MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
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User ID: 1783
I mean you still have no border control at the state border. If I live in California it’s not like there’s a border checkpoint at Texas. So whatever the most liberal policy is would end up being tge reality for everyone. One million immigrants in California don’t have to state there.
I mean I don’t know that such a situation will continue forever, and I think our social trust is rapidly eroding. In part because we are fractured as a society into groups that have less desire to cooperate, and even less to trust that the others won’t defect first. A low social trust society cannot remain nonviolent for long.
I think that the attention span thing is real, and quite troubling. I find it very rare that anyone can even articulate what they believe and why they believe it, let alone provide evidence that backs up their positions. Most people, when pressed to explain where they get their information, it generally reduces to social media, YouTube, or podcasts. In short, for the vast majority, their view of reality is based on the AI running their social media feeds. In this sense we are very far behind the people of 1824 or even 1724 who generally got their news from newspapers that came out once a day and contained long-form articles about the news. This means that they at least understood the bare facts of the issues. And that puts them far above us in being able to understand the world, and take positions based on the facts and their own thoughts about those issues. We run on vibes.
The bigger difference between their era and ours is that we’re much more narcissistic and see political opinions as parts of our identity. In 1824, you wouldn’t have made an identity of your policy positions. A person’s lifestyle and hobbies were not affected by their politics. People might have interests, but being in favor of the fugitive slave law had nothing to do with how you saw yourself as a person. You didn’t pick up or drop interests because they were coded “other team”. Nobody stopped drinking tea because it was marketed to the Southern people. We dropped Bud Light because it was marketed to trans people.
I mean I think the silence is rather telling here. If he were a GOP/MAGA type, they likely wouldn’t be silent on motive. There’s a lot of people on the left who want MAGA to go stochastic terrorist on them. They fantasized about “MAGA instigators” infiltrating the No Kings protests, much as they fantasize about Trump declaring martial law and using the military against them. Is the political equivalent of a bored housewife with a Rape Fetish. She’s so bored an feels so unwanted that rape is an improvement.
I think the red states are growing faster than blue the blue states, which given how close elections have been and how often the results follow the EC over the popular vote, that could be huge.
I mean that’s how power works. If you read ancient history really up until the late 19th century, violence was very much a part of the politics of the era. I don’t see why our era is different other than a fairly stable system in which power could and did change hands often enough to make all voices feel heard more or less. If that changes, or the elites leading the major factions believe that they will be disempowered for a long period of time, I think you’ll see a return to older and less civilized versions of politics in which shooting a political enemy is a viable way to force your way to a seat at the table.
Power games between the elite are how power is distributed in any society. If they can’t get there by peace, we’ll have wars.
I don’t think my point is to be “unaware”. My point is to turn down your level of exposure to the toxoplasma of outrage — and just as import, if you want some degree of normalcy— make it a social norm in your non-political spaces that we do not talk about politics here in places where the purpose of the group or activity is not political.
I don’t think our differences are completely irreconcilable. If you talk about big picture end goals, most people want the same things. Prosperity, health, safety, relative freedom, and an educated populace. If you gave that list of goals to anyone from communists to libertarians, from old school democrats to NRx bros, I think they’d all agree on those things as end goals. We actually have two problems: too much political news, and too many people who have made politics their personality. Neither of those have anything to do with solving the problems that exist in policy. In fact they prevent solutions as everyone is convinced the other guys are evil. And that thus compromise is evil. And here we are.
I think honestly we talk about politics as identity and warfare, in ways that paint the other as an enemy, talk about the stakes as if they’re of earthshaking importance. And on top of that, everything is political, or if not by nature political, it will be used as a vehicle for political messaging.
This creates a supersaturated solution of political angst. Theres all this pent up emotion about things people are told are super important, that their enemies are working to destroy. Honestly, expect this to get much much worse because people are encouraged to see their problems in political light with those guys over there are making your life worse.
Near term, I think we need to actually disengage. Consume less news, stop following political opinion-makers and listening to political commentary. Go get a real hobby or three. Find a non political group of people — and in a space that explicitly doesn’t allow political commentary or discussion. If we go back to that, I think we’ll muddle through with a minimum of actual deaths. If everyone leans in and gets more engaged and more attached to causes, you can expect more shooting.
Actually what’s worse is that because of this constant Israel = Bad rhetoric, there’s actually less incentive to not go for broke. Gaza was “genocide” on Day 1. Exactly what does Israel get for not doing exactly that — other than more attacks? Why not simply raze everything and put up Israeli 7-11s where Gaza and the West Bank are now, rather than waiting for the next one? Why not settle Judea? Why not go crazy if you’re crazy anyway.
