I think he was always always always planning on doing this. I recall it being right in some of the documents from the very beginning.
People’s opinions have changed a lot in the last 25 years. In the late 90s we got to see the last gasps of the real power of the religious right, in the early 2000s we got to see the dominance of the neoconservative right, in the late 2000s we got to see a massive shift leftward as a backlash against the religious right and the neoconservative right, then from the more chill hippie left wing we got to see the rise of the authoritarian woke left, and right now we’re starting to see a backlash against that. It isn’t always from different people, it’s often from the same people changing their minds.
For quite some time I’ve thought of it like steering a car. If you steer hard to the left you’re going to hit the ditch, if you steer hard to the right you’re going to hit the ditch. Really what you need is to course correct at times just stay on the road. Sometimes you need to turn the wheel pretty hard in one direction or the other, other times you want to just nudge the wheel, and get other times you don’t really want to move it at all.
Some regions voted hard for Clinton, then voted for bush, then voted for obama, then voted for trump, then voted for Biden. Such a thing might look completely inconsistent, but politics is a dynamic system where circumstances change, certain movements win and then we get to see the consequences of those movements, new movements form, and maybe old movements collapse.
This isn’t a new idea. Hegelian dielectic proposes that in politics, a dominant idea (thesis) eventually leads to its opposite or challenge (antithesis), resulting in a resolution or synthesis of the conflicting ideas. Such an idea predates Marx, so it’s been around for quite some time.
There are quite a number of examples historically of people completely changing their mind on a topic. The father of Canadian universal healthcare, Tommy Douglas, was a powerful advocate of eugenics when he was younger, and as he got older he realized that he made a terrible mistake and changed his mind. Solzhenitsyn apparently early on in his life believed in the Soviet project but once he learned of the gulags had his views fundamentally change. A lot of people like to pretend that national socialism died with Adolf Hitler in that bunker, but a lot of people believed in and supported national socialism in Germany, and those people continue to exist after world war 2, but I think it’s safe to say that for the most part they learned the error of their ways. I’m sure there are lots of people who supported Putin internationally in the 90s who wish they could go back and change that decision now.
To me it’s one of the deepest dangers of the purity spiraling we are seeing from the left right now. The fact of the matter is, as you kick more people out of the left, it becomes a less and less viable movement. As the left acts as if people become irredeemable the moment that their opinions are wrong, it becomes something that will inevitably fail.
I feel like the modern left would take a look at post war germany, and post to japan, and would just immediately start implementing genocide. “Nope, they were Nazis they are irredeemable they need to be pushed into the sea”. The most amazing thing about the end of world war II is the incredible wisdom with which the world powers helped to rehabilitate Germany and Japan into some of the most powerful nations in the world today, but for the most part lacking in the qualities that set them off to war and atrocity way back when.
For quite some time I’ve thought of it like steering a car. If you steer hard to the left you’re going to hit the ditch, if you steer hard to the right you’re going to hit the ditch. Really what you need is to course correct at times just stay on the road. Sometimes you need to turn the wheel pretty hard in one direction or the other, other times you want to just nudge the wheel, and get other times you don’t really want to move it at all.
Some regions voted hard for Clinton, then voted for bush, then voted for obama, then voted for trump, then voted for Biden. Such a thing might look completely inconsistent, but politics is a dynamic system where circumstances change, certain movements win and then we get to see the consequences of those movements, new movements form, and maybe old movements collapse.
This isn’t a new idea. Hegelian dielectic proposes that in politics, a dominant idea (thesis) eventually leads to its opposite or challenge (antithesis), resulting in a resolution or synthesis of the conflicting ideas. Such an idea predates Marx, so it’s been around for quite some time.
There are quite a number of examples historically of people completely changing their mind on a topic. The father of Canadian universal healthcare, Tommy Douglas, was a powerful advocate of eugenics when he was younger, and as he got older he realized that he made a terrible mistake and changed his mind. Solzhenitsyn apparently early on in his life believed in the Soviet project but once he learned of the gulags had his views fundamentally change. A lot of people like to pretend that national socialism died with Adolf Hitler in that bunker, but a lot of people believed in and supported national socialism in Germany, and those people continue to exist after world war 2, but I think it’s safe to say that for the most part they learned the error of their ways. I’m sure there are lots of people who supported Putin internationally in the 90s who wish they could go back and change that decision now.
To me it’s one of the deepest dangers of the purity spiraling we are seeing from the left right now. The fact of the matter is, as you kick more people out of the left, it becomes a less and less viable movement. As the left acts as if people become irredeemable the moment that their opinions are wrong, it becomes something that will inevitably fail.
I feel like the modern left would take a look at post war germany, and post to japan, and would just immediately start implementing genocide. “Nope, they were Nazis they are irredeemable they need to be pushed into the sea”. The most amazing thing about the end of world war II is the incredible wisdom with which the world powers helped to rehabilitate Germany and Japan into some of the most powerful nations in the world today, but for the most part lacking in the qualities that set them off to war and atrocity way back when.
