Goodguy
2d ago
I think the cost of plane tickets back in the day is exaggerated. Based on my reading, I think they were about 10 times more expensive than the most budget airline deals of today, but still affordable for the average upper middle class person. In the early 70s you would have paid the equivalent of about $1000-$1500 in today's money to fly from coast to coast in the US. So plane travel was not nearly as affordable for poor and lower middle class people as it is today, but it also wasn't something that only the upper class could afford.
I think providing a pathway for young men into adulthood can reduce violence, as long as it's a pathway into a healthy adulthood. However, history shows that often such pathways even if they work well to reduce intra-tribe violence, can either not affect or possibly even increase inter-tribe violence.
I'm actually ok with more cops patrolling the streets in violent neighborhoods. However, it has to be well-behaved police. In other words, you can't just open up the police force to hiring any random goon who wants to join. You have to actually expand the police force in a way that ensures that they retain decent standards of interacting with non-police and that there is strong oversight.
I agree with your desire to develop grassroots ways of helping troubled young men who might otherwise turn to violence.
The biggest problems with American-on-American violence come from young men in communities where criminality has become a way of life. Think, the stereotypical black inner city gangbanger or the stereotypical white or Hispanic roughneck, possibly a meth addict. I don't know how to reach these kinds of people when they're young, so that they choose different paths of life, but I'm open to suggestion. When men are very young and poor and find it almost impossible to conceive of ever getting anywhere decent in life, osmosis effects and peer pressure from their local criminal community can be very strong.
Goodguy
5d ago
Yes, it's happened many times in history. In the US, most recently in the 1990s. Probably in large part due to better policing.
That "Old Right" conservatism was largely liberal by my standards. To the extent that some of them supported segregation based on race rather than more individual characteristics, I think they were illiberal. But liberalism, at least in my sense of the word, does not require that a country allow huge amounts of unvetted or barely-vetted foreigners to enter. Liberalism can be pragmatic, it just has to be fundamentally based on and strive for the ethos of judging people on their individual characteristics, and on meritocracy.
On a side note, this is where I disagree with the more right-libertarian interpretations of liberalism as being best served by hyper-capitalism. I appreciate capitalism, but capitalism as it exists, because of inheritance, is not a meritocracy.
Goodguy
5d ago
I'm not claiming that "the boys need purpose" leads to Nazism. I'm just not sure that giving boys clear pathways to become part of society necessarily reduces violence.
Goodguy
5d ago
Got it. Sorry for misreading your post.
But, cards on the table first - do you see the current "liberal order" of things to be all well and good?
No. Given the current different political groups that we have in the West, I think that the current liberal order is better on the whole than any new order that is actually likely to take power if the current liberal order is replaced. However, I believe that the current liberal order needs some modifications, as long as they're done in a way that doesn't destroy the core liberalness of it.
Goodguy
5d ago
Agreed. Plenty of societies that had/have very clear pathways for boys to become part of society nonetheless had/have horrific levels of violence. Generally against their outgroups, but that's bad enough.
Nazi Germany had such pathways, and they were very clear.
Gangbangers in south Chicago have such pathways too. They do in a sense prize the stability of society above the autonomy of the individual, it's just that in their case their society consists of their gang.
Goodguy
5d ago
Are you sure that you're not trying to slip collectivism and religion into your proposed solution to the problems caused by some young men's woes in the same kind of way that some climate change activists try to slip communism in with their proposed climate change solutions?
Goodguy
5d ago
I'm not saying that ICE is picking their own optics, I'm saying that the Trump camp are framing their immigration enforcement in a "fuck the left" way.
You have a point. I can see how that would be the case, although that doesn't mean I think that it's necessarily worth the damage it causes to society in other ways or that I necessarily believe that this is the Trump camp's actual motivation.
Goodguy
6d ago
This solution would still work nearly as well if ICE just acquired a reputation of being very efficient, without the Trumpian "fuck the left" optics.
Goodguy
6d ago
Yes, I think that Trump's camp is doing a lot of damage to the pro-ICE position, and is raising tensions in the country, by going with the "fuck you, we're sending ICE in and by the way, fuck you again" optics. I don't know why they're doing it that way. My only guess is that it feels good to them and it delivers quick cheap optics wins to serve to their base, because it feels good to many in the base as well.
The left is also very much to blame in many ways for raising tensions in the country, so it's not like I'm just blaming Trump's camp. But Trump's camp is certainly choosing to display, frame, and discuss their actions in an inflammatory way.
Goodguy
6d ago
The motivations of the people opposing ICE are heterogeneous.
Some are not thinking about benefit/harm at all, as in, it literally is not something that comes up in their minds.
Some think that the morality of allowing the immigrants in is more important than considerations of benefit/harm.
Some think that the morality of rejecting what they see as racism is more important than considerations of benefit/harm.
Some believe that immigration should be controlled to some extent, but think that ICE is currently acting in much too authoritarian a way and/or that Trump's camp's use of ICE sets up a dangerous possibility that Trump's camp might start to use ICE as their personal army in attacks on Trump's political opponents.
Some are various kinds of Latino nationalists who want to help their co-ethnics.
Some have mixes of the above motives.
In general, they are not taking a position that they themselves know is losing.