So history won’t change. I’m just like waiting for anyone to take a fair honest look at the ME. Israel isn’t perfect, but I think most people are hopelessly naive about just how warlike the Arab world can be. It’s just a bunch of war and honor cultures that are hopelessly aggressive against Jews existing in the region. Iran isn’t France, and Palestinians are not Hopi. Jihad is a major part of the current theological understanding of Islam, and not the internal kind of jihad.
How could anyone be surprised by that outcome? What man looking for a wife wants a woman who was a prostitute and doesn’t have remorse for doing it? Like how does he come to trust her to not have sex with random men when he’s not watching her?
I’m not convinced you couldn’t get American workers to do it. Much like construction and hotels and housekeeping and so on — Americans used to do all of it. And keep in mind that you have ex-cons and teenagers trying to build a good work history.
I mean I agree with that, but also that, as a culture we’ve kinda given up on even the idea of certain behavior being shameful or holding ourselves to a decent standard. In the case of Aelia this would include not being a prostitute, and certainly not promoting it online. But even in other areas, it’s like all of our ideas about how one ought to behave are seen through the idea of “it doesn’t bother me, therefore it’s fine,” almost to the point that pointing out these obvious deviations from desired behaviors are not to be noticed let alone remarked upon and only a scold would think of telling the person to stop making these bad decisions even if they are horrible for them, people around them, or society at large. And 8 think this is ultimately the cause of a lot of social rot.
I don’t think we can ever get back to small communities or whatever, but I think especially for public figures, calling out bad behavior is generally useful in maintaining some decency in society.
I see shame as the most powerful tool in the social toolbox. It needs to be used sensibly, and using it too much and too trivially is going to make it harder to use it for the things it needs to be used for.
The modern West is in bad shape precisely because it no longer uses shame. No job? Fine. Do lots of drugs? Can’t read or speak in complete sentences? Rob people, break property? Even lower level stuff like going out in public looking deranged/half-naked/just-rolled-out-of-bed? We no longer think a person should feel ashamed of themselves for doing that. As a result, we have wide swaths of society that no longer bother with anything but the bare minimum, and some even expect to be rewarded for that. Like, Yes, you got off drugs and applied for a job at Wendy’s. It’s an improvement, sure, but it doesn’t mean much.
I don’t see nihilism in what he’s talking about. What he’s talking about is how the systems in the modern West actually work, and exactly how they’re pretty much the same as the structures that have always existed and probably always will. SSDI like almost all welfare has never been aimed at tge comfort or betterment of tge people that receive it. It’s a pass through so they can afford to buy consumer goods. Which is why they have to use them to buy things or pay rent to a private individual. Government cheese and public housing and public clinics staffed by government hired doctors don’t get the money to the producers as fast. And most welfare systems cut people off the minute they have any assets. If you have money in the bank, you’re going to lose benefits rather quickly. It’s meant as pacification of the poor and a pass-through handout to business interests.
I see the same in his talking about the 2008 shutdown. He’s talking about the news and how it’s designed to tell you what you already believe, to create drama instead of solutions, and to basically prevent you from thinking about the issues. And the entire point is that it keeps you from understanding what is going on. Which is control. It wants you to feel involved and feel like you’re important enough to be in the seat of power. It’s sophisticated ego-stroking, and TBH it’s very seductive as ego-stroking to pretend that it’s of earth-shaking importance that you, personally are informed by the best sources, are engaged at all times, and that it’s urgent that you, yes, you are intimately and personally involved. TBH, I think in general the reverse is true, and that most of the problems in America would be solved if fewer people cared about politics, especially since the vast majority (on both sides BTW) are using politics as a substitute for religion and in some cases personality.
I think I agree Theres a bit of a moral hazard in too much welfare, especially uncoupled from the need to push people to do what they can, and to avoid bad behavior. If someone is generally capable of working, I don’t think they should starve. That’s insane. But if the person is clearly making bad, antisocial decisions, cutting off the gibs would force them to behave. Or for that matter force them to make their kids behave, attend school and do their homework. They should contribute as they are able, and they should be making sure their kids get a decent education. And staying out of crime, drugs, and so on. If you’re doing those kinds of things, im perfectly willing to pay to keep them from starving. If they’re sitting home on gibs, doing drugs, not making sure their kids are getting educated and not getting into trouble, they don’t get the gibs. It should be a hand up to hopefully being self sufficient, not a hand out to keep them comfortable doing nothing.
