Statement about Solway and Trump

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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jupiviv wrote:Trump wasn't elected democratically according to the technical definition of that term.
Kevin Solway wrote:Agreed, but he was elected "democratically" according to the everyday usage of the term.
To be more precise, the election was simply according to the founding ideology of the US, as described by the constitutional law and related documents where it's made perfectly clear that a republic does not practice direct democracy but government remains indirectly controlled by the people, so by representation and by some electoral system. Since that is more or less the technical definition, I'd say it was simply democratic in the common as well as constitutional sense.

Also, option two of the dictionary as supplied mentions the Electoral College, which is established by the constitution as well. To change it a large m̶a̶t̶u̶r̶i̶t̶y̶ majority would be needed in terms of state legislature and it never made it so far. As such one cannot claim the Electoral College is undemocratic as it's upheld by the same democratic means.

Bottom line: US presidents were never elected just "democratically" but as well constitutionally and thereby also in part ideologically. Or perhaps just because of how a particular system in time defined the rules of election and indirect democracy. However, the reason it would remain, theoretically at least, still democratic is that there's a path to change the rules by majority rule. Then again, it's possible that when a political system would get swamped with legislation and political in-fights, that this path becomes permanently blocked. When that indeed happens, a case could certainly be made that such system ceased to be democratic at that point and basically stuck or decadent.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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Kevin Solway wrote:I've said that I believe Trump is opposed to the SJWs, which will naturally work against the SJWs, and give hope to those who oppose the SJWs.
His opposition to them won't work against them because they are not, in themselves, the problem. The problem is the kind of system within which they can establish themselves in power, i.e., a system where special interests and lobbying groups effectively control policy. The value of Trump as a leader will be determined by his willingness or ability to bring drastic changes to that system, which is very unlikely based on how he has acted since becoming president.
If I were him I would probably ban most of the reporters from the mainstream media from his press conferences, and only provide entry for people based on their merit as real journalists who report the facts. I would also organize a team of qualified people to completely reorganize and refresh the social science departments of all universities, and education generally.
A better course would be to simply abolish all social science/humanities departments except the ones which don't allow SJW ideologies to distort academic activity.
I would also organize a state-funded, televised, debating hall where people like Milo or myself can debate feminists and SJWs, to educate the public.
Since you mentioned Milo, I have to ask - why the support for Milo of all people? That's one point wherein I actually agree with David and Dan. Milo obviously doesn't respect truth for its own sake, or have much integrity. He is a typical opportunist.
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:To be more precise, the election was simply according to the founding ideology of the US, as described by the constitutional law and related documents where it's made perfectly clear that a republic does not practice direct democracy but government remains indirectly controlled by the people, so by representation and by some electoral system. Since that is more or less the technical definition, I'd say it was simply democratic in the common as well as constitutional sense.
Neither universal suffrage nor the current model of the electoral college system were part of the founding ideology, so no. Representation and direct democracy have identical symptoms of health and (therefore) dysfunction.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

jupiviv wrote:
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:To be more precise, the election was simply according to the founding ideology of the US, as described by the constitutional law and related documents where it's made perfectly clear that a republic does not practice direct democracy but government remains indirectly controlled by the people, so by representation and by some electoral system. Since that is more or less the technical definition, I'd say it was simply democratic in the common as well as constitutional sense.
Neither universal suffrage nor the current model of the electoral college system were part of the founding ideology, so no. Representation and direct democracy have identical symptoms of health and (therefore) dysfunction.
You should explain the suffrage part in more detail. But I don't think you can argue that the electoral system would be incompatible with the republic's "founding ideology" and they were certainly put democratically in place (and could thus be removed). Which was the point: it's still following the definition of democracy which you yourself provided.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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You are deleting my posts?

You child
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Beingof1 wrote:You are deleting my posts?
Being, as explained to you already, with added warning, I think your theories like the one about Putin telling tourists that he will stop the Illuminati with his bare hands do not belong here in this thread. So you can find the posts all back here. You've a history of increasingly unhinged posts and behaviour in recent times. Nobody is doing you a favour by encouraging you in any way by giving it some elevated platform to grow further. And what's next, who's coming out of the wood work next, I wonder? Damn Trump energy!
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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Glostik91 wrote:
David Quinn wrote: Isn't this too much of a sledgehammer approach?

