Tollund_Man4
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User ID: 501
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I might still have my old course reader lying around somewhere if you're interested in some more specific suggestions.
I'll take a few suggestions for sure, thanks!
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I don't disagree in general though I'd say that some people don't ever acclimatise, or else it happens as a result of strong social pressure that allows them to rationalise the decision (I'm in my 30s and need to find a wife/husband before I get old!).
Some of my friends and I have had some long dry spells before we found women who we were really attracted to, of course there's social pressure against introducing an ugly partner to your friends so maybe that was in play too.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
If I wanted to cover all the obvious blind spots of the revolutionary period of the United States what books should I read?
I found Thomas Jefferson's selected writings very interesting but I'm wary about my ability to interpret certain things given how little I know about the other Founding Fathers or knowledge of what pressing political questions would have been at the forefront for him while he was writing (beyond what can be gleaned from the writings themselves).
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
And yet, the Americans a mere 13 years earlier did the exact opposite, and restrained that tendency better than most other places in the world. Why?
If the premise is that industrialisation causes this trend, then a country with 1/10th the population spread out over a much wider area not being as far along the path as one of the most populous and industrialised countries in Europe is no contradiction.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I've only read the first chapter but I just bought No More Manifestos by Eisel Mazard based on what I've seen from his Youtube channel.
On paper he should be very off-putting to me: a committed vegan and atheist who argues that the American continent is built on genocide and it all needs to be rebuilt from the ground up on Greek democratic principles, with an often dramatic presentation in his Youtube videos that can come off as cringey. But the positives are too intriguing for me to not want to read this book (and even buy it a second time after I lost the first copy):
(i) Very well read in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy.
(ii) A degree of commitment to his political goals and personal asceticism which gives him the motivation to learn dying languages and live in 3rd world conditions to really see the inscriptions on the temples in Laos and Cambodia and really talk to the monks that live in them instead of having a substandard education in a university.
(iii) A degree of skepticism that allows him to reject the modern study of Buddhism as being full of frauds and religious partisans after sinking so much into it himself, reject his hardcore communist upbringing and become a harsh critic of that ideology, and criticise the vegan movement as practised despite agreeing with its goals.
This skepticism also makes placing him into a leftist box a very poor model for predicting what he is going to say next: very pro gay-rights: very opposed to trans surgery, very atheist: acknowledges that religious people are some of the closest to himself in adhering to strict standards of personal behaviour and doing the practical humanitarian work which he sees as so important, very sympathetic to American blacks and natives: harsh critic of BLM as a movement and charity.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
It depends on the secret I would say. There is a sphere of things which people have a right to know about from friends and things which might not strictly be their business.
(ie learning about it would not incentivise said person to act in a way to protect themselves, or to do something beneficial in any way)
For one I'd say that's only your judgment on the situation, which may not align with the judgment of the person who received that information. Secondly I'd say that a person's interest in knowing information can extend past the practical benefit, e.g. finding out you were adopted may cause a lot of distress without providing you with much useful knowledge beyond what genetic diseases run in your family (which as I understand it can be learned through direct testing), but we still generally think it's fair to tell adults this information.
What conditions are relevant in deciding whether to tell them or not?
There are outs for this kind of thing. If you think they would lash out at you for telling them then they're mostly just a victim of their own short-tempered character. If they're having a particularly hard time in their life then perhaps now might be the best time to tell them.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
What justifies one injunction being higher than another, and how do you choose between two of the equivalent seniority?
I'm not defending any system here as I don't think I have yet found the ultimate ethical theory, but to continue with Scheler as an example he would say that you can objectively say that some values are subordinate to others on the basis of their relying on the other for their existence as values:
Among essential values there are two that have medium rank: the value of utility and the vital value. It is evident that the latter is preferable to the former. We can also speak of the value of “preservation” and that of “expansion,” the value of “adaptation” and that of “conquest,” the value of the “tool” and that of the “organ.”
