Trumpism

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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Trumpism

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Kevin Solway wrote:.... I value freedom of thought and freedom of expression.
Quintessential progressive values, as David would admit. Which shows also his problem casting this as something progressive vs backwards. There's no indication that many supporters of Trump are not supporting these things wholeheartedly. Trump himself, personally, not that much as he has a very immature personality. But in terms of politics that is besides the point here.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Trumpism

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David Quinn wrote: The goal of encouraging everyone to become wise goes hand in hand with the goal of creating a society which best promotes this. You can’t have one without the other.
But "society" never ends up promoting wisdom as such: it promotes just more society, for the best or the worse. And as promotion of a good environment, one can think of many examples of the same society promoting ignorance or indifference.

And would you see anything specific in the societies of a Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Kierkegaard, Weininger, Hakuin, Chuang Tzu or Socrates, which enabled them in particular to reach that far? And if progressive modernity is so enabling, name the great sages from this massive "progressive society" active lets say between 1920-1970? Or did society only became progressive near the end of the 20th century because of "other circumstance" again? I think your proposed reasoning is very speculative here! Do you have any more logical or historical reason to explain what exactly makes a society conductive for great wisdom to prosper?
Look at it this way. Since wisdom is consciousness of ultimate reality, or consciousness that is no longer distorted by delusion and insanity, the desire to eliminate all delusion and insanity from the world goes to the very heart of the spiritual path. This means encouraging everyone, including oneself, to transcend their attachments and their limited perspectives and open themselves up to the absolute reality which is beyond all perspectives.
The heart of the spiritual path has already eliminated all delusion and insanity. The world is perfect and unbearable for false ego which only exists as response, to cope, with dukkha. Life is suffering, birth is suffering, death is suffering. Attachment.
As such, a bodhisattva fully focused on wisdom naturally seeks to improve the world in the same way that he seeks to improve himself.
It all becomes natural and effortless to do so. But it's indefensible to claim that bodhisattva would vote liberal or get wound up because the world order might collapse, yet again. How could he as his view is wider than the ages and all conscious effort and structures arise and melt away again, reforming elsewhere, anytime, anywhere.
Unlike Christianity, which depends on the existence of drama, Buddhism is calm, methodical, uneventful, intellectual. It doesn't require Trump-inspired insanities or stupid violent catastrophes to kick it into gear.
Although I know what you mean with this I still have to ask : are you saying one should vote Hillary Clinton for her calmer, more methodical and intellectual appearances, no matter if it might be carefully manufactured or not? If inside stories are true, she's quite the hysterical blond outside the limelight. So we should perhaps go by actions ultimately and not by appearances.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Trumpism

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Kevin Solway wrote:
Dan Rowden wrote: . . .and still voted for him, are, indeed, deluded and insane and no other sensible judgement is possible.
You are merely speculating as to why people voted for him, and I don't believe you have any idea why people voted for him.
Your posting behaviour has become deeply dishonest. I didn't say a single fucking word about why people voted for Trump. I made a judgement about people's mentality based on certain of Trump's outrageous campaign blather. Nice of you to completely ignore that. And quit with this 'speculating' malarkey. I don't have to speculate as to why people voted for Trump. There is a spectra of reasons that we know about. It's called polling.
. . . and no other sensible judgement is possible.
So you believe that your speculations are absolutely right and other people's speculations are necessarily wrong.

That thinking is insane.
My judgement is not and cannot be 'speculation'. Stop trying to school people on matters of logic when you clearly have lost touch with that entire paradigm. You are free to disagree with my judgements, as is anyone.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Trumpism

Post by Dan Rowden »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Although I know what you mean with this I still have to ask : are you saying one should vote Hillary Clinton for her calmer, more methodical and intellectual appearances, no matter if it might be carefully manufactured or not? If inside stories are true, she's quite the hysterical blond outside the limelight. So we should perhaps go by actions ultimately and not by appearances.
Voting based on gossip? Anyway, I would have thought the primary reason for voting for Clinton would have simply been: she's not Trump. I know that's not an especially positive reason but I think it a sufficient one.
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Re: Trumpism

Post by Kevin Solway »

Dan Rowden wrote:Your posting behaviour has become deeply dishonest.
No, you are the one being dishonest - or just ignorant. This is what you said, and I quote:
that people who stood before this man and heard him declare unto them that, "Only I can fix it." and "I will give you everything." - each time to rapturous cheers - and still voted for him, are, indeed, deluded and insane and no other sensible judgement is possible.
That is absolute bullshit, complete and total. Your conclusion doesn't logically follow - not even slightly.