To put the same question another way: The very idea that the bloodsucking brute, Trump, is capable of being of value to the world is predicated on the assumption that the system is so corrupt and rotten that it needs to be blown apart. Is the system really this corrupt and rotten? Or have too many people allowed their daily, petty grievances get the better of them?

The bottom line is, I am not at all convinced of the wisdom of this course of action. I think we are playing with fire. I can see, however, that a lot of people are wanting this upheaval to happen, and thus there appears to be certain inevitability about it, and so it looks like we will soon get to see just how wise or foolish it turns out to be.
If you wanna make an omelette, you gotta crack a few eggs.

Are we really this short-sighted? Ya, Trump's plans will likely be detrimental, but allow me a moment to remind us all of Bush Jr. The Iraq war cost the United States $1trillion+ dollars over the course of just half a dozen years (enough money, mind you, to render our current healthcare problems solved outright.) His admin declined to regulate the mortgage industry, allowing any and all to get an adjustable rate mortgage, boldly leading the US into the worst recession I've ever lived through. And don't even get me started on Dick Cheney! How's that for an administration? As I recall, in 2000 Bush ran on a platform of reducing America's overseas intervention and fiscal conservatism. He did the exact opposite by unnecessarily invading Iraq, declining to ease or even possibly prevent the mortgage crisis, and thereby forcing us to run up the debt and deficit to astronomical figures. Even today he's laughing off these inexpressibly egregious blunders and LIES on Jimmy Kimmel's late night banality hour without anyone daring to shout LIAR, as if out of a random batch of 200 human beings (or however many fit into his audience), there was not a single honest man there.

Don't get me wrong. I agree with what David is saying here. I do NOT want Trump at the helm of this Man-o'-war. If another major terrorist attack occurs on US soil in the next 4-8 years, then we are fucked FU fucked. If you believe in god, pray for us.
What about an attack on an overseas Trump property? Will that qualify (in Trump’s mind) as an attack on the US? I think we all know the answer to that, don't we?

To a terrorist, those big gold TRUMP letterings must be awfully tempting....

Glostik91 wrote:If another major terrorist attack occurs on US soil in the next 4-8 years, then we are fucked FU fucked. If you believe in god, pray for us. If we manage w/o one though, I don't see how Trump could be worse than Bush. I just don't see it.
Well, I certainly see it. To my mind, Trump’s reign is guaranteed to end in disaster. It is going to be far worse than Bush, regardless of whether there is a terrorist attack or not. You can put your house on it.

It all comes down to psychology, and in this regard Bush differs immensely from Trump. Bush was vacuous, a figurehead, a puppet who was easily controlled by the power-brokers lurking behind the scenes. He didn’t have any grand plans to impose himself on the world. He was passive. He was just there, filling up space.

Trump is a completely different animal. He is aggressive, unstable, vindictive, megalomaniac, self-absorbed, addicted to being the centre of attention. He has shown repeatedly throughout his life that when he gets cornered, when people begin to put real pressure on him, he lashes out. He becomes vengeful, erratic and reckless. So what is going to happen when the pressures of office start to bear down on him, when his popularity starts to dwindle, when his own fan base begins to turn on him? How do you think he will respond?

At the moment, he is in the midst of a tremendous high. He is reveling in the bliss of being in the centre of the world’s attention. He hasn’t had to face any real crises yet or make any hard decisions. That is all yet to come. And when it happens, watch out! That is when it will all kick off. He will bungle things in his usual fashion and the blind devotion that has been lavished upon him by his personality cult will begin to dissipate. Anyone who has ever been around addicts when their drugs are withdrawn from them will know how violent and irrational they can be. When Trumps’s ascendancy reaches its end and begins to slide back down, he is not going to react well. He will much rather tear the whole place down than surrender meekly. And that is when he will truly start to become dangerous.

It's all there in his mind, ticking away. Only a trigger is needed to set it off.

Glostik91 wrote: [Trump] is a natural phenomenon. He is an opportunist who is exploiting the flaws in our system and ripping them open wide for all to see. He is a cleansing masculine energy like chemotherapy which, perhaps, we can reason will be a wake up call, and serious changes will have to be made to the government.
I believe it is very unwise to think of Trump as a “cleansing masculine energy". I’m thinking about the masculine part, in particular. Trump might end up being a cleansing agent of sorts, but masculine he will never be. Not in any deeper sense.