Nobody wants president Kamala. World war 3 would start and she'd be on TV explaining the news like "war is when some mean people try to get their way by sending people with guns called 'soldiers' into an area so they can have that area using those guns"
Given a choice, I'd prefer getting called a name to getting blocked.
The latter is a really cowardly way out. Especially when the last message is announcing that you're blocking me. Fuck off, don't announce that you're a coward and you're fleeing to your safe space where you only see opinions you agree with and you can ignore that people who disagree with you exist.
And on the topic of healthcare, I always say this: America already taxes enough to implement universal healthcare. It spends as much public money on healthcare -- PUBLIC money mind you -- as countries like Canada or the United Kingdom, per capita.
If you're paying for it anyway, you ought to get it.
The latter is a really cowardly way out. Especially when the last message is announcing that you're blocking me. Fuck off, don't announce that you're a coward and you're fleeing to your safe space where you only see opinions you agree with and you can ignore that people who disagree with you exist.
And on the topic of healthcare, I always say this: America already taxes enough to implement universal healthcare. It spends as much public money on healthcare -- PUBLIC money mind you -- as countries like Canada or the United Kingdom, per capita.
If you're paying for it anyway, you ought to get it.
I've written it before, that I thought I'd learned the bible through cultural osmosis, and now that I'm reading (first a kids bible because he's a kid and I'm barely literate) I've come to realize that I'm totally wrong and virtually nothing has been passed through cultural osmosis.
Continuing through the second part of Notes from the Underground, the main character is really insufferable. I hate to say it, but I see a younger version of myself in him, and thank God I've grown out of being such an insufferable jerk (though I guess I've grown into being a different kind of insufferable jerk?)
I just finished the part where he decided to interject into a party he had no business being in spending money earmarked for his servant's pay (when he already owed a lot of money one of the people at the party), and he admits he doesn't even like anyone who's going.
At the beginning of the book he said he was a terrible person, but it wasn't until the second part that it became clear he was telling the truth.
I just finished the part where he decided to interject into a party he had no business being in spending money earmarked for his servant's pay (when he already owed a lot of money one of the people at the party), and he admits he doesn't even like anyone who's going.
At the beginning of the book he said he was a terrible person, but it wasn't until the second part that it became clear he was telling the truth.
It doesn't matter what exactly they wanted to make it, a Barbie movie was never going to be for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6F0kTDwJNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6F0kTDwJNA
Not American, and not really a partisan. I'm a centrist who is presently leaning quite right, but in the past leaned quite left. The same answers aren't correct all the time.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jul/12/russian-spies-ukraine-suspected-duping-fbi-censor-/
Russian spies infiltrated Ukraine to trick the FBI into censoring the Kremlin's enemies.
Sure is a good thing the FBI doesn't induce big tech into silencing arbitrary protected speech.
Russian spies infiltrated Ukraine to trick the FBI into censoring the Kremlin's enemies.
Sure is a good thing the FBI doesn't induce big tech into silencing arbitrary protected speech.
unlock the ion inhibitors.
"I'm not sure that's such a good--"
I SAID UNLOCK THE ION INHIBITORS!
"I'm not sure that's such a good--"
I SAID UNLOCK THE ION INHIBITORS!
😑 You mean to tell me that a new sequel to a classic game series made in 2023 is going to have elements nobody cares for and everyone should probably just ignore it because it's just a bunch of privileged losers wearing the old property like a skin suit? I'm shocked.
That they can pretend is false.
Malinformation is information that is true, that they agree is true, but is inconvenient for the establishment narrative.
The fact that they have a name for that and they intend to try to control it should be a total mask off moment.
Malinformation is information that is true, that they agree is true, but is inconvenient for the establishment narrative.
The fact that they have a name for that and they intend to try to control it should be a total mask off moment.
At least the nice thing now is they aren't even pretending they care about the health of babies. It turns out they're the prime candidate for "fuck you, got mine"
I'm not an "America love it or leave it" guy, but if the founding fathers and patriotism are offensive, maybe it is time to go live in those allegedly perfect places that aren't America?
I think there's some conversations that should be had whose elements are specifically split along partisan lines.
Why are there homeless people when the government is taking half of my income? My great grandfather didn't pay income tax at all.
If you think about that question, it's split right down the middle. Part of it is "left", part of it is "right", but really, it's a question that everyone should be asking -- What's the effectiveness of the single most expensive thing we pay for by an order of magnitude? Instead we fight over "left" and "right" which successfully distracts from the question we can all agree on.
Why are there homeless people when the government is taking half of my income? My great grandfather didn't pay income tax at all.
If you think about that question, it's split right down the middle. Part of it is "left", part of it is "right", but really, it's a question that everyone should be asking -- What's the effectiveness of the single most expensive thing we pay for by an order of magnitude? Instead we fight over "left" and "right" which successfully distracts from the question we can all agree on.
Happy to have you as long as you'd like to stay. I feel bad we had to dump the database, can't explain the failure.