You are indeed speculating about the mental states of others. You are speculating that they are "deluded and insane", and implying that's why they voted for Trump.

I made a judgement about people's mentality
Yes, you made a speculative judgement. Saying that "no other sensible judgement is possible" (ie, other than your speculative judgement) is total bullshit. It doesn't logically follow.

My judgement is not and cannot be 'speculation'.
Judgements can indeed be speculative. Whenever you judge other people's mental states, the judgement is necessarily always speculative, and not absolute.

If you think you can judge what other people's mental states are, with absolute certainty, then you have gone off the deep end.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Trumpism

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Dan Rowden wrote:Voting based on gossip? Anyway, I would have thought the primary reason for voting for Clinton would have simply been: she's not Trump. I know that's not an especially positive reason but I think it a sufficient one.
Not gossip but action while in office, which in case of Clinton, there was enough of to become certain that she was not fit to run. And then there were Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of course. Although Americans have this disastrous idea that voting on "big" is more important than on someone you might actually more agree with. The larger insanity is therefore systematic.
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Re: Trumpism

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Kevin Solway wrote:
Dan Rowden wrote:Your posting behaviour has become deeply dishonest.
No, you are the one being dishonest - or just ignorant. This is what you said, and I quote:
that people who stood before this man and heard him declare unto them that, "Only I can fix it." and "I will give you everything." - each time to rapturous cheers - and still voted for him, are, indeed, deluded and insane and no other sensible judgement is possible.
That is absolute bullshit, complete and total. Your conclusion doesn't logically follow - not even slightly.

You are indeed speculating about the mental states of others. You are speculating that they are "deluded and insane", and implying that's why they voted for Trump.
Oi fucking vei. You are wrong on every count. How can this be? It's bizarre. I am neither speculating nor reaching a 'conclusion', as such. I am making a judgement of a set of facts. Let me spell it put for you because you apparently don't get it:

I said nothing, literally nothing about why people voted for Trump. I gave you two examples of outrageous and ridiculous statements Trump made in the campaign and then offered a judgement about the fact that people voted for him in the face of hearing those claims. That is my point. It was utterly clear by dint of the words I used, namely: and still voted for him.

I judge that to be deluded and insane. That's not speculation. It's a judgement. There is zero speculation involved. Literally zero. As I said, you are free to disagree with both my assessment of those statements (i.e. whether they ought scare the shit out of a sane and rational voter) and of the sanity of subsequently voting for the person who utters such ridiculous blather.

Frankly, if Clinton has made such statements in the campaign you'd be characterising them exactly this way and the subsequent action of people voting for her anyway just as I have herein done. And yes, that is technically a speculation.
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Re: Trumpism

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On a lighter note, it certainly is fun to learn from a POTUS that Israel is not in the Middle East.
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Re: Trumpism

Post by David Quinn »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Kevin Solway wrote:.... I value freedom of thought and freedom of expression.
Quintessential progressive values, as David would admit. Which shows also his problem casting this as something progressive vs backwards. There's no indication that many supporters of Trump are not supporting these things wholeheartedly.
They give every indication that they don’t want left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs to express themselves.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
David Quinn wrote: The goal of encouraging everyone to become wise goes hand in hand with the goal of creating a society which best promotes this. You can’t have one without the other.
But "society" never ends up promoting wisdom as such: it promotes just more society, for the best or the worse.
Granted, society hasn’t done much in the way of promoting wisdom so far, but we are still a young species and the progressive journey is still in its infancy.

There are signs that it is occurring nonetheless. Thanks to the influence of science, for example, the human race has indeed inched a little closer to wisdom over the past three hundred years. In general, people have become more educated and broad-minded; many of the traditional superstitions and myths have been debunked; understanding of the basic principles of logic has become more widespread; the belief in metaphysical delusions, such as a personal God, has diminished; and so on. Okay, we are still a long way from becoming a society of fully-enlightened Buddhas, but it’s still progress nonetheless.

It is one baby step after another, which is all it can ever be. Slow progress is genuine progress.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:And if progressive modernity is so enabling, name the great sages from this massive "progressive society" active lets say between 1920-1970? Or did society only became progressive near the end of the 20th century because of "other circumstance" again?
As I say, it's been steady progress since the Middle Ages. The period that you mention - 1920-1970 - did see a significant increase in interest in Eastern philosophy by Western intellectuals - e.g. Aldous Huxley, Hermann Hesse, Alan Watts, etc. While such men fell well short of being genuine sages, they did help fan the cultural revolution in the 60s and 70s, which in itself continued the broadening and deepening of the Western mentality that has been going on since the Middle Ages.