An alternative to civil war could be peaceful secession followed by voluntary shuffling of populations between the new countries (blues in the red country can move to the blue country if they want to, reds in the blue country can move to the red country if they want to). I have never been comfortable with the idea that a country that was founded by a secessionist act of treason would consider secession and treason in the future to be automatically immoral.
In practice, it's hard to imagine the federal government allowing secession to happen without violence, but it's at least a hypothetically possible alternative.
A few years of the blue country pursuing insane blue policies without any counterweight and the red country pursuing insane red policies without any counterweight might cause at least some partisans to reconsider their ideas.
Of course it would also do a lot of damage to the former US' hard power in the world, and a significant amount of damage to the soft power too. But even for people who care about those things, would that actually be worse than staying in a failed marriage? The economies of the new countries would likely not be as strong as the former economy of the united country, at least not for a while. But neither would be in any danger of being invaded as long as both got some nukes. Splitting the nukes would be another thorny subject, however.
Just like with John Brown, who killed a couple dozen people in a country of 30 million but whose deeds were spread wide by media and fueled fears, the inciting incident would probably be something that is not actually particularly alarming in itself, but that happens to be spread wide by media both mainstream and social, and that happens to play well on people's existing emotions. Sort of like George Floyd's death, but much more explosive. Which is not to say that George Floyd's death was not alarming, that's a separate conversation, but in the sense that on a national level, the kind of incident that Floyd's death represents is fairly rare. As are assassination attempts.
Fair enough. I've probably underestimated the degree to which Mormon theology differs from mainstream Christian theology, cause of how much Mormons and mainstream Christians in the US at least largely seem to me to behave the same and live very similar lifestyles. Maybe I'm not aware of differences in lifestyles, either.
Goodguy
13d ago
Is "God was a human that lived in an existing universe, and through good works ascended to God status" actually the belief of the average modern Mormon, though?
Goodguy
13d ago
But then why are Mormons not Christians in your view? Granted I don't know much about their views, but from the little I know, it doesn't seem more different from the Nicene Creed than Matthew 24's Jesus quote: "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
Goodguy
13d ago
If you didn't believe that you wouldn't profess it, but how do you know that Jesus agreed with it? I'm no New Testament scholar, but from what I've read from it, I don't see how it would be possible to be sure that Jesus actually agreed with it.
I find the attempt to define what a Christian is to be rather impossible. Think of it this way. For example, you could say that Mormons are not Christians because they do not follow the Nicene Creed. But I would guess that the majority of 1st century Christians did not follow the Nicene Creed either. We cannot even be sure if Jesus or Paul believed in the tenets of the Nicene Creed. Yet surely if Jesus was not a Christian, then no-one ever has been.
There was more political violence in the 1960s and 1970s than there is today, and the young leftists who were driving much of it were not having substantial problems having sex or forming romantic relationships, from what I understand based on what I have read of the time period. To whatever extent they were driven by misery and cultural malaise, I don't think dating and relationship problems were a significant factor. And they weren't just indulging in the kind of casual sex or short term relationships that you might find empty. Plenty of them were getting into long term relationships or getting married all while continuing to pursue militant politics.
So while it's possible that today's political violence is significantly driven by problems in dating/relationship-formation, we have plenty of historical examples of violent political militants who do not seem likely to have been motivated by such problems.
That said, I do think that reducing sexual and romantic frustration among young men would do something to reduce the level of political violence. I just don't think that unwinding the sexual revolution is any sort of fundamental recipe for making politics calmer. There is no sign that the average level of political militancy and violence within Western societies was any lower before the sexual revolution than after it. Indeed, it is pretty clear to me that it was much higher, although I don't believe the level of violence has decreased mainly because of the sexual revolution.
Political violence, militancy, malaise among the young, and revolutions of all kinds have been a staple of the history of the West just as they have been a staple of the history of all societies. There is no reason to believe that the sexual revolution has made things worse in that regard.
Goodguy
18d ago
I'm not sure that political violence in the US in the 1980s was much more rare than it is nowadays.
In the 1980s, there was a politically motivated bomb explosion in the Capitol building and a politically motivated assassination attempt on civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. Also, mentally ill individuals killed former Congressman Allard Lowenstein and attempted to kill President Ronald Reagan.
Granted, the assassination attempts that I mention were not politically motivated, but then I'm not sure that the attempt on Trump's life in Butler, PA was either.
The 1970s had a lot of communist and also more or less vaguely leftist violence from the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, and so on, even though the same social factors that you mention applied. It was pretty easy back then for radicals to find other, fellow-minded radicals.
If Thiel is worried about a one-world state, I find it rather strange that he has worked closely with the US national security / intelligence apparatus, which out of all currently existing political entities is probably the one that is most likely to bring about a one-world state and indeed is constantly working to extend Washington DC's domination to every corner of a planet. Not that I think that the US national security / intelligence apparatus has any serious chance of bringing about a one-world state, but it's more likely to do it than any other political entity I can think of. Does Thiel think that he can get on this giant tiger's back and steer its direction?
As for science and atheism being incompatible, it really depends on what Thiel means by atheism. Science is certainly not incompatible with rejection of organized religions like Christianity and Islam. But one could make an argument that, because of the hard problem of consciousness, science is incompatible with dogmatic materialism/physicalism.
I wish I could see a full transcript, it's hard to come to any conclusions without one.
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