While masculinity is usually associated with things like conquest, aggression, single-mindedness, purposefulness (which we find in Trump), it is also linked with consciousness, soul, conscience, integrity, structured thought, insight (which are almost entirely absent in Trump). So at best, what we have here is a very distorted form of masculinity. So distorted, in fact, that it would be more accurate to call it an extreme form of femininity.

His constant war on truth is a good example. Day after day, Trump is blatantly disregarding facts, making unsubstantiated claims, engaging in conspiracy theories, rejecting scientific theorizing and other forms of expertise, and generally covering us all with mountains of bullshit. Now in some people’s eyes, this could be considered a form of masculinity. It could be argued that Trump is so masculine that he doesn’t even submit to the dictates of truth. You can see how Trump's mind works in this regard: only suckers allow themselves to be tied to truth, or knowledge, or facts, or laws, or norms, and suckers are there to be taken advantage of. He knows that most people are deeply attached to these things and he knows how to use that attachment against them - to unsettle them, to create confusion in their minds, to have them chasing shadows. And while all this is happening, Trump is happily riding off to the next town with all of their money in his pocket. It is a classic con trick that he has been pulling his whole life.

Importantly, Trump’s conquest over truth doesn’t come from a heightening of his consciousness. He isn’t intensifying the masculine spirit in an effort to dissolve all duality. Rather, his rejection of truth comes from the opposite direction, from a diminishing of consciousness. It is the same dynamic by which women reject the concept of truth.

Trump often says that he likes to be unpredictable, which mirrors the common womanly desire to be enigmatic. If you add to this, Trump’s extreme vanity and obsession with his self-image, together with his speech patterns which can only be described as henids and usually delivered in a campy, effeminate fashion, then what we are looking at is not a man, but a very aggressive woman.

By linking masculinity to Trump and his movement, we are in fact debasing the very concept of masculinity. And in the future, when all this blows over (and assuming that the human race still exists), I believe this is something we will all come to regret.

Russell Parr wrote: As far as I can tell, the main crux of this thread is to call out Kevin for what David sees as a lack of focus. Those of us that have been around long enough have seen this before. As it so happens, Kevin's so called involvements isn't as ill-advised as David projected it to be. Clearly David has backed off of this stance to some degree, it just took a little persuasion from others.
No, I haven’t backed off at all. In my view, Kevin’s involvement is still as misguided as ever.

To illustrate this, I’ll point to Sam Harris as a contrasting example. I use Sam Harris because he is the most rational public figure I have come across in this whole sorry saga. He mirrors my own approach to these matters.

I like his neutrality. On the one hand, he comes down hard on the left and the SJWs - e.g. The Left is Irredeemable - and yet he remains fully conscious of the reality and dangers of Trump's abnormal psychology - e.g. How to defend Donald Trump. In other words, in opposing the left-wing nutcases, he doesn't feel a need to side with the right-wing nutcases. The nature of his opposition in all directions is apolitical, rational and ethical.

In particular, I agree with Harris's assertion that a new political space needs to be carved into being, one that rejects both the politically correct left and the lunatic right. The political situation, not just in America, but around the world, is becoming so polarized it can only lead to war and violence. We really need as many people as possible to pull back from the brink, and that means people on the left conceding that they have gone too far in their political correctness/identity politics crusade, and people on the right conceding that they have gone too far in supporting a dangerous lunatic like Trump and his war against truth/science/expertise.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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[If I were him I would probably ban most of the reporters from the mainstream media from his press conferences, and only provide entry for people based on their merit as real journalists who report the facts]

That would exclude all the reporters/fantasizers/paid to lie folk in all the sites Kevin prefers.

This complete distrust in MSM is somewhat insane. All media now exaggerates things out of proportion due to a massive increase in competition and a loss of economies of scale - but the far right actually make up false facts, then false conclusions. The far left doesn't often make up false facts, although yes they do a bit of revisionist history by not understanding the context - but they do make up false conclusions and have unrealistic expectations.

Yes, the MSM is complicit in maintaining the status quo - but for fucks sake who isn't? Certainly all non-small business and government are supportive. Fox clearly works for the rich as a lobbyist tool - none of their staff have any integrity whatsoever, not even an inkling of what the word even means.