Fast forward to now and we can see that this long and steady progression has hit a major hurdle. The progression has scared people to such an extent that three major societal reactions have emerged over the past few decades, all of them driven by a deep hatred of truth - namely, (a) the conservative backlash (which is now reaching its peak in the Trump/Republican movement), (b) the rise of postmodernism, feminism, political correctness, etc (which reaches its peak in the extreme left), and (c) the slide into banality (which runs through the whole of society).

And would you see anything specific in the societies of a Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Kierkegaard, Weininger, Hakuin, Chuang Tzu or Socrates, which enabled them in particular to reach that far?
The salient fact here is that so few sages have emerged over the course of human history. The individuals you list here were largely left to fend on their own. They broke through into wisdom in spite of their societies, not because of them. Who knows how many more sages could have emerged had societal conditions been more favorable?

Up until recently, most children in each generation died of disease before reaching adulthood. And of those who did reach adulthood, many died at a young age fighting in wars. It makes one wonder how many of these unfortunate souls had the potential to become great sages? We will never know, but this is the kind of obstruction that an intelligent, well-ordered, technologically-advanced society can do something about.

I think your proposed reasoning is very speculative hear! Do you have any more logical or historical reason to explain what exactly makes a society conductive for great wisdom to prosper?
This very forum is an example. It has been a society which has been conducive for wisdom to prosper. Granted, we are few in number and our influence is very limited at the moment, but it is easy enough to imagine a similar dynamic occurring on a larger scale.
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Re: Trumpism

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Dan Rowden wrote:I said nothing, literally nothing about why people voted for Trump. I gave you two examples of outrageous and ridiculous statements Trump made in the campaign and then offered a judgement about the fact that people voted for him in the face of hearing those claims. That is my point. It was utterly clear by dint of the words I used, namely: and still voted for him.
Even put this way (i.e., eristically), what you said is still speculative. There is no reason to assume that the people who voted for Trump fully agreed or were even aware of *all* the claims he made during his campaign, and expected him to formulate policy/action based upon them.
David Quinn wrote:Granted, society hasn’t done much in the way of promoting wisdom so far, but we are still a young species and the progressive journey is still in its infancy.

There are signs that it is occurring nonetheless. Thanks to the influence of science, for example, the human race has indeed inched a little closer to wisdom over the past three hundred years. In general, people have become more educated and broad-minded; many of the traditional superstitions and myths have been debunked; understanding of the basic principles of logic has become more widespread; the belief in metaphysical delusions, such as a personal God, has diminished; and so on. Okay, we are still a long way from becoming a society of fully-enlightened Buddhas, but it’s still progress nonetheless.
Education and broad-mindedness don't necessarily indicate rationality. The big picture is of old delusions being gradually replaced by new or upgraded delusions. The new ones are more *hygienic*, but no less *delusional*.
Slow progress is genuine progress.
If that were true, then there wouldn't be any sages at all. No, slow progress is slow progress.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Trumpism

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Dan Rowden wrote: judge that to be deluded and insane. That's not speculation. It's a judgement. There is zero speculation involved. Literally zero
It's a personal judgement - opinion based on certain assumptions which you're not willing to doubt or re-examine for a second.
Dan Rowden wrote:On a lighter note, it certainly is fun to learn from a POTUS that Israel is not in the Middle East.
On some accounts: Israel is part of European soccer competitions and song festivals, not any Asian of Middle Eastern ones :)
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Re: Trumpism

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jupiviv wrote:
Dan Rowden wrote:I said nothing, literally nothing about why people voted for Trump. I gave you two examples of outrageous and ridiculous statements Trump made in the campaign and then offered a judgement about the fact that people voted for him in the face of hearing those claims. That is my point. It was utterly clear by dint of the words I used, namely: and still voted for him.
Even put this way (i.e., eristically), what you said is still speculative. There is no reason to assume that the people who voted for Trump fully agreed or were even aware of *all* the claims he made during his campaign, and expected him to formulate policy/action based upon them.
I'm just gonna roll my eyes at that. Literally.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Trumpism

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

David Quinn wrote:
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Kevin Solway wrote:.... I value freedom of thought and freedom of expression.
Quintessential progressive values, as David would admit. Which shows also his problem casting this as something progressive vs backwards. There's no indication that many supporters of Trump are not supporting these things wholeheartedly.
They give every indication that they don’t want left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs to express themselves.
But wait a minute, most conservative critique I heard on the left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs was about their attempts to silence what was branded "insane" or "damaging" beyond just expressing themselves in their own bubbles. It's about that they then often claim some kind universality of values, declare it sanity and move to brand everything opposing it as equal to terrorism or something to defund, filter or publicly ridicule with hyperbolic re-interpretations.

