One thing that the film Idiocracy got wrong is that the only form of idiocy is not populistic and anti-intellectual. You can also absolutely have a form of idiocy that is elitist and pseudo-intellectual.
In my view, yes one faction would be watching "ow my balls", but another person would be watching an equally vapid TV show called "let's laugh at the people watching ow my balls". Wow it might have a veneer of intellectualism, in reality it would simply be another form of petty dumb entertainment.
One form of idiocy may be convinced by "Brawndo has what plants crave", but another group may be chanting "scientists and philosophers all agree Brawndo is what plants crave!" Even though they know nothing about science or philosophy.
You shouldn't pick between the two sides because they are both wrong, and both idiocies appeal to baser emotions. Most people know that populism appeals to a desire for simplicity in the world, well elitism appeals to the desire to be able to look down on someone who isn't you. Both forms of idiocy demand conformance to a standard that matches their worldview.
Because at the moment that's the narrative, people may believe that populist idiocy leads to the erosion of democratic values and the spread of misinformation while elitist idiocy creates social divisions and hinders progress. In reality, all forms of idiocy do all of the above. The fact that a falsehood is being spread by people pretending to be smarter than everyone else doesn't make it a truth, it's still just as much a falsehood. The fact that an elitist wants to corrupt democracy because they look down on the people watching "ow my balls" instead of those watching "watching people watch ow my balls, how stupid are these people?" doesn't mean democracy is magically intact. Just because someone is doing something that will regress or otherwise harm society doesn't mean it's not so just because it's a populist doing it, and dividing up people into different classes of people divides society whether your contention is that the populists are the "good guys" or the elitists.
While populism or elitism have representations in idiocy, that doesn't mean that these ideologies are inherently idiotic or that they can't have very meaningful and engaging representations. There are in fact sophisticated arguments for both, and within both. The key isn't the form of idiocy, rather it's the fact that idiocy can have a thousand faces, and using the presentation of one form of idiocy as a heuristic for detecting all forms of idiocy is not accurate.
Ironically, the idea of using the film "Idiocracy" as a heuristic for idiocy is a form of idiocy. You'll see people unthinkingly chant "That's just like the movie Idiocracy!" as if that actually means anything. This only serves as further evidence of my point, that idiocy takes many forms, and there's no ideology you can follow to be inherently immune to it. The key for people who are not physically idiots due to environmental, biological, or developmental factors (who can be forgiven for their infirmities) is to avoid being ideologically idiotic by thinking for oneself -- Critically think, consider the consequences of your thoughts, understand and accept that whatever you choose to believe will not be wholly correct or wholly just or wholly moral. You might end up wrong about something, but at least you came by your conclusions honestly, and if you're not being an idiot and you're wrong, then there's a good chance you will change your mind eventually.
In my view, yes one faction would be watching "ow my balls", but another person would be watching an equally vapid TV show called "let's laugh at the people watching ow my balls". Wow it might have a veneer of intellectualism, in reality it would simply be another form of petty dumb entertainment.
One form of idiocy may be convinced by "Brawndo has what plants crave", but another group may be chanting "scientists and philosophers all agree Brawndo is what plants crave!" Even though they know nothing about science or philosophy.
You shouldn't pick between the two sides because they are both wrong, and both idiocies appeal to baser emotions. Most people know that populism appeals to a desire for simplicity in the world, well elitism appeals to the desire to be able to look down on someone who isn't you. Both forms of idiocy demand conformance to a standard that matches their worldview.
Because at the moment that's the narrative, people may believe that populist idiocy leads to the erosion of democratic values and the spread of misinformation while elitist idiocy creates social divisions and hinders progress. In reality, all forms of idiocy do all of the above. The fact that a falsehood is being spread by people pretending to be smarter than everyone else doesn't make it a truth, it's still just as much a falsehood. The fact that an elitist wants to corrupt democracy because they look down on the people watching "ow my balls" instead of those watching "watching people watch ow my balls, how stupid are these people?" doesn't mean democracy is magically intact. Just because someone is doing something that will regress or otherwise harm society doesn't mean it's not so just because it's a populist doing it, and dividing up people into different classes of people divides society whether your contention is that the populists are the "good guys" or the elitists.