The level of hate and falsity l've seen from the right wing press or Alt-Right outstrips the left by a factor of at least 5-1. The left does over mother, but the right does not actually "father" - they do not seek to evoelve but seek to regress, to unwind freedoms.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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Kevin Solway wrote:
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Without this topic hardly anyone might have known of the link between Kevin and alt-right!
What is the "alt-right"?

Also, what do you mean by "linked"?

If you can tell me what you mean by "alt-right" and "linked" then I can tell you whether I am "linked" to it.......

David's assertion seems to be that Breitbart is "far-right" and "alt-right". David's making this assertion doesn't mean that he is correct. He can be entirely wrong. And since David doesn't define what "alt-right" is, then I have no idea what he means by the term. If "alt-right" simply means "alternative right" - as in, alternative to the Republican party - then I don't see anything wrong with it, but I think David attributes something far more sinister to it. I know that the term "alt-right" has meant many different things to different people, at different times.
"We're the platform for the alt-right" - Steve Bannon

"The Trump phenomenon wasn’t created by Trump. Trump has taken advantage of frustration with globalism and globalization, frustration with open borders, frustration with wages being depressed, frustration with law and order … and in addition to that, concerns about freedom of speech, about western culture being preserved from immigration from certain bits of the world, and the total rejection of political correctness. These things have sort of congealed to become something that we now call the Alt-Right. And that represents at least half of the Republican base, and probably a lot more than that.” - Milos Yiannopolous

"Andrew Breitbart despised racism. Truly despised it. He used to brag regularly about helping to integrate his fraternity at Tulane University. He insisted that racial stories be treated with special care to avoid even the whiff of racism. With Bannon embracing Trump, all that changed. Now Breitbart has become the alt-right go-to website, with Yiannopoulos pushing white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness, and the comment section turning into a cesspool for white supremacist mememakers." - Ben Shapiro

"I think Breitbart speak ten times more truth than the mainstream media". - Kevin Solway, December 20, 2016, email to David Quinn

Kevin Solway wrote:In my view Trump isn't all that bad, because I think he's just an ordinary person. There are both good and bad things about him. He's no philosopher, and he's no monster. He's a businessman. That's all.
This is so disconnected from reality that it is impossible to respond to.

It does, however, demonstrate the folly of rejecting the only form of media that is critical of Trump and dismissing it all as "fake news". What an absurd and dangerous position to take.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Kevin Solway »

jupiviv wrote:
Kevin Solway wrote:I've said that I believe Trump is opposed to the SJWs, which will naturally work against the SJWs, and give hope to those who oppose the SJWs.
His opposition to them won't work against them because they are not, in themselves, the problem.
I don't believe that Trump is in any way a remedy for the SJWs, but I do believe he is a hindrance to them, and that his presidency gives time for the anti-SJWs to rally and organize themselves, and for the wind to naturally go out of the sails of the SJWs.

Since you mentioned Milo, I have to ask - why the support for Milo of all people?
I support all people who speak the truth - insofar as they speak the truth. Milo isn't right about everything, but I don't know anyone who is perfect.

Milo obviously doesn't respect truth for its own sake.
I don't believe we know enough about Milo to be able to say that with any kind of certainty. He is a complex person. Trolls and provocateurs can still respect truth for its own sake. I don't believe Milo would be able to speak as passionately as he does if he didn't respect truth for its own sake to a significant degree.

And since I believe Milo would be good at debating SJWs, I would support him for that role, regardless of how much he respects truth for its own sake.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Kevin Solway »

David Quinn wrote:"We're the platform for the alt-right" - Breitbart's Steve Bannon
I said that "The term 'alt-right' has meant many different things to different people, at different times" and you responded with something Steve Bannon said at some particular point in time. You aren't making any sense.

Milo's definition is more useful, being:
Frustration with globalism and globalization, frustration with open borders, frustration with wages being depressed, frustration with law and order … and in addition to that, concerns about freedom of speech, about western culture being preserved from immigration from certain bits of the world, and the total rejection of political correctness.
Note that there's nothing in this definition about "white nationalism". There is nothing at all about skin colour.

However, there are people who call themselves "alt-right" who completely disagree with Milo's definition, and instead claim the label "alt-right" to be exclusively about white nationalism.

