever lot in life others decide for you? Or is there any better world for which you are ready to struggle?

If it's the latter, please remember that even Gandhi or MLK recognized the necessity of struggle. Recognize also that non-violent struggle is utterly powerless in certain situations. Hitler's regime would have been delighted with non-violent resistance tactics. That's an extreme example, but not that extreme. The US waged the most violent war of its existence to end slavery (note that the Civil War never really ended, but continues to this day as a guerrilla political warfare). None of the things we take for granted (Social Security, Medicare, voting rights) would have been possible without putting the righteous fear of god into the powers that be. Serious and well-organized efforts are now underway to take away these things - and only the most desperate and committed action can stop them.

So, yeah, compared to what we could have...it's a damn shitty world. There's a better world out there, RT. You will never achieve it without fighting.

There is a principled alternative to pacifism. Allow me to quote a great American who best articulated it:

Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.


- Frederick Douglass
#14871252
You gotta plug in to play, and you gotta pay to win. Or so they say.
quetzalcoatl wrote:My question to you would be "what kind of pacifism?" Is yours a pacifism that passively accepts whatever lot in life others decide for you? Or is there any better world for which you are ready to struggle?
Well, I'm not going to state my deepest convictions on a public internet forum. The first battleground is the mind. Value judgements define the struggle. My values are incognito.
If it's the latter, please remember that even Gandhi or MLK recognized the necessity of struggle. Recognize also that non-violent struggle is utterly powerless in certain situations. Hitler's regime would have been delighted with non-violent resistance tactics. That's an extreme example, but not that extreme. The US waged the most violent war of its existence to end slavery (note that the Civil War never really ended, but continues to this day as a guerrilla political warfare). None of the things we take for granted (Social Security, Medicare, voting rights) would have been possible without putting the righteous fear of god into the powers that be.
Does 'Wallstreet' have a standing army (minus the lobby brigade)? War is a search for identity, thus they manufacture identity and patterns of perception for the populace. Physical conflict is sport/profit (war is a racket), the real war is on consciousness. Technologists- or the technocracy manufacture our reality... I said it before- I'm not training my mind to duel with my brothers and sisters... I'm preparing for Artificial Intelligence, I must obtain kaleidoscopic awareness and use poetic language to properly combat artificially intelligent system-thinkers.

This is their domain, and I'm unable to tell you certain things on here. I will tell you this- humanity will need to use oral-ciphers to encrypt communications. Full-spectrum dominance will include an electromagnetic overlap system (synthetic global nervous system), with real-time sentient world simulations operating in the 'cloud.' Consider 'diminished reality' tech and voice modulation software, in the future anything you type, say, or upload, can and will be used against you (after the laws change). If the technocracy has your voice or face, they can make it say or do anything, framing perspective. For example, take the sexual misconduct fiasco: Imagine a techno-world where an AI program can manipulate your digital footprint/presence and frame you for social misconduct.

Serious and well-organized efforts are now underway to take away these things - and only the most desperate and committed action can stop them.
Yes, and that is why the people need to practice well-organized pacifism. A kind of you don't like the price of gas, stop driving your car mentality. Here's a good one... Imagine if folks organized a 'deactivate your Factbook' day. Fakebook would not be happy.

So, yeah, compared to what we could have...it's a damn shitty world. There's a better world out there, RT. You will never achieve it without fighting.
As long as choice exists, I will make the 'right' choices. I don't have a biometric book profile. I don't own a smartphone (epigenetic weapon). I'm not going to install any AI companions in my living quarters. I'm not following people on twitter. I'm not going to purchase an autonomous vehicle. I'm not going to wear a virtual reality headset. People are slowly (boiling frog scenario) handing everything over to the technocracy. People are slowly handing over their consciousness. Then again, what do I know. I'm just a single node channeling silly stuff beyond my comprehension, right?

If the elites want Elysium (life after earth) they'll get it. Artificial intelligence will run Earth, and it'll become a harvest cradle. Of course, I'm not going to mention ETs because that is a sensitive topic.
#14877573
It used to be that the left largely mainstreamed its harmless extremists while the right had to ostracize its' extremists.