While populism or elitism have representations in idiocy, that doesn't mean that these ideologies are inherently idiotic or that they can't have very meaningful and engaging representations. There are in fact sophisticated arguments for both, and within both. The key isn't the form of idiocy, rather it's the fact that idiocy can have a thousand faces, and using the presentation of one form of idiocy as a heuristic for detecting all forms of idiocy is not accurate.
Ironically, the idea of using the film "Idiocracy" as a heuristic for idiocy is a form of idiocy. You'll see people unthinkingly chant "That's just like the movie Idiocracy!" as if that actually means anything. This only serves as further evidence of my point, that idiocy takes many forms, and there's no ideology you can follow to be inherently immune to it. The key for people who are not physically idiots due to environmental, biological, or developmental factors (who can be forgiven for their infirmities) is to avoid being ideologically idiotic by thinking for oneself -- Critically think, consider the consequences of your thoughts, understand and accept that whatever you choose to believe will not be wholly correct or wholly just or wholly moral. You might end up wrong about something, but at least you came by your conclusions honestly, and if you're not being an idiot and you're wrong, then there's a good chance you will change your mind eventually.
Australia has a neat system called Superannuation, where part of every paycheque is put into a fund you have some control over, and that's your personal social security fund.
It sure seems like around the world people are growing a pair and not letting themselves be bullied into supporting the establishment.. you always have to be careful because politicians often end up being different than what they run as, but even up here in Soviet Canuckistan we seem on track to get a leader who understands what the country actually needs.
No lie detected. I think that that was the biggest win of the Trump presidency was helping people realize just how corrupt the Republicans were.
Arguably the federal government probably shouldn't be involved with any of those things anyway, so let's just give those the old snippy snip, cut everyone's taxes by 75%, and still have large budget surpluses you can put towards the overwhelming debt. If certain States want to have all that stuff, they can implement it themselves.
If he cut government for real, there would have been less federal spending. In a lot of ways, economically he was more left-wing than Bill Clinton.
In the case of Bill Clinton you can't completely give the credit to him because he also had a Republican legislature pushing him in that direction, but he still signed a lot of legislation that had Donald Trump signed it would have absolutely set the media on fire.
In the case of Bill Clinton you can't completely give the credit to him because he also had a Republican legislature pushing him in that direction, but he still signed a lot of legislation that had Donald Trump signed it would have absolutely set the media on fire.
The cloud is when you have a diagram, and you draw a cloud and you write "not my problem" on the cloud. Of course, you can write whatever you want on a piece of paper but it can very quickly become your problem regardless of what you wrote there.
People think that this is a left versus right thing, but in reality it's a mindless sheep versus critical thinkers thing. Anyone who trusts their own eyes and their own brain is insulted by the level of falsehood being pedaled on a daily basis, but there's a shocking number of people who just believe whatever they're told to believe.
Many such people are told about the Nazis and think that they wouldn't be Nazis, but if the media told them to they would.
Many such people are told about the Nazis and think that they wouldn't be Nazis, but if the media told them to they would.
Funny, I thought the only reason he's down in the polls is people aren't thinking of politics?
I was listening to a speech from Thomas Sowell, and he was talking about the effects of Price controls. He said that when price controls happen either supply goes way down or quality goes way down.
Central banks are essentially price controls for money, and we sort of see it. Money is cheap, so money gets worse.
Problem as you say is that people start to rely on the price controls and so if you take them away it'll hurt a lot of people a lot while the market finds itself.
Central banks are essentially price controls for money, and we sort of see it. Money is cheap, so money gets worse.
Problem as you say is that people start to rely on the price controls and so if you take them away it'll hurt a lot of people a lot while the market finds itself.
To be perfectly honest though, it was a problem before the pandemic, it just got worse afterwards.
It is in fact true, and anyone who was being honest during the Trump administration was calling out the fact that he really wasn't following through on any kind of Republican or conservative fiscal or monetary policy. His budgets were larger than obamas, his deficits were larger than obamas, and the central bank under Jay Powell printed more money than any other Central banker.
Peter Schiff almost immediately called out Donald Trump because president Trump acted in a completely different manner than candidate Trump.
Peter Schiff almost immediately called out Donald Trump because president Trump acted in a completely different manner than candidate Trump.