You quoted Ben Shapiro (a competitor of Breitbart), saying "Breitbart has become the alt-right go-to website", but Shapiro hasn't defined what he means by "alt-right". Presumably he means "white nationalist". But if white nationalists are "going to" a website, it doesn't logically follow that the website is at fault. It might simply be that the website allows for freedom of speech, and allows their voices to be heard in the comment section.

Shapiro says that Yiannopoulos is pushing white ethno-nationalism, so where is the evidence of him pushing it? You shouldn't be slandering people if you aren't going to provide evidence. If Yiannopoulos is pushing white nationalism then there should be videos and articles where he is pushing it. Where are they?

To quote Yiannopoulos: “You shouldn’t give a shit about skin color, a shit about sexuality… You shouldn’t give a shit about gender, and you should be deeply suspicious of the people who do.”

I do indeed think that the Breitbart website speaks about ten times more truth than the mainstream media. This isn't hard to do, since the mainstream media doesn't speak hardly any truth at all.

Importantly it doesn't matter what label you stick on something. It doesn't change the truth value of that thing. Hillary Clinton labeled a huge proportion of the American public to be "deplorable" and "irredeemable", but these labels don't affect the ability of those Americans to speak the truth.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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Kevin Solway wrote:You quoted Ben Shapiro (a competitor of Breitbart), saying "Breitbart has become the alt-right go-to website", but Shapiro hasn't defined what he means by "alt-right". Presumably he means "white nationalist". But if white nationalists are "going to" a website, it doesn't logically follow that the website is at fault. It might simply be that the website allows for freedom of speech, and allows their voices to be heard in the comment section.
It is my understanding that Ben Shapiro used to work for Breitbart, but left because he didn’t like the direction the site was going under the stewardship of Steve Bannon.

To my way of thinking, the “far right” refers to the white nationalists, while the "alt-right" refers to those who focus on the anti-political correctness/anti-mainstream media side of things. But I agree that others use these terms in different ways. And of course, I agree that the labels are unimportant.

Kevin Solway wrote:To quote Yiannopoulos: “You shouldn’t give a shit about skin color, a shit about sexuality… You shouldn’t give a shit about gender, and you should be deeply suspicious of the people who do.”
He is such a pretty boy. The way he tilts his head downwards and flutters his eyelashes, it’s so cute. And he likes to shock people as well. Who can resist him?

Kevin Solway wrote:I do indeed think that the Breitbart website speaks about ten times more truth than the mainstream media. This isn't hard to do, since the mainstream media doesn't speak hardly any truth at all.
I know this has become your new mantra , and your mind has closed right around it. But so far, the evidence you have given for it are two banal articles from Breitbart (an easy game to play; I could quote a Rolling Stone article about the number of sales for the latest Beyonce album, if you like) and a wildly distorted picture of Trump, which seems to have also come from Breitbart, a noted Trump propaganda outlet. It’s not very convincing.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Kevin Solway »

jimhaz wrote:[If I were him I would probably ban most of the reporters from the mainstream media from his press conferences, and only provide entry for people based on their merit as real journalists who report the facts]

That would exclude all the reporters/fantasizers/paid to lie folk in all the sites Kevin prefers.
Obviously. If reporters are paid to lie then they wouldn't be real journalists, would they? That's what I said.

This complete distrust in MSM is somewhat insane. All media now exaggerates things out of proportion . . .
You are contradicting yourself. If the media is exaggerating things out of all proportion, or lying, deceiving, and misrepresenting, then why wouldn't you distrust them? It's clearly not insane to do so.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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David Quinn wrote:It is my understanding that Ben Shapiro used to work for Breitbart, but left because he didn’t like the direction the site was going under the stewardship of Steve Bannon.
You don't know the half of it. And you also don't take into account that Shapiro is putting down a competitor.

the evidence you have given for it are two banal articles from Breitbart
Don't be ridiculous. I haven't provided ANY evidence that Breitbart is more truthful than the mainstream media.

I specifically said that I was proving to Dan that truth could be spoken, and was strongly disagreeing with his idea that there is "no 'truth' to be spoken". I was also demonstrating what I meant by "truth" in this context.