Lately we are seeing a mainstreaming of some of the right's extremists and social apogee being increasingly applied to the left's extremists.

Is this because the left's extremists have become a bigger danger to society than the right's?

Full on communists on PoFo refuse to own things that mainstream SJWs in governments do. How long before those people are ostracized and will that have the left on the defensive, similar to how conservatism has been for awhile until recently?
#14877692
Hong Wu wrote:It used to be that the left largely mainstreamed its harmless extremists while the right had to ostracize its' extremists.

Lately we are seeing a mainstreaming of some of the right's extremists and social apogee being increasingly applied to the left's extremists.

Is this because the left's extremists have become a bigger danger to society than the right's?

Full on communists on PoFo refuse to own things that mainstream SJWs in governments do. How long before those people are ostracized and will that have the left on the defensive, similar to how conservatism has been for awhile until recently?


Short answer: This isn't happening as you think.

Long answer: below.

I'm not entirely convinced this is happening in the exact manner you mention. I think the more extreme right-wing elements were able to grasp unexpected power by riding the Trump train into the station; whereas the more extreme left were tolerated because they were easily dismissed by establishment neo-liberals, but are now a concern because they have become more public and are an actual threat to the Neo-Liberal power-holders.

Lets look at the historical context.

2015-2016 was a major worldview shift in the west.

Prior to this point this was the conflict/trend: It was a battle between two groups, the Neo-Conservatives (in Flux) and The Neo-Liberals (in Flux).

The Neo-Conservative Right generated out of the Reagan-era was a big-government, pro-Christian (moral majority), pro-intervention party that was in flux and becoming increasingly Libertarian especially between 2000-2010 as they (1) realized they were losing the culture war, (2) realized that debt wasn't conservative, and (3) realized wars were unpopular. In this move, libertarianism was seen as the best alternative to the dominating left. the new conservatism, the "extermism" in 2012, were the Ron Pauls and Tea-Parties of the World, it was not the New-Right or Alt-Right.

Meanwhile, The Neo-Liberal Left in the same time-frame as above, had more or less "abandoned" communism post-soviet collapse but were becoming increasingly Frankfurt deconstructionist in their social outlook as they realized they were winning the culture war and the the dialectic of conflict (oppressor v. victim) was a winner on cultural issues.

This shift was easily justifiable in their own minds as it perpetuated many of the Marxist ideals of the old party hacks while winning new generations. Further, the avant garde morality of these upper-class white folks (habitual drug-use, "open-marriages," and orgies after cocktail parties) became increasingly "Acceptable" in society with this moral shift generated via their support of the oppressor v. victim narrative. The pending ostracization they would have otherwise faced was increasingly becoming a thing of the past. the 1990s is history about a bunch of former woodstock hippy WASPs that got rich in the 80s, gecko-style, wanting to have their straight-up sodomite/uppper-pompey lifestyles become accepted among the masses of teleevangelist-watching-rednecks while still attempting to feel that they hadn't betrayed their "Beatles-worldview" of peace, equality, and soft-marxism.

However, what these rich wall-street white liberals did not realize in the attempt to feed radical post-colonial revolutionaries, race-war agitators, and gender-blender post-modern theorists, was that such a cumulative build-up would turn against them. The Clintons of the world only ever supported these groups to satisfy there own sense of guilt for becoming "The man" instead of recycling their own urine in a commune somewhere. This would come to a head in the same election that catapulted the almost nominal minority of nationalists in the Right to the center-stage.

Meanwhile, in the rustbelt......

Neo-Liberals were concerned in promoting social justice (hypocritically I might add given the above), and the Neo-Conservatives had given up on American exceptionalism and Christianity for what they felt was a winning shift towards libertarianism and constitutionalism.

None of this was appealing to this electorate. The right did make advances in these areas, but only because these folks, who were already being marginalized for their social values, preferred to be tolerated (as libertarians offered) rather than support the blatant wickedness of the Left's social agenda. The land of unions was jobless and becoming increasing marginalized on social matters with a sense that their nation was lost and their culture under siege without the power or money to do anything about it.

Then came Trump and with him came the traditionalist and alt.right alternatives of the blogosphere.