And in the past I'd have found these kind of descriptions to be exaggerated but last years I've seen it in action a few times. It's extremely ugly and irrational. Kevin Solway was right to challenge it where he came across it. It's really a growing problem and a real threat to future public wisdom discussions and the challenging of ignorance. Actually I'm surprised the Genius Forum never was pressured to close by left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs. It must have slipped under the radar. Perhaps you are not realizing these growing dangers against progress under the guise of some moral but always quite militant "enlightenment"?
but we are still a young species and the progressive journey is still in its infancy.
As we were 3000 years ago and still will be in 1000 years. Which makes it a bit meaningless as argument for or against anything happening in this modern age.
There are signs that it is occurring nonetheless. Thanks to the influence of science, for example, the human race has indeed inched a little closer to wisdom over the past three hundred years. In general, people have become more educated and broad-minded; many of the traditional superstitions and myths have been debunked; understanding of the basic principles of logic has become more widespread; the belief in metaphysical delusions, such as a personal God, has diminished; and so on. Okay, we are still a long way from becoming a society of fully-enlightened Buddhas, but it’s still progress nonetheless.
Wisdom has peaked at least a few times before those last three centuries. Just based on that, we could speculate just as easily that it wasn't just scientific progress, technology or diminished influence of organized religions which made the big difference. How to measure the amount of wisdom in the world anyway? It looks like a possible materialistic delusion from the start.
Fast forward to now and we can see that this long and steady progression has hit a major hurdle. The progression has scared people to such an extent that three major societal reactions have emerged over the past few decades, all of them driven by a deep hatred of truth - namely, (a) the conservative backlash (which is now reaching its peak in the Trump/Republican movement), (b) the rise of postmodernism, feminism, political correctness, etc (which reaches its peak in the extreme left), and (c) the slide into banality (which runs through the whole of society).
So, in the end, perhaps not that wonderful, all that lovely progress we had for centuries? It cuts both ways.
The salient fact here is that so few sages have emerged over the course of human history. The individuals you list here were largely left to fend on their own. They broke through into wisdom in spite of their societies, not because of them. Who knows how many more sages could have emerged had societal conditions been more favorable?
That might also suggest just as easily that sages emerge especially when individuals are left to fend on their own, born in a sea of cow like indifference and confusion. First they need to become the fierce resistance fighter, a true lion before the innocent child is born. It could be argued that "favorable" conditions are never favoring the bold and wise, as to become bold and wise.

Nietzsche already noticed "everything outstanding is by its nature rare" but here's William James with a related view:
  • Sporadic great men come everywhere. But for a community to get vibrating through and through with intensely active life, many geniuses coming together and in rapid succession are required. This is why great epochs are so rare, - why the sudden bloom of a Greece, an early Rome, a Renaissance, is such a mystery. Blow must follow blow so fast that no cooling can occur in the intervals. Then the mass of the nation glows incandescent, and may continue to glow by pure inertia long after the originators of its internal movement have passed away. We often hear surprise expressed that in these high tides of human affairs not only the people should be filled with stronger life, but that individual geniuses should seem so exceptionally abundant. This mystery is just about as deep as the time-honored conundrum as to why great rivers flow by great towns. It is true that great public fermentations awaken and adopt many geniuses who in more torpid times would have had no chance to work. But over and above this there must be an exceptional concourse of genius about a time, to make the fermentation begin at all. The unlikeliness of the concourse is far greater than the unlikeliness of any particular genius; hence the rarity of these periods and the exceptional aspect which they always wear. -- William James

The above quote implies that a great period would start with true genius while not keep necessary "producing" more of them or greater ones in succession. This is worked out by Nietzsche in his concept of decadence, this decline of "old" culture and societies which as idea is generally compatible more with the new right or conservative thought, without in any way, dismissing any progress of science, medication or education.
This very forum is an example. It has been a society which has been conducive for wisdom to prosper. Granted, we are few in number and our influence is very limited at the moment, but it is easy enough to imagine a similar dynamic occurring on a larger scale.
One could reason, based on what has been argued above, that it started with a few actions of genius, at the right time and right place to do the right thing and all handled with a wise touch. And I personally see the Genius discourse as such. As for the fermentation process, if it indeed will inspire actual changes also in society and culture, remains the question here. To your surprise perhaps but the discussions on this forum are not very compatible with any typical "left" and rarely you'd find someone here involved in these topics who is much supportive of globalism, the EU, UN, humanitarian wars, more federal state influence into citizen affairs, endless extreme promotion of equality -- in other words, generally "left" politics.
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Re: Trumpism