He is such a pretty boy.
Where is your evidence that Yiannopoulos is pushing white nationalism? Even if you think he's a pretty boy it doesn't mean he's pushing white nationalism.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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Obviously. If reporters are paid to lie then they wouldn't be real journalists, would they? That's what I said.]
Well Ok, what about the lies in the Breibart article that Trump based his “Obama wiretapped me” propaganda tweets on?

Years ago, Breibart was more or less just an average news site. I think I may have had them on a news feed once. Its only since Bannon took over that its gone into the conspiracy making theory game, probably copying some of the Info Wars style (who one notes have a great store for their target market – the Doomsday preppers).
ME: This complete distrust in MSM is somewhat insane. All media now exaggerates things out of proportion . . .]
Kevin: You are contradicting yourself. If the media is exaggerating things out of all proportion, or lying, deceiving, and misrepresenting, then why wouldn't you distrust them? It's clearly not insane to do so.
Well, you did add the word ALL before proportion.

But yes, mainstream media such as News Limited sites (say Fox in the US or the Daily Tele here) - lie, deceive and misrepresent, so I, having more depth than the average Jo, do distrust them to such a level that I do not visit them. When my normal sites like the Sydney Morning Herald or the Guardian exaggerate too much, it is mostly in the cheap journalism area , the “opinion writers”. If you read the comments areas though you’ll find that there are enough posters for more specific in context truths to be found.

You don’t see this on the polarised sites – like Briebart, because thinking people (normally) get turned off. What you get is loud overtly emotional alpha male bullshit like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Z4W-rbWQI treating news like it was a US Wrestling Match.

You don’t seem to have the skill to just take what seems to be contextually true and to ignore the rest !

On TV news I see mostly right wing bias - they promote the memes that the rich want promoted. Once this was in subtle ways, such as the way a news story was introduced, but increasingly it is becoming blatant.

http://www.cjr.org/the_feature/trump_jo ... global.php
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... cy/513872/
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Kevin Solway »

jimhaz wrote: . . .what about the lies in the Breibart article . . .
Like I said, if a "journalist" is reporting false things, without proper evidence, then they aren't a proper journalist.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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Kevin Solway wrote: I haven't provided ANY evidence that Breitbart is more truthful than the mainstream media.
That's certainly true.

I specifically said that I was proving to Dan that truth could be spoken, and was strongly disagreeing with his idea that there is "no 'truth' to be spoken". I was also demonstrating what I meant by "truth" in this context.
And I was showing how, by your own criteria, the mainstream media is every bit as truthful as the two Breitbart articles you mentioned.

Kevin Solway wrote:
David Quinn wrote:He is such a pretty boy.
Where is your evidence that Yiannopoulos is pushing white nationalism? Even if you think he's a pretty boy it doesn't mean he's pushing white nationalism.
I'm not saying that he is. I have no opinion on him, other than I think he preens coquettishly like a girl and likes to shock in the same superficial manner that Madonna and Lady Gaga used to like to shock.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

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David Quinn wrote:Sam Harris as a contrasting example.
I've listened to Harris, but I don't agree with him on this issue. Firstly, I do not agree with his view that those who supported Trump in the election do not concede Trump's many faults. In my experience those who supported Trump in the election know full well that Trump is a narcissist and a liar. He is a businessman and a TV star.

Politics is a reality of the world. It's not something you can wish away. In the last U.S election people had a choice between Clinton and Trump. You can support one candidate or the other, and failure to support one candidate can result in the election of the other.

Being "neutral" or "apolitical" doesn't work in the real world.

. . . people on the right conceding that they have gone too far in supporting a dangerous lunatic like Trump and his war against truth/science/expertise.
You are forgetting that people on the left also supported Trump over Clinton in the last election, and that it doesn't logically follow that just because people supported Trump over Clinton that these people are supporting a war against truth, science, expertise, etc. You do not know people's motives, and you are not the judge as to whether people should be political or not, and you are not the judge as to which liar or fantasist they should vote for. All you have is your own personal opinion - which can be entirely wrong.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Kevin Solway »

David Quinn wrote:I was showing how, by your own criteria, the mainstream media is every bit as truthful
Well you massively failed to do that.

If Breitbart says, "A computer crashed", how are you realistically going to show that the mainstream media is equally as truthful? That's ridiculous. Your sample size is too small for a start.