I’m not seeing the hate. There are problems with e-bikes and mopeds, and I think the infrastructure simply isn’t set up properly to make biking safe for cyclists and the cars around them. Trying to put bikes on the same roads as cars doesn’t work because of the speed and size differences and when the acceleration is added in, it’s hardly shocking that bikers end up getting the short end.
I’m not sure all of the behavior is antisocial on purpose. Cyclists are in a difficult position— too fast to be considered pedestrian, but also much too slow to really safely ride with cars and certainly don’t have the same kind of rider protection that cars offer. Some of the bad behavior might well be because following the rules is sometimes worse than not.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=A5A9RSHS7es?si=_-o10eeIryBiuOsV
It’s called vintage dollhouse.
I mean im not convinced that most people have a singular self in the sense that they have a core. Identity forms quite often from reactions to things or events, roles taken on, etc. so it seems one can use those deliberately by finding a not terrible set of identities and using them.
One example of a fairly sane YouTuber is a woman in her thirties who has turned her life into what life would have been like in 1940. Of course she’s very well aware of tge LARP, she mostly does the aesthetics and trying out the fashion and lifestyle. She’s pretty grounded. It’s obviously apolitical, which I think helps because it seems once political stuff enters the equation, you’re going to end up radicalized in one way or another.
But then why aren’t the more upscale places and homes more colorful? If anything, they’re much more neutral toned than the middle and lower class based places.
My theory is that somehow color got associated with low class or cheap. In order to not look cheap, you do neutrals.
I don’t see this as all bad, to some degree everyone is acting. You don’t curse in front of grandma even if you do in other places. You don’t dress the same for work as you do to just hang out. As long as the character you play is something of a decent human being, it’s probably not harmful.
But that’s quite often how trans comes off to me as a woman. They’re wearing super feminine things while tge cis women I know are rocking sweats and hoodies. Like one trans woman comes to work dressed in a pink or black dress and knee high socks and having his/her hair up in a ponytail with a ribbon. The actual women he/she works with are wearing hoodies, tee shirts, jeans or slacks. And the mannerisms seem to be trying too hard, like they’re consciously trying to be as feminine as possible, something other women don’t really do. At times, a lot of this feels exactly like what you’ve describing here, like someone took every stereotype of what women are like and chose to do all of those things. And I can’t help but mentally go into trans-racialism which isn’t a thing yet, but would explain better how this comes off. Imagine that I decide that internally, im black. So I start buying the kinds of clothes I’ve come to understand black people wear, I bring watermelon and fried chicken for lunch because black people like watermelon and fried chicken, I start talking in redicuoulsly bad Ebonics. At some point, you’d point out that you’re not only not acting like real black people, but you’re acting out a racist’s idea of what black people are like. Saying that you “feel like a black person in a white body, and all of this stuff im doing im doing because im an authentic black person,” is silly. And I really think in either case the question must be asked “what does being black/male/female/hindu etc. feel like?”
And at some level nobody else is thinking about their various identities in that kind of way. You’re living life, a perfectly ordinary life where you do things without thinking about them too much.
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Part of, sure. But im pretty sure they weren’t choosing fashions or foods or other products because they were associated with abolition. Modern politics isn’t politics as they would have understood it. It’s more of a lifestyle brand in our culture. And in a lot of ways I think I would compare our way of thinking about our political party affiliation much like someone pre-enlightenment might have thought about religious denominations. Today nobody really gives a fuck what denomination of Christianity you follow. And outside of highly religious regions of the country, nobody’s even that upset by the idea that you’re not Christian at all. Most people believe or don’t but it’s not the thing that drives their thinking. Go back to the reformation, and it mattered quite a bit both to you and everyone around you what type of Christianity you practiced. Be a Catholic in John Calvin’s part of France isn’t good for your lifespan. Be Protestant in a Catholic region and it’s likewise not a good thing. And most people were not only willing to die rather than renounce their version of Christianity, but likewise willing to see others punished for not being the right kind of Christian. Minus the killing (at least thus far) this is how most people approach politics. Our system is the only good and true, and the reason you aren’t a good red/blue is that you are evil or deluded. And each part of the political spectrum has its preferred lifestyle. MAGA types like to style themselves after working class interests. Blue tribes tend to like more arty things. But why should this go along with politics?
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