Yes, in terms of being brutal and having everyone team up on you, the Assyrians are an early example. They were brutal, leaving behind for example a stone carving showing them forcing a father from a conquered people to grind the bones of his wife and child. Exactly what you say happened, and the rest of Mesopotamia ganged up on the Assyrians. As I recall they were by far the post powerful in the region but it didn't matter -- they were a risk that could not be left alone for anyone else.
I think that the same sort of dichotomy exists not just within Nation states, but within individuals. You have to find a balance between being charitable and giving him good to those around you, and not getting walked all over by those around you. In today's culture, we often point out that not every poor person deserves to be where they are in life, but it is equally true that many poor people do deserve to be where they are in life, and while the former type of poor person maybe elevated by helping them out a little bit with some resources at a critical time, the latter will take virtually unlimited resources and squander them and ask why you haven't given them more yet.
In this case I've set out two examples, one where a person is poor completely outside of their control, and another person who would be poor completely inside of their control no matter how many resources they are given, but of course the world isn't that black and white most of the time and most people live somewhere in between, sharing authorship themselves with the world as to their own fate.
But as I said before, that's where most people do need different ideologies that work in different ways to help people look at things from different points of view. Most single ideologies even if they paid lip service to multiple viewpoints will ultimately pick one or the other as primary, for the benefit of having multiple ideologies with multiple standpoints is that each one can be built from the ground up to be internally consistent.
I think that the same sort of dichotomy exists not just within Nation states, but within individuals. You have to find a balance between being charitable and giving him good to those around you, and not getting walked all over by those around you. In today's culture, we often point out that not every poor person deserves to be where they are in life, but it is equally true that many poor people do deserve to be where they are in life, and while the former type of poor person maybe elevated by helping them out a little bit with some resources at a critical time, the latter will take virtually unlimited resources and squander them and ask why you haven't given them more yet.
In this case I've set out two examples, one where a person is poor completely outside of their control, and another person who would be poor completely inside of their control no matter how many resources they are given, but of course the world isn't that black and white most of the time and most people live somewhere in between, sharing authorship themselves with the world as to their own fate.
But as I said before, that's where most people do need different ideologies that work in different ways to help people look at things from different points of view. Most single ideologies even if they paid lip service to multiple viewpoints will ultimately pick one or the other as primary, for the benefit of having multiple ideologies with multiple standpoints is that each one can be built from the ground up to be internally consistent.
Strong societies tend to require multiple ideologies to be successful.
For example, Imperial china had Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism which combined to give their society multiple modes of thinking for different situations. Without multiple modes of thinking, the flaws of one ideology end up hamstringing the civilization.
Christianity started in the Middle East and North Africa. It was the dominant religion throughout a large portion of the world at the time prior to the 9th century. The thing is, Christianity is a religion largely based around peace and understanding. Jesus's core message is about forgiving those who trespass against you. When Islam, created by a warlord, came in and started conquering, they had no choice but to submit and turn the other cheek, as Jesus commanded. By contrast, Western Europe combined Christianity with the warrior ethos of the Germanic tribes and remnants of the Roman imperial warrior ethos, and that combination of contradictory ideologies led to a society that had the capacity for tremendous good but also tremendous violence. That's why it continued to exist while North African Christianity was conquered. The softer side of Christianity needed to be tempered by the harder side of Germanic and Roman warrior culture.
A lot of people think that humans ought to be only good and reject evil, but reality is that we are built with the capacity for both good and evil because there are situations where to survive we must sometimes be good and sometimes be evil and the people without capacity for both tend to go extinct. If one cannot make war, then they will not be able to make peace.
In this sense, people claim the fruit of the tree of knowledge is forbidden and that's what got us kicked out of paradise, but it was in fact the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of course eating that fruit would mean we get kicked out of paradise, because in that moment we'd understand we weren't always doing the right thing and sometimes we were doing evil to others and in the same way Adam and Eve realized they were naked and they tried to cover their nakedness, the natural state of things is sometimes evil and there's nothing that can be done about it. We will all need to be naked at some point in our lives, no matter how pious we are. Whether it's when we were born, when we're in the bathroom, while we are producing children, when we bathe, or something else we're always going to be naked at some point, to be imperfect is inevitable in a material world.