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Dan Rowden wrote:
jupiviv wrote:
Dan Rowden wrote:I said nothing, literally nothing about why people voted for Trump. I gave you two examples of outrageous and ridiculous statements Trump made in the campaign and then offered a judgement about the fact that people voted for him in the face of hearing those claims. That is my point. It was utterly clear by dint of the words I used, namely: and still voted for him.
Even put this way (i.e., eristically), what you said is still speculative. There is no reason to assume that the people who voted for Trump fully agreed or were even aware of *all* the claims he made during his campaign, and expected him to formulate policy/action based upon them.
I'm just gonna roll my eyes at that. Literally.
Because you're such a great sage, I presume. You know, it seems you and David expect some sort of de facto respect from us on account of being "original sages" and forum founders. But even on that logically fallacious count, Kevin trumps - lol - both of you combined. I consider myself to be a sage at least on paper (scatological innuendos notwithstanding), so this lame circumspect presumption of authority really isn't working. Please consider making a coherent argument once in a while kkthx.
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Re: Trumpism

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Dan Rowden wrote:I am neither speculating nor reaching a 'conclusion', as such.
You said, and I quote, "No other sensible judgement is possible." This is the conclusion you reached.

offered a judgement about the fact that people voted for him in the face of hearing those claims.


Yes you did, and your conclusion was that "No other sensible judgement is possible".

In fact, people can still vote for Trump "in the face" of foolish things Trump may or may not have said, because they may be voting for him for completely different reasons.


I judge that to be deluded and insane.


You are free to judge anything you want, but your judging of people to be "deluded and insane", is speculation.


if Clinton has made such statements in the campaign you'd be characterising them exactly this way


During the campaign Clinton gave her support for open borders, and I think the idea of open borders is completely ridiculous, dangerous, and destructive.

But it doesn't logically follow that people who voted for Clinton are "deluded and insane" just because they voted for Clinton in the face of her ridiculous ideas, since these people may have chosen to support Clinton for other reasons. For example, they may have voted for Clinton, despite her ridiculous ideas, because they considered Trump to be even worse.

So your conclusion that "No other sensible judgement is possible [than that they are deluded and insane]" is simply false.
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Re: Trumpism

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David Quinn wrote:They give every indication that they don’t want left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs to express themselves.
I don't think Trump supporters would be offering tens of thousands of dollars to SJWs, just to have a discussion or debate with them, if they didn't want SJWs to express themselves.
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Re: Trumpism

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Kevin Solway wrote:
David Quinn wrote:They give every indication that they don’t want left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs to express themselves.
I don't think Trump supporters would be offering tens of thousands of dollars to SJWs, just to have a discussion or debate with them, if they didn't want SJWs to express themselves.
That sounds odd - both for the Trump supporters to offer such money and for the SJWs to refuse it. Obviously, there is something else going on here. Can you provide a link which properly describes this matter?
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Re: Trumpism

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Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
Dan Rowden wrote: judge that to be deluded and insane. That's not speculation. It's a judgement. There is zero speculation involved. Literally zero
It's a personal judgement - opinion based on certain assumptions which you're not willing to doubt or re-examine for a second.
Well, of course it's a 'personal' judgement. What other kind could it be? As for re-examining - sure, if a cogent alternative judgement were offered I'd look at it. I can't imagine what that would look like, however, since my judgement is consistent with how I, and many here at this very forum, have judged human behaviour for the last 30 years. Keep in mind that people are already deluded and insane to a significant degree, politics aside.

Let me offer an analogy so as to possibly make my point clearer: there's a street preacher who's gathered a crowd of curious persons, some of whom are already entirely open to the sort of rhetoric such a person would offer. Those people are already deluded and insane. The street preacher declares that only he hears the voice of God, that only he is a conduit for God's will. He declares that he will give the people everything and will bring the Rapture itself. Many of these people, aside from the ones that are immersed in religious delusion already, then sign a contract with him, after hearing such declarations, that will give him power to govern significant aspects of their lives and futures.