Many of these nationalist types (arguably most) were disenchanted former-libertarians. I myself, voted for Ron Paul in the Republican primary in 2012. The shift towards fascism, nationalism, etc among these libertarians came when they realized that libertarianism was not sufficient to solve the problem of cultural displacement. Indeed, these libertarians realized that the Constitution and the NAP did not have a consistent answer on a issue with serious implications (immigration), nor could it guarantee autarky in economics, fertility, or morality. This intellectual shift coincided with the the frustration towards all parties by the white working class, and the two groups (young millennial former libertarian bloggers and middle-aged white working class folks) ended up coinciding behind the Trump campaign which merely represented this zeitgeist.

Thus, to answer your post:

1. The Republicans (Conservative side)

The conservative side is pretty divided in all sorts of directions. Just four years ago guys like Rand Paul would have been considered super-heroes, not cucks. indeed, no one would have known what the fuck a cuck was in 2014 or only in very isolated places of the internet.

The right's "extreme wing" has changed so much, ideologically, that it does not have a cognizant sense of what they need to censor. There is no extremist element in the Right of any real significance. Before (2010-2013), libertarian-types were the target, but since many of these guys are currently never-trumpers, now they are thrown a bone by the media.

The Far-Right groups took everyone by surprise but did not represent any significant demographic and were not political (there are no alt.right senators for example) and were isolated to the Richard Spencers of the world and in 2015, this movement included the Milos and the Gavins of the world. The popularity of these guys was the central target by everyone and were more-or-less discredited or marginalized long before they ended up fighting with each other (as they continue to do today). The alt. right is looking more like a flash-in-the-pan than a long term movement even if it contributed to changing the topic of conversation in American politics (which is a legit accomplishment); whereas, the New Right (basically a nativist variey of paleo-conservatism) is looking to be a serious element in the future along with more lasiezz-faire libertarians and establishment centrists of the old neo-con variety (which will never go away completely as long as America has a huge international presence).

With the string of defeats for, and discrediting of, Steve Bannon, it seems the right is stabilizing back to its normal mode of Neo-Cons v. Libertarian types, while the growing New Right (which seems to have emerged the winner of the war against the alt. right) will likely be politically impotent for some years to come as it is just too young.

At this point, Republicans are supporting Trump because they feel his demographic is important and powerful, but are hoping that once he passes, everything will go back to normal. They want to isolate his work to his time in office and have even seemed to have convinced him that this is the way it should be. We'll see what happens, I would not be surprised that if Trump gets the major points of his campaign done in the first term that he will not run for reelection in 2020 and the Republican party will go back to its pre-2015 normal.

In Sum: There is no extreme faction in the Right that has any political power or voice anymore, Trump is the last man standing in a movement that could not keep up its momentum or unity in 2017. The shitty republican structures of 2013 will return with vengeance.

2. The Democrats (Liberal side)

The left is splitting at the seams into a more discernible dichotomy. Whereas the right has many splinters and factions, the left has two primary factions remaining and the remnants of a third (the pro-union old coal-miner types, of which only a handful remain).

Like what was said above, the rich white liberals in the Democrat party who sit overseeing their wallstreet executive boards have wanted legitimacy for their swinger sex-lives in the eyes of their neo-con neighbors and to placate their guilt for becoming "the man," and have done so by supporting radical ideologues that perpetuate conflict in the most extreme ways between every sub-category of human existence. This was the chained pit-bull they created; however, that dog was successfully teased into madness by that pesky kid outside the fence (the new right/alt. right trolls + Trump's election) and now the dog cannot be calmed down and has even bit its own master.

Whereas the right today is a story about isolating the Trump phenomena to the Trump presidency so that they can get back to business-as-usual and dismissing those naive young radicals on youtube who support groups like Europa Identitaria,.....The Left by contrast is a story about the white liberals who's politics were entirely self-serving creating a Cujo-esque monster that it has now lost control of and which has become a legit threat to everything and everyone in and out of the party.