I was demonstrating to Dan the nature of a spoken truth. I wasn't demonstrating that Breitbart was more truthful than the mainstream media.

I'm not saying that he [Milo] is.
Then you shouldn't be smearing him with serious accusations. It doesn't matter that you are quoting other people. You are using the same smearing techniques as the mainstream media.

I think he preens coquettishly like a girl and likes to shock in the same superficial manner that Madonna and Lady Gaga used to like to shock.
Who cares what you think? You are making ad hominem attacks. The only thing that matters is whether Milo speaks the truth. Your personal opinions on how another person likes to flirt or provoke are completely irrelevant.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by jimhaz »

Kevin wrote
I don't believe that Trump is in any way a remedy for the SJWs, but I do believe he is a hindrance to them, and that his presidency gives time for the anti-SJWs to rally and organize themselves, and for the wind to naturally go out of the sails of the SJWs
The wind wont go out of the SJW’s. What they do is based on their personalities. You might get a few years where they become less demanding, but it will be back to the norm soon enough. It's an outcome of the emancipation of women.

Perhaps you should apply the same standard to men as you do women. If it is more intrinsic in men to seek out truth/reality, then they should not have to do a deal with the devil, just because of the opposing power of the other sex.

Are you not also acting like a typical politician – you are being an opportunist, selling some of your values for a perceived end result. Or is it that you only have one value - that of "truth".

Here are some questions for you.

It would be true to say that here is truth is the emergent property of an internet site like Briebart or a leftie site, and that overall vibe and attitude have a comparable ‘emotional truth value’ as to what is actually written. Group behaviour ensues. Of the people you have sufficient agreement with, what is that vibe to you?

Would the following be your top three beefs with the SJW’s.

- Censuring of free thought even within academia, due to an obsessive attachment to equality or just to shut down ideas they don’t like.
- Overly restrictive political correctness in everyday matters.
- Too much species weakening by the provision of government services rather then the individuals overcoming their hurdles by self-discipline and experience.

Have you written about them in any non-argumentative setting elsewhere?

What do you expect the Trump regime to do in terms of societal change? Will men’s work places change, will women be allowed to be aggressive, will women be turned off academia… things like that.

If the anti-SJWs win, by what means will that occur?

If racial and/or domestic violence results, is that OK?

If Trump acts like a dictator, is that OK?
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David Quinn
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by David Quinn »

Kevin Solway wrote:
David Quinn wrote:Sam Harris as a contrasting example.
I've listened to Harris, but I don't agree with him on this issue. Firstly, I do not agree with his view that those who supported Trump in the election do not concede Trump's many faults. In my experience those who supported Trump in the election know full well that Trump is a narcissist and a liar.
I'm sure there are some who know this, but the polls consistently show that the vast majority of Republican supporters think Trump is someone who is honest and trustworthy, who "tells it like it is". Some of them, particularly evangelical Christians, even believe that he is only a notch or two below Jesus Christ.

This is a good read - An Insider's View: The Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural America. It explains a lot.

Incidentally, just to make a distinction: Trump is not so much a liar, but a complete bullshit artist. There is a qualitative difference between the two. A liar is aware of the truth, he respects the truth, and yet seeks to distort it in order to gain some advantage in a particular situation. A bullshit artist, by contrast, does away with the concept of truth altogether. He just says whatever he wants without even giving a thought as to whether it is true or not. He knows that he only has to state his bullshit with conviction and his followers will accept it without question.

Before Trump came along, our ex-Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, was the biggest liar I had ever come across. His lying was truly pathological. But what Abbott did was small potatoes compared to the great oceans of bullshit that Trump dumps on us constantly.

Kevin Solway wrote:Being "neutral" or "apolitical" doesn't work in the real world.
I meant neutral in the sense of not being biased towards anything, except the truth.

For example, you display bias towards the mainstream media. You have taken sides in the political debate and thereby lost consciousness of the fact that there is really no such thing as the mainstream media. What is called the “mainstream media” is a disparate collection of competing independent media outlets of varying political outlooks and quality. You are ignoring this reality by choosing to be “political" and mindlessly lumping the whole lot together and dismissing them all as fake news - much to Trump’s delight, I’m sure.