Many of the post-Christian ideologies in the postmodern world take on the characteristics of the new testament and lack not only a warrior element, but even the old testament brutal honesty about the nature of the world.
Having the post Christian ideologies wouldn't be a problem in and out of themselves if we still had other ideologies to balance them out, but part of those ideologies is working towards the extinction of all other ideologies, and as a result we are arguably already at the point of monoculture. The problem is that the monoculture lacks a lot of fundamental reality. The Old testament tells us that even a king who deviates from doing the right thing and then later repents will harm their children to the extent that they will no longer be the Kings of the promised land, contrast that with post Christian ideology which doesn't want anyone to be responsible for anything, and considers judging anyone to any standard to be deontologically evil.
This new value system cannot exist in a world where evil exists, and just as evil existed before Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, evil will continue to exist if you have an ideology that claims the only thing that is evil is to call out evil. It seems more or less inevitable that these new value systems that only consider judging others to be evil will eventually be overrun by something else that is if not objectively, then certainly subjectively evil.
I was watching a video recently, where they were claiming the demons in freiren weren't evil because they were just following their nature to deceive and kill. I think that this is a good example of that absurd postmodern ideology in action. If someone's sole motivation is to lie to you in order to kill you, then of course at least to you that person is evil. Just as evil existed before Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, the fact that the demons don't realize what they're doing is evil doesn't make them not evil. It means that they are unthinkingly evil, committing reprehensible Acts without either knowledge or care of whether those acts are evil or not.
Such an ideology can only exist in a Time that is quickly fading, a Time of unprecedented World Peace. And as such ideologies allow for evil to fester and grow, eventually there will need to be a reckoning, and either postmodernists are forced to change their ideology to account for the fact that there's evil without just being misunderstandings, or they will become extinct.
There is a contradiction in my way of thinking here, because the the necessity of the objective reality of the existence of evil stands against the subjectivity of evil which is also undeniable. A rock smashing against another rock so far away from any inhabited planet that no life of any kind could ever be affected likely has no moral component of good or evil, and what is good and what is evil may be quite different between different species -- In The Graysonian Ethic I imagine a sentient black widow spider and how its values may be different than a human in ways we can't imagine. It's a paradox that exists but I don't think can be easily reconciled because objectively evil does exist, regardless of the specific subjective standard being used to measure it, and to ignore that fact will mean reality chooses to destroy you showing that it is real and objective, despite its subjective measurement and nature.
Part of the inherent contradictions in the universe are between the fact that the world is better if we can work together and be social as human beings, but the inherent dangers of being social. For this reason there is a legitimate argument to be made that we ought to try to allow people in because it makes our lives much better having good people in our lives, but there's an equally legitimate argument to be made is that we ought to protect ourselves from others because they can try to harm us to make their lives better. The reconciliation of this contradiction lies in the previous contradiction, the objective reality that you must have subjective standards and they exist and matter regardless of you realize it or not.
For example, Imperial china had Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism which combined to give their society multiple modes of thinking for different situations. Without multiple modes of thinking, the flaws of one ideology end up hamstringing the civilization.
Christianity started in the Middle East and North Africa. It was the dominant religion throughout a large portion of the world at the time prior to the 9th century. The thing is, Christianity is a religion largely based around peace and understanding. Jesus's core message is about forgiving those who trespass against you. When Islam, created by a warlord, came in and started conquering, they had no choice but to submit and turn the other cheek, as Jesus commanded. By contrast, Western Europe combined Christianity with the warrior ethos of the Germanic tribes and remnants of the Roman imperial warrior ethos, and that combination of contradictory ideologies led to a society that had the capacity for tremendous good but also tremendous violence. That's why it continued to exist while North African Christianity was conquered. The softer side of Christianity needed to be tempered by the harder side of Germanic and Roman warrior culture.
A lot of people think that humans ought to be only good and reject evil, but reality is that we are built with the capacity for both good and evil because there are situations where to survive we must sometimes be good and sometimes be evil and the people without capacity for both tend to go extinct. If one cannot make war, then they will not be able to make peace.