3. Looking forward....

The future is grim. The Alt. Right is dead, Neo-Reactionaries (such as myself) are armchair intellectuals who will have no real influence in their lifetimes, the New Right is too young to have any real influence and has no political voice, the neo-cons and tea-party are in an uneasy alliance to isolate the trump presidency to an anamoly-event so they can return to their own in-fighting, and the left is in a real civil war between ex-hippy white liberals who only want to satisfy their own sense of guilt for becoming rich and powerful and the legit-believers in radical marxism and identity politics who want to seriously destroy every norm of western civilization at any cost. This is the current zeitgeist. Meanwhile, everyone is falling over themselves to cater to the white working class that they had intentionally ignored for 40 years that showed up as tour de force in 2016 with no one except those who have no political power having any idea of how to address their plights.

The communists here on PoFo are interesting to me because they have entirely segregated themselves from this Zeitgeist but still, in condescending tones, act as if they are the ones really pulling the strings. They don't like Social Justice Warriors and act as if the right has just "made them up," and they don't like the rich white neo-libs that they often go to faculty meetings and cocktail parties with because they have yet to "give their life to communism as they have." It almost like a fundamentalist preacher being frustrated with his republican senator for not being "adamant enough" about his faith. Meanwhile, these self-avowed marxists come here to PoFo to post on TLTE about the quinoa and vegan friendly sausages that they are taking to their university dinner parties and still insist they are the true representatives of the proletariat. :lol: Then, while trying to ostracize and doxx far-right voices on PoFo they try to claim that it is the right and not the left that has problems with their "feelings." Contrary to the perception of, basically, the entire American public.

Its all a sham. Forums are becoming the puss-filled pimples of the internet where bitter 40 + year old communist profs and hobos gather to make themselves feel relevant where they can snidely criticize the less cynical, but no less irrelevant, alt.right trolls that have spilled over from 4chan who are themselves doing nothing more than mimicking the tactics the left had employed in the 90s in its war against the stuffy speech-censoring religious right (through mockery). Indeed, it was the left that watched southpark in 1999 as it attacked religiosity and decency, but now right-wingers watch it with glee as makes fun of political correctness and taboo topics.

Prediction?

The white working class will be placated by economic benefits and return to their old a-political ways. the Trump era will end, Republicans will go back to normal, and the radical left will eventually take over the Democratic party and push America, culturally, towards looking like Scandinavia with only the legal system preventing the transition entirely (we'll be like Sweden only with better gun rights and conservative justices that prevent the flood-waters of censorship from drowning us all).

The New Right will grow and mature into a tangible political element in the Republican party in next 20 years (which will be 20 years too late) and all in opposition to this transition towards social democracy. American will be self-marginalized, China will be the #1 power in the world, and everything will get worse with immigration and demographic issues until the west collapses into poverty and war followed by the internal rise of legit far-right force that will take over and maintain hegemony for 200 years, known as the Imperium. You and I may live to see this, if we aren't executed for hate speech at age 80.

The End.
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@Victoribus Spolia great post as usual. One thing I would add is that the Republican brand is so damaged in certain places that they actually needed a Trump, someone who could run as a Republican without being a Republican, to get taken seriously by certain people. I'm not sure what happens after him, if there is no major disaster then maybe Ivanka runs for President. There are a lot more younger leaders in the Republican party obviously but they still have a ways to go before their brand can offer something good. The good news for them is that the Hillary/Bernie divide and lack of new leaders is hurting the Democrat brand as well.

Some good news on the alt-right front is that white fertility staged a comeback in 2017. Unlike certain groups where most people have no qualms about scamming the welfare system, white people often need to be able to support themselves before they will have kids. Meanwhile, it almost seems like the left wants a bad economy.

Regarding China, let me tell you something about their regulations. It's not just that there aren't any. I once ranted that California was requiring almonds to be pasteurized because of salmonella (almonds can't support salmonella bacteria, so pasteurizing them is questionably effective therein). If you're against pasteurizing them then by Commiefornia logic you want people to die. I personally think the state is just overrun by narcissists who enjoy posing as the hero while hurting people but I digress. Meanwhile in China, any grandma can grow almonds in her backyard and sell them but if your product kills someone, there is a chance you won't just be fined but executed. Although this hasn't solved China's food quality issues, the price of food can be dirt cheap if that's what people need and I think the difference in philosophy is interesting; the economic effects of the two different approaches are also easy to consider.
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