Kevin Solway wrote:
David Quinn wrote: . . people on the right conceding that they have gone too far in supporting a dangerous lunatic like Trump and his war against truth/science/expertise.
You are forgetting that people on the left also supported Trump over Clinton in the last election, and that it doesn't logically follow that just because people supported Trump over Clinton that these people are supporting a war against truth, science, expertise, etc.
That doesn’t wash with me. It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that Trump is anti-truth, anti-science, and anti-knowledge to the core, and thus there is no getting around the fact that if you support his presidency then you are condoning his war against truth, science, expertise, etc.

Ok, granted, Clinton was a poor alternative. But she is out of the picture now. She is irrelevant. The impetus to support Trump in order to keep her out of office is no longer there. There are no excuses any more.

Kevin Solway wrote: You do not know people's motives, and you are not the judge as to whether people should be political or not, and you are not the judge as to which liar or fantasist they should vote for. All you have is your own personal opinion - which can be entirely wrong.
You know, Kevin, that is the sort of wimpy response that women and feminists used to make to you and me, when they were offended by our “misogyny”......

Kevin Solway wrote:
David Quinn wrote:I was showing how, by your own criteria, the mainstream media is every bit as truthful
Well you massively failed to do that.

If Breitbart says, "A computer crashed", how are you realistically going to show that the mainstream media is equally as truthful? That's ridiculous. Your sample size is too small for a start.
For every Breitbart article you post about a computer crashing, I can post one from the mainstream media about a computer crashing too. Or about record sales. Or a cat being rescued. I could make the sample as large as you like.

To be sure, it would be a stupid exercise, but that was rather Dan’s point to begin with.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Dan Rowden »

Wisdom in hindsight.
He's [Trump] a businessman. That's all.
Anita Sarkeesian is a businesswoman. That's all.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Kevin Solway »

David Quinn wrote:His lying was truly pathological.
Sorry, but I don't trust your psychological diagnoses. I don't believe you have sufficient knowledge to be able to make them.

For example, you display bias towards the mainstream media.
Again, I don't trust your psychological diagnoses. You are the one with the bias.

there is really no such thing as the mainstream media.
Nonsense. Try and get into a Whitehouse press conference and you'll find out who the mainstream media is.

The impetus to support Trump in order to keep her out of office is no longer there. There are no excuses any more.
The war against the SJWs and the authoritarian left is only just beginning.

For every Breitbart article you post about a computer crashing, I can post one from the mainstream media about a computer crashing too.
Why on earth would you think of doing such a thing? I'm not trying to prove that Breitbart is more truthful than the mainstream media, so why would you try to prove that the mainstream media is equally truthful to Breitbart by using a nonsensical method? I can't make any sense of what you are saying.

that was rather Dan’s point to begin with.
If it was Dan's point that truth is relative, and that all people and all outlets speak the truth equally, then he was simply wrong.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Dan Rowden »

I have to say I'm quietly disturbed by this mainstream media hysteria. In terms of American coverage of American politics, the problem isn't one of quality or quantity: it's about chaos.

You have all these pseudo news sites pretending to be journalistic - like Brietbart - that observably are not. You have the gradual fudging of the line between objective news reportage and opinion and analysis which has been a serious problem for news coverage in the media Globally.

But the fudging of the line between news and analysis started with one person, one Media empire - Murdoch.

Weill of course that's not entirely true, but perhaps most pertinently true now in terms of its ubiquity.
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Kevin Solway »

Dan Rowden wrote:Wisdom in hindsight.
He's [Trump] a businessman. That's all.
Anita Sarkeesian is a businesswoman. That's all.
You do realise that this is one of the main criticisms of Sarkeesian - that she is a businesswoman, and that truth is not her number one priority.

I'm not saying that it's a good thing that someone who is a primarily a businessman is president of the United States. What I'm saying is that Trump is a human being, and he's not from another planet. He's probably read some books. He's not all that smart or knowledgeable. He's not a Demon. He's not Hitler. He's fairly ordinary. He's old, and his mind will not be working optimally. He's never been caught breaking the law. I don't have any good reason to think otherwise.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Statement about Solway and Trump

Post by Dan Rowden »

Oh, and nothing is true but if Kevin says it because he can better judge subjective and non-absolute facts of reality they are best argued with facts that you pretend are there and express theoretically.

I'm sorry, as incoherent as that is, I regard it as indicative of Kev's contribution.
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