I contend that most of us would, and have always, declared such behaviour to be deluded and insane. Feel free to exempt yourself. For me the scenarios are identical. I see no reason to form different judgements because one context is religious and one political.

That judgement of delusion and insanity is a mundane, technical one. It is not any sort of moral judgement. I don't believe any of us have, historically, made actual moral judgements of people purely over their metaphysical, ontological and epistemic delusions. I'm not doing that now.
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Re: Trumpism

Post by Dan Rowden »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
And in the past I'd have found these kind of descriptions to be exaggerated but last years I've seen it in action a few times. It's extremely ugly and irrational. Kevin Solway was right to challenge it where he came across it. It's really a growing problem and a real threat to future public wisdom discussions and the challenging of ignorance. Actually I'm surprised the Genius Forum never was pressured to close by left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs. It must have slipped under the radar.
I don't think GF has ever had sufficient a profile for that, plus its halcyon days were arguably before the intersectionalist and SJW garbage reached its peak. It most certainly is a threat. I mean, historically you expect certain political ideologies to take root in tertiary education facilities, but this, as a 'branch', so to speak, of feminism, has the ear of the media and the establishment. This is one of the reasons Clinton was such a bad Democrat candidate. She was increasingly open to the current SJW rabidity.

It's hard to say just how big an issue it is. Some US Universities are already starting to push back against it. But at the same time the crazy rantings of feminists like Laci Green and Anita Sarcasm are actually being included in educational curricula. Horrible. But I do wonder if natural cultural push-back will leave this movement floundering like so many political and cultural fads. In the US I believe that only 18% of women currently identify as 'feminists', falling from 25% in only a few short years.

But in terms of of College and University culture, the authoritarian nature of much of it is quite disturbing, as is the embracing of it by men who one would have otherwise regarded as quite rational. I'd have to cite a few Youtube identities that you might not have heard of to justify that, so I'll just leave it sit there.

I quite agree with Kevin on this matter, but I can't go as far as him in declaring feminists and SJW to be 'literally the worst'.
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Re: Trumpism

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Kevin Solway wrote:
Dan Rowden wrote:
if Clinton has made such statements in the campaign you'd be characterising them exactly this way
During the campaign Clinton gave her support for open borders, [citation needed] and I think the idea of open borders is completely ridiculous, dangerous, and destructive.

But it doesn't logically follow that people who voted for Clinton are "deluded and insane" just because they voted for Clinton in the face of her ridiculous ideas, since these people may have chosen to support Clinton for other reasons. For example, they may have voted for Clinton, despite her ridiculous ideas, because they considered Trump to be even worse.
Ok, this is ridiculous. You are citing policy statements and reasons surrounding them. I did no such thing. You are not even being close to analogous to my point. No Presidential candidate in living memory (and possibly ever) has made statements and claims of the nature that I quoted. I quoted those statements and claims exactly and precisely to make my point - which has exactly zero to do with policy and everything to do with psychology. FFS x Infinity.

Had Clinton made those statements and claims during the campaign - regardless of what 'policy' shit she came out with - I'd be making the exact same point about people who subsequently voted for her.
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Re: Trumpism

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Hillary's views on immigration - https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/i ... on-reform/
Dan Rowden wrote:No Presidential candidate in living memory (and possibly ever) has made statements and claims of the nature that I quoted.
Even if those claims are unprecedented in terms of falseness, which is very unlikely, the fact that someone voted for Trump despite being aware of them still doesn't give you any insight into their psychology. You're still only speculating - without basis - about whether *all* Trump voters blindly accepted those claims as gospel truths instead of ignoring them in their appraisal of their choices. Hillary was the first presidential candidate to have faced an FBI investigation during her campaign, and that is a *fact*, not merely an opinion of how unprecedentedly false two unspecified campaign claims are.
jimhaz
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Re: Trumpism

Post by jimhaz »

[During the campaign Clinton gave her support for open borders, and I think the idea of open borders is completely ridiculous, dangerous, and destructive]

That’s the sort of deceiving fake news crap Trump and presumably Breibart would have spruiked for political reasons.

“Trump is referring to a leaked speech excerpt in which Clinton purportedly says, "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere."

There is nothing to it. She was just stating a wish, not a reality and certainly not a policy.