This preference is determined by the nature of each value. The values of the first series are founded on those of the second in the sense that they can only be experienced if the others are given in some measure. Every value of utility is a value “for” a living being. Something is “useful” if it is a controllable cause for the realization of a good that is agreeable to the senses. But the feeling of pleasure is itself determined not only by the nature of a mind in general, but of a mind that acts through some specific form and organization of life which, taken as a whole, represents a certain vital value. This vital value cannot be reduced to the criterion of pleasure, since acts and things that tend to diminish vital values can also be “pleasurable.” One can easily imagine vital values without pleasure, but the reverse is impossible (. . .) Through its relation to pleasure, the value of “utility” is equally dependent on the value of vitality. This dependence is further enhanced by the fact that not every cause for pleasure is useful, but only that cause which can be controlled by volition. Only the living being can exercise this control. The measure in which a cause is useful for pleasure is partly determined by the degree to which it is subject to such control.
From Scheler's Ressentiment.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I'd say that there are more and less pernicious forms of the victimhood mentality. Some forms of victimhood really are short lived and resolvable, others are so vaguely defined that the mentality seems to shift from a victim seeking redress for grievances in order to end their victimisation, to someone looking for greivances in order to justify their ongoing victimhood.
What if your Dark Bill of Rights ends up dragging the country down?
I won't put words in the mouth of @KulakRevolt but I think the implication is that that's a bet that he's willing to take. You really think that you've stumbled upon the political formula? You put it to the test and you succeed or you die.
This increases the risk of people finding the wrong political formula and wreaking havoc until they are put down, it all but removes the risk of people actually finding the right one and letting it slip out of their hands due to cowardice and compromise. Marxists tried this, Islamic Fundamentalists tried this, and their power has withered in the face of a society which hasn't even halfheartedly followed it's formula for success. The question is whether a strict adherence to the formula of the founders of America would have brought calamity or more success?
All possible means of mediating them seem to require pointing at outcomes, which is just implicit consequentialism.
I don't think any ethical theory can get away with not placing an importance on outcomes, an ethical theory must be a guide for behaviour in particular real world circumstances after all, but the distinguishing factor of utilitarianism is a levelling of all outcomes along a single dimension of value.
For example for a deontologist like Max Scheler who argues for an objective hierarchy of values - pleasure utility, vitality, culture, and holiness, it is never right to temporarily compromise the higher for the lower except (and this is my reasoning on what I remember of his work) when not doing so would permanently compromise your ability to achieve the higher. The lower values are only justified as a means to the higher, whereas for a utilitarian the lower values are commensurable with the higher and that words like "higher" and "lower" values may only represent differences in quantity, if they mean anything at all. A deontologist might say that the pursuit of a certain amount of physical pleasure is justified for the fact that great discomfort can hinder you from fulfilling your higher duties, a utilitarian would allow for a scenario where a certain amount of pleasure is altogether preferable to the achievement of those higher values and you should have no moral qualms about making that trade.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
I'm trying to restore some good habits after some big (otherwise positive) life changes that messed up my routines. This is more of an accountability thing but I'll take advice if it's going:
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I'd like to become an early riser again as I remember the times when I would study from 7am until 11am or 12pm on my days off as being extremely productive in comparison to studying late at night. I work late instead of early these days so I no longer have 3-4 days of 6:00am starts to force me to maintain this habit.
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I've let the gym discipline slip drastically, I'm lifting roughly half of what I was this time last year when I was going to the gym 5 times a week (I have lost some weight but I imagine most of the strength loss is just being rusty). Now I go once or twice a week at most, I want to get back to at least 3 lifting days and at least one cardio day. Part of why I lost motivation is because I hit all my goals and didn't know what to do next, I've always had weak cardio and flexibility so I was thinking of pursuing those instead of just more weightlifting.
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I'd like to drink less as I think that's a large part of why my progress in good habits tends to becomes undone. I've already cut down quite a lot compared to last month but there are so many social opportunities in my life now compared to last year that I could go to parties 3 times a week if I wanted to.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
Yeah, my experience is that both your point and his are true.
Coffee might be the problem, at least in my experience if you cut out caffeine completely getting out of bed goes much more smoothly.