In this sense, people claim the fruit of the tree of knowledge is forbidden and that's what got us kicked out of paradise, but it was in fact the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of course eating that fruit would mean we get kicked out of paradise, because in that moment we'd understand we weren't always doing the right thing and sometimes we were doing evil to others and in the same way Adam and Eve realized they were naked and they tried to cover their nakedness, the natural state of things is sometimes evil and there's nothing that can be done about it. We will all need to be naked at some point in our lives, no matter how pious we are. Whether it's when we were born, when we're in the bathroom, while we are producing children, when we bathe, or something else we're always going to be naked at some point, to be imperfect is inevitable in a material world.
Many of the post-Christian ideologies in the postmodern world take on the characteristics of the new testament and lack not only a warrior element, but even the old testament brutal honesty about the nature of the world.
Having the post Christian ideologies wouldn't be a problem in and out of themselves if we still had other ideologies to balance them out, but part of those ideologies is working towards the extinction of all other ideologies, and as a result we are arguably already at the point of monoculture. The problem is that the monoculture lacks a lot of fundamental reality. The Old testament tells us that even a king who deviates from doing the right thing and then later repents will harm their children to the extent that they will no longer be the Kings of the promised land, contrast that with post Christian ideology which doesn't want anyone to be responsible for anything, and considers judging anyone to any standard to be deontologically evil.
This new value system cannot exist in a world where evil exists, and just as evil existed before Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, evil will continue to exist if you have an ideology that claims the only thing that is evil is to call out evil. It seems more or less inevitable that these new value systems that only consider judging others to be evil will eventually be overrun by something else that is if not objectively, then certainly subjectively evil.
I was watching a video recently, where they were claiming the demons in freiren weren't evil because they were just following their nature to deceive and kill. I think that this is a good example of that absurd postmodern ideology in action. If someone's sole motivation is to lie to you in order to kill you, then of course at least to you that person is evil. Just as evil existed before Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, the fact that the demons don't realize what they're doing is evil doesn't make them not evil. It means that they are unthinkingly evil, committing reprehensible Acts without either knowledge or care of whether those acts are evil or not.
Such an ideology can only exist in a Time that is quickly fading, a Time of unprecedented World Peace. And as such ideologies allow for evil to fester and grow, eventually there will need to be a reckoning, and either postmodernists are forced to change their ideology to account for the fact that there's evil without just being misunderstandings, or they will become extinct.
There is a contradiction in my way of thinking here, because the the necessity of the objective reality of the existence of evil stands against the subjectivity of evil which is also undeniable. A rock smashing against another rock so far away from any inhabited planet that no life of any kind could ever be affected likely has no moral component of good or evil, and what is good and what is evil may be quite different between different species -- In The Graysonian Ethic I imagine a sentient black widow spider and how its values may be different than a human in ways we can't imagine. It's a paradox that exists but I don't think can be easily reconciled because objectively evil does exist, regardless of the specific subjective standard being used to measure it, and to ignore that fact will mean reality chooses to destroy you showing that it is real and objective, despite its subjective measurement and nature.
Part of the inherent contradictions in the universe are between the fact that the world is better if we can work together and be social as human beings, but the inherent dangers of being social. For this reason there is a legitimate argument to be made that we ought to try to allow people in because it makes our lives much better having good people in our lives, but there's an equally legitimate argument to be made is that we ought to protect ourselves from others because they can try to harm us to make their lives better. The reconciliation of this contradiction lies in the previous contradiction, the objective reality that you must have subjective standards and they exist and matter regardless of you realize it or not.
A lot of people posted the Colbert clip where the CNN anchor got laughed at for being called impartial.
The same anchor later went on Bill Maher and started talking about Democrat anchors and Republican anchors and how there's representation of "both sides"
I don't want Democrats, I don't want Republicans. I want critical thinkers who are seeking truth.
The Republicans are wrong on things, and the Democrats are right on things, and vice versa. If a newscaster can't put aside their religious fervor for the party they want to vote for and report accurately and analyze honestly then they shouldn't have the job, regardless of their party.
The same anchor later went on Bill Maher and started talking about Democrat anchors and Republican anchors and how there's representation of "both sides"
I don't want Democrats, I don't want Republicans. I want critical thinkers who are seeking truth.
The Republicans are wrong on things, and the Democrats are right on things, and vice versa. If a newscaster can't put aside their religious fervor for the party they want to vote for and report accurately and analyze honestly then they shouldn't have the job, regardless of their party.