As an utopian wish it is fine – Although I personally do not agree with high immigration, most folks would not have an issue with such an outcome – supposedly the US is a nation of immigrants. It is not dissimilar to Luther King’s I Have A Dream idea. It is just an extension of what is already occurring with the globalisation of labour. It is the strategy supported by virtually all western govs and business. Many right wingers support open labour borders as it enables them to maximise profits (and this is one of the reasons why I do not support it). Australia’s 457 visas are actually more or less open borders on a temporary basis.

The problem is that this strategy has gone too hard too fast over the last 20 years and ordinary inflexible non-migrant people have tired of it and the loss of local manufacturing, and neocons in general, and the Dems are too idealistic to realise this. Trump will only flirt about the edges with say his weirdly selected temporary muslim bans, ineffectual Mexican wall’s and extreme vetting.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... -wanting-/
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Trumpism

Post by Dan Rowden »

jupiviv wrote:Hillary's views on immigration - https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/i ... on-reform/
'uphold the rule of law, protect our borders and national security, and bring millions of hardworking people into the formal economy.' The Obama administration deported more 'illegals' than any other by orders of magnitude. What's your point with that link?
No Presidential candidate in living memory (and possibly ever) has made statements and claims of the nature that I quoted.
Even if those claims are unprecedented in terms of falseness, which is very unlikely, the fact that someone voted for Trump despite being aware of them still doesn't give you any insight into their psychology[...]
So, you make no judgement, whatever, about people's psychology on the basis of any fact or event within the political realm? You know that's what you're saying to me right now? Right?
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David Quinn
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Re: Trumpism

Post by David Quinn »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
David Quinn wrote: They give every indication that they don’t want left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs to express themselves.
But wait a minute, most conservative critique I heard on the left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs was about their attempts to silence what was branded "insane" or "damaging" beyond just expressing themselves in their own bubbles. It's about that they then often claim some kind universality of values, declare it sanity and move to brand everything opposing it as equal to terrorism or something to defund, filter or publicly ridicule with hyperbolic re-interpretations.
You don't think that the anti-SJW crusaders are doing the same thing? Of course they are. Not only are they trying to impose their values on everyone else, but they are quick to brand anyone who opposes them as “evil", “dishonest”, “dangerous”, “liars, etc. They are even trying to shut down their media outlets and educational institutions. They are every bit as tyrannical as the SJWs themselves.

And in the past I'd have found these kind of descriptions to be exaggerated but last years I've seen it in action a few times. It's extremely ugly and irrational. Kevin Solway was right to challenge it where he came across it. It's really a growing problem and a real threat to future public wisdom discussions and the challenging of ignorance. Actually I'm surprised the Genius Forum never was pressured to close by left-wing academics, feminists and SJWs. It must have slipped under the radar. Perhaps you are not realizing these growing dangers against progress under the guise of some moral but always quite militant "enlightenment"?
Sure, I am aware of it. I just don't see a need to turn purple and blow a gasket over the issue. The expression of truth is suppressed in many different ways from many different quarters. Always has been. The SJWs are just one culprit among many.

For thousands of years, religious fundamentalism has suppressed the truth far more pervasively and violently than left-wing advocates ever will. And yet Kevin Solway has somehow seen fit to team up with these very same fundamentalists in the belief that they are now on his side fighting for the cause of truth. Who is he trying to kid?

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
David Quinn wrote:There are signs that it is occurring nonetheless. Thanks to the influence of science, for example, the human race has indeed inched a little closer to wisdom over the past three hundred years. In general, people have become more educated and broad-minded; many of the traditional superstitions and myths have been debunked; understanding of the basic principles of logic has become more widespread; the belief in metaphysical delusions, such as a personal God, has diminished; and so on. Okay, we are still a long way from becoming a society of fully-enlightened Buddhas, but it’s still progress nonetheless.
Wisdom has peaked at least a few times before those last three centuries. Just based on that, we could speculate just as easily that it wasn't just scientific progress, technology or diminished influence of organized religions which made the big difference.
Yes, I already stated my agreement with this in my last post. Rare, extraordinary individuals possessing a great set of genes, with the help of a random set of favourable experiences in childhood and early adulthood, can push through a resistant society and break through into wisdom. There is no question of that. But as we can see, it is a haphazard process that is rarely successful. The more we can make society non-resistant to wisdom, the less we have to rely on chance to throw up favourable circumstances. We can take control of the situation. The net can be widened. Increasing numbers of people can have a genuine shot at becoming enlightened.