To hazard a guess I'd say it's because 8 hours (or longer since you're not going to have a coffee right before bed) is long enough to cause mild withdrawals, but really I'm just going off experience here.
opening the curtains immediately
I've also noticed (much milder) benefits from just leaving the curtains open at night. Sunlight causes a much less abrupt awakening than an alarm, though depending on where you live there are issues with privacy, bright streetlights and very early sunrises that make this less practical. Some type of timer that opens the curtains say 20 minutes before your waking time would be ideal here.
I've just never seen anyone make the point that, whether it’s your prospective girlfriends, your guy friends (via internal competition), or your parents, having an external factor drive you to improve your life is incredibly valuable, and seems like a pretty significant advantage.
I've seen this point made in terms of the bigotry of low expectations (specifically here if you care to watch a 2.5 hour livestream on the topic), and while I'm not a feminist I think it's a damaging cultural factor that women should be making a bigger fuss over.
I don't think removing this cultural infantilization would make men and women equal, but anecdotally I do think there are a lot of women who are far less intellectually developed than the sharpness of their minds would allow for (obviously there are lots of stupid men too but usually I come off thinking they really have approached their innate limits). Whether it's biological or cultural women face a lot more pressure to conform, and so the innately intelligent and actually intelligent (in the sense that they didn't waste their potential) women I've met have usually deviated far more beyond the norm in their nonconforming personality traits than their male intellectual peers.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
(who are a lot poorer than Americans, yes, if one actually participates in American online forums it would seem impossible to not learn this fact)
I think the scale of the gap is still missed on many, and if you do bring it up people just assume ruinous healthcare and tuition costs level the playing field.
I assume there are more but off the top of my head I only know of two media properties that show Europeans underclass.
'La Haine' is a good one for the French context.
The British have a fascination with their underclass. 'Fish Tank' was decent iirc and there are a load of Cockney gangster movies, movies about racists in the 1980s and more recent stuff about the migrant descended underclass. For the second and third ones the film 'This is England' and the first season of 'Top Boy' were pretty good.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
unless they come from the country of respective leader.
Sure, they'll know a bunch of US presidents specifically and not many leaders of other European countries unless there's good reason to (e.g the Irish have always had to pay attention to British politics). Still, while America is the exception to the rule of knowing very little about foreign politics, domestic politics will still take the prime spot.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
and they follow American politics to the exclusion of their own.
While I agree that American politics often spills into Europe (see the BLM and Women's marches), I think this is taking it too far. People in Europe are invested in the really big changes in America (e.g presidential elections or important supreme court cases) and to some extent the gossip and scandal surrounding individual politicians (though I could say the same for the Royal Family).
They neither know much of nor care about anything smaller than that, even if objectively the goings on in a state of tens of millions are as important as the goings on of a European country, but the smallest details of domestic scandals are regularly found on the front page of European newspapers. I've been living in France for the past few months, in April even if you avoided every newspaper and TV station you'd still hear about Macron's pension reforms from the man on the street.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
But, does O'Mahoney make a claim that people in Ireland identify as a separate nationality
I'm not sure but the distinction between 'Gael' and 'Englishman' was very common and goes back at least as far as the 12th century and the 'Gael' and 'Gall' (foreigner i.e Vikings) the 9th.
and have an intrinsic right to a separate state on that basis alone, or does he merely that they did not consent to being ruled by the English?
If they don't consent to being ruled by the English than what's the alternative? A concept of self-rule is implicit in the complaint.
Also, how much was the uprising in Ireland tied to the ongoing religious conflict in England and environs?
It was intensified by the religious split but it long predated it. The Norman conquerers basically became Gaelicised and adopted the local language, loyalties and customs and England's defacto holdings shrank. Things naturally tended towards Ireland being its own political world until the English reasserted their claim in the 16th century.
we still didn’t use our leverage to push actual NI independence
Northern Ireland is complicated by the fact that up until very recently a majority of the people living there saw themselves as being just as British as those on the island of Britain (this might still be the case but it has gotten much closer). It wouldn't be so much granting independence as it would be forcing the majority to join a nation they want no part in.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
This is remarkably ahistorical. The idea that "nationalities" exist is a comparatively recent one, as is the concomitant belief nationalism, i.e, the belief that each nationality has a right to it own state.