I see no reason why we cannot create a society in which all intellectual delusions have been thoroughly eliminated throughout the entire culture, so that by the time most people reach the age of 18 they will have acquired a near-perfect intellectual understanding of things, and from there it is up to them to decide how deeply they want to enter into the Infinite.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:How to measure the amount of wisdom in the world anyway? It looks like a possible materialistic delusion from the start.
The same way you measure the amount of wisdom in an individual. You become enlightened inwardly in your own mind and then you assess the words and actions of those around you in the light of that inward understanding.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
David Quinn wrote:Fast forward to now and we can see that this long and steady progression has hit a major hurdle. The progression has scared people to such an extent that three major societal reactions have emerged over the past few decades, all of them driven by a deep hatred of truth - namely, (a) the conservative backlash (which is now reaching its peak in the Trump/Republican movement), (b) the rise of postmodernism, feminism, political correctness, etc (which reaches its peak in the extreme left), and (c) the slide into banality (which runs through the whole of society).
So, in the end, perhaps not that wonderful, all that lovely progress we had for centuries? It cuts both ways.
The progress has indeed been wonderful, but, as I say, many people are still deeply afraid of it. They don’t like the way it eats into their herd traditions and emotional attachments. They can't imagine a future beyond tribalism, beyond the us-and-them mentality, beyond the emotional highs and lows of their petty squabbles. They can’t fathom how life can be lived when reason and truth begins to overshadow everything else. They feel that their sense of identity is being obliterated. Hence the pushback that we see all around us, from both the left and the right.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Trumpism

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

jimhaz wrote:There is nothing to it. She was just stating a wish, not a reality and certainly not a policy.
David Quinn wrote:This is surely obvious. Who but the most brainwashed devotees of a political cause could possibly think otherwise?
Perhaps people with a broader or at least different range of ideas and experiences? To have "open borders" is obviously not just a "wish", it's simple referring to a known globalist policy and especially corporate wishes, many of these implemented already around the world when it comes to trade or international unions. Borders protect various undesired flows of people. It will take some time to explain as this issue is a bit too complex to condense in simple "campaigning" sentences.

It seems some people are missing a bit of context here and prefer to go with some anal-liberal harping on the technicalities of a term like "open border" which would indeed be often used in the more economical context like minimizing trade barriers. But removing trade barriers is not where Kevin seems responding to, although discussions on protectionism are possible.

However the context is a bit more complex since Hillary was actually suggesting to fly in half a million refugees from the Middle East who could not make it across the ocean to knock on the door, like they did in Europe e.g. a million crossed the water in 2015, nearly 4000 drowned. Also in Europe was suggested by liberal leadership to just pick them up at land instead. The reality is that most of these people don't bring much "progress" but their religion, customs, culture and in too many cases a severe lack of basic eduction. How is this helping Quinn's favored idea of progress of wise societies?

Plus don't be fooled by a term like Clinton's "comprehensive immigration reform" which would not only mean solving the legal barriers of current illegal immigrant but by the simple mechanisms of "reward" to encourage more flow across the spotty borders. Evidence of this mechanism is the consistent 40% drop of illegals coming in just after Trump announced his tougher policies. All people looking for a better future, for their own old age, for their kids or just the adventure or lucrative black markets attached. And once you supply: more will try! Which is the heart of the political difference here.

Same discussions are taking place here in Europe where "closing or "protecting" borders" in all discussions means simply to decrease any out-of-control immigration especially from poor, uneducated and increasingly criminal and/or terrorist areas which often includes anti-modern followers of Islam or just a large flow of people not raised with Western ideas (unlike many historical immigration flows in Europe and the US). But it's just as well about concerns for the amount of unskilled people looking to get rich quickly and buy modern goods -- the "dreams" they hold. This number lies in the millions ready to come in the following years, when including all people indicating a willingness to make the journey from Africa as well. And since Europe has very little border protection and no good legal mechanism to eject unwanted immigrants, this call to "close borders" is very loud, not only at the political right but also the center of European politics. It's good to have this in mind when understanding more globally the idea of "closing borders"

In short: it's not a Trump thing, it's not even an American topic. People interested in politics know exactly what they mean with open or closed border policies while many liberal leaning media try to make it mean something else, e.g. some technicality.

For better understanding of the European side, this is a good introduction, from MSNBC even: Damned for Trying: "A massive wave of migration is crashing through North Africa, but there is only one major gateway to Europe — and it's through Libya". By the way, the removal of Libya's leader by the liberal elites of the US and Europe, despite a decade of his and the UN's warnings against the consequences, would be way more a candidate for a label like "insane" and anti-progress.

All ignorance has severe consequences. But first one has to recognize the shape and form of the worst type of ignorance.
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