I have a lot of trouble with this claim as it seems to me that we can find many precursors to nationalism before its supposed birth in the 19th century or with Kant. If the claim is that the idea that "nationalities" exist is recent, the idea that peoples exist is surely not. If the claim is that the idea that all peoples have an inherent right to govern their own nation is new, specific claims for self-government based on the differing origins and interests of the ruler and ruled are not.
The only type of nationalism I have done serious study on is Irish nationalism, and it seems to very much predate the 19th century. The earliest case for Irish independence I know of was first published in 1645 with the Disputatio Apologetica de jure Regni Hiberniae or An argument defending the right of the kingdom of Ireland by John O'Mahoney. Of the four reasons he gives for Ireland's right to independence consent of the governed (at least in the sense that the Irish kings only consented to the English claim under duress) is one.
If nationalism is defined as the universalisation of and international commitment to propogate what were before only specific claims for self-rule then this is a problem of definition and I can't refute it, but to say that this marks the beginning of the concept of nationalism as nationalist parties and partisans have seen it seems to ignore the giants we're standing on.
The British Empire
Ireland owes a lot to America for independence. A great deal of this is due to the embittered Irish American community, who were always more radical than the ones living on the island, providing organisation and funding for basically every nationalist political group, but specifically the IRB whose leadership instigated the 1916 Rising. This wasn't yet anti-colonialism per se as it's Americans rather than the American government, but during the 1920s it was America's trumpeting the right to self-determination that implicitly constrained Britain from waging the much larger war that would have been needed to put down the IRA (though tiny in comparison to the one they had just fought in Europe). Michael Collins himself recognised the debt he owed:
The Washington conference was looming ahead. Mr Lloyd George's cabinet had its economic difficulties at home. Their relationships with foreign countries were growing increasingly unhappy, the recovery of world opinion was becoming — in fact, had become — indispensable. Ireland must be disposed of by means of a 'generous' peace . . . Peace had become necessary. It was not because Britain repented in the very middle of her Black and Tan terror. It was not because she could not subjugate us. It was because she had not succeeded in subjugating us before world conscience was awakened and was able to make itself felt . . . What was was the position on each side? Right was on our side. World sympathy was on our side (passive sympathy, largely).
From Collins' Why Britain Sought Irish Peace.
Tollund_Man4
3yr ago
If I'm understanding you right you're arguing for race based admissions on the basis of efficiency. My counterargument is that efficiency isn't that an important factor if something is cheap in the first place, and so to answer your question this leads to the claim that it's unfair and unwise to exclude otherwise qualified people for the sake of saving some small amount of time and money when they would likely contribute much more to the country than that initial cost.
You're cutting costs when you streamline the immigration process, but you're also getting fewer quality migrants as a result (and there might be a separate argument for this being a good thing! But I don't think it'll hinge on the efficiency of the immigration process).
You can't have economic growth in a slowing country
There are so few examples of countries that have had sustained declines in population that this claim seems to lack sufficient evidence. I can think of one counterexample though, Ireland saw a continuous drop in population alongside an overall increase in wealth from the 1840s until 1961.
Theoretically it shouldn't be true either, as long as innovation is happening there will be some source of growth. An aging population might be a bigger problem then a shrinking one here.
The other would be to rejigger the economy to work acceptably in conditions of slowing or stalling growth, but that would require a complete rewrite of our understanding of prosperity -- or at least (not that this is any less difficult) a reshaping of the economies of places like Europe into something less connected to the global financial system, which demands continued growth for survival.
The latter sounds too complicated for me but there seems to be a common sense way in which prosperity could increase with a declining population: With lots of old people dying off GDP per capita increases and people in the prime of their life find that property has gotten a lot more affordable.
I see it brought up a lot in an Irish context as a way of shutting people down by claiming that they're the same type of person who protested Covid restrictions. However much Covid itself has dropped out of the discussion, a portion of the pro and anti lockdown camps have solidified into something more permanent. Right now they're arguing about refugees and 15 minute cities and next year it might be something different, but I expect the tribes themselves to remain motivated and at odds with each other.
In terms of more concrete consequences, business at my job is going very poorly this summer but my boss's accounting software still shows us doing much better than last year.
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