I find it extremely interesting, and highly ironic, that Jesus Himself hated religion. With a passion. He preached love & forgiveness, except to those who would “lead little ones astray; better that a (heavy) millstone be tied around their neck and be cast into the sea” - the only negative words He said about people were to that sort, calling them “whitewashed tombs, fully of rot and decay”. So I halfway get that religion sucks, b/c it is a system of control for the rich old men, and in the West it is usually white (and almost always cis+het, or at least present externally that way). As the famous atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett used to say, it is an evolutionarily “good trick”, to convince people to go out and work HARD in the farms, while you kick back and shoot the shit drinking cool and warm drinks, having access to medical care and such while you actively prevent others from doing likewise.
Watching Hillary Clinton lose to Donald Trump in 2016 woke me up to the level of naïveté that liberalism in America has. Almost every educated person is liberal, as are most people in cities who are at least aware of the basic premise that “we are all in this together”. When someone gets sick, they spread it on the public transit systems, and even a wealthy person may be impacted by e.g. their cleaning person not showing up due to an unexpected illness (or death). Don’t let the whole red vs. blue state thing fool you - it is all rural vs. urban. And to be fair, at some point it was more honest that way - like a rural person would legitimately live and die by their belief system, so e.g. when they opposed ObamaCare, even though many did it without truly understanding what it even meant, others on the other hand did know what it meant, and still opposed it, even for themselves.
But that was then, when e.g. George Bush was a progressive, and then the Tea Party was coming in with so many changes, but before it could even finish taking over, the Alt Right swept it, and now we have… whatever the fuck this is, perhaps we should call it Trumpism (except they don’t even listen to him - e.g. he “invented” the vaccine, and thus in his ego told people to take it, but this part they hushed up; so Trumpism has Trump as their figurehead, but even he is most definitely not in charge of it).
What truly messed me up though was watching CGP Grey’s video Rules for Rulers, which isn’t quite Machiavellian though it gives off similar tones in that it encourages people to open their eyes to some of those uncomfortable Truths: that “corruption” isn’t so much a flaw - although it most definitely is that too, especially when taken to excess - as it is a necessary grease to keep the system working. We ignore this at our peril.
But now I see Biden doing the opposite sin: caring so much about the behind-the-scenes events that he forgot to explain things to the American people, who even if not during his 4-year reign as king, yet in-between that and his next anticipated 4-year further reign (of let’s be honest his administration, though it seems increasingly doubtful that he will be much of a participant in it anymore) they are the ones who get to decide whether he continues or not. Therefore, right or wrong, the inflation situation, the events in Gaza, and somehow more important than either (WTF?!) his debate performance, was a mandatory key that he had to turn in order to win. But instead… he does nothing, and exactly like Hillary Clinton did in 2016, he just keeps repeating the mantra that “but everything is fine tho”, in defiance of everything that people see and KNOW and truly FEEL in their daily lives. i.e., BuT tHe EcOnOmY tHo. Oopsie.
Trump will be a much worse President. But like someone playing a masterful game of chess and planning out in meticulous detail every single move forward for over a hundred, nay a thousand end-game scenarios, yet Biden forgot to handle the mid-game, and is about to lose, making all the rest become irrelevant.:-(
The fascists will win, because they deserve it, b/c they have opened their eyes to reality. And then we will all suffer under their harsh regime. Either that or Biden will exercise his newly-given powers, and perhaps become the very fascist that people hate, but nonetheless may offer people more comfortable lives than the alternative. Either way, fascism wins, b/c we are too dumb to take care of ourselves… maybe? At least that is my fear.
What truly messed me up though was watching CGP Grey’s video Rules for Rulers, which isn’t quite Machiavellian though it gives off similar tones in that it encourages people to open their eyes to some of those uncomfortable Truths: that “corruption” isn’t so much a flaw - although it most definitely is that too, especially when taken to excess - as it is a necessary grease to keep the system working. We ignore this at our peril.
Just finished watching! Great stuff, thank you for mentioning it.
like a rural person would legitimately live and die by their belief system, so e.g. when they opposed ObamaCare, even though many did it without truly understanding what it even meant, others on the other hand did know what it meant, and still opposed it, even for themselves.
This is conduct of an ideal imperial subject: selfless to the bone. This self-effacement, self-denial, self-hatred never ever stays with just their own person.
The fascsists will never win. They didn’t even win WW2, never mind today. But will they leave a mark? They already have via SCOTUS. That’s not in doubt. Will they leave an even bigger mark before we clean them up? Almost certainly.
We are at war, and have been all this while. Cold war, asymmetric war, hot war, civil war, unconventional war, information war, etc. That’s the reality of living in a world with not just competing interests, but living with grossly incompatible interests, incompatible worldviews, and incompatible value systems all vying for dominance.
What truly messed me up though was watching CGP Grey’s video Rules for Rulers, which isn’t quite Machiavellian though it gives off similar tones in that it encourages people to open their eyes to some of those uncomfortable Truths: that “corruption” isn’t so much a flaw - although it most definitely is that too, especially when taken to excess - as it is a necessary grease to keep the system working. We ignore this at our peril.
In a democracy everyone is a ruler, just not exclusively.
But culturally we have been bred for generations to have the mindset of a subject. We are learning what it means for each to be responsible for their own world the way a monarch would be, but without the exclusivity of a monarch.
This is an evolutionary process. When monarchies fell, the mindset, the values, the sensibilities of subjecthood didn’t just vanish overnight.
Democracy will prevail but there will be painful lessons.
I don’t deny that conservatives hate themseslves - it’s somewhat the definition of the brand (they hate others, but ofc it’s always someone else, NeVeR tHeM, who will get their faces eaten off), but there is also that pioneering spirit of “go west young man” that expanded America both before and especially after the 13 colony stage.
Think of fascism as a virus: sometimes it wins, other times not, either way it loses in the end b/c it kills the host, and yet… it just keeps spreading doesn’t it.
It sounds like you are underestimating the effect of the SCOTUS ruling. Or perhaps news headlines have been over-estimating it, and I haven’t researched it deep enough to refute that? Honestly I have no idea which.
I think some of the reason why democracy is not thought highly of in America is the electoral college, not its effect that is much more often talked about, but here I mean its mere existence, acting to reassure people that if they make a REALLY bad decision, then big daddy rich men will come in and clean it up for them. We should all be much more afraid than we are. We should study hard in school, if we want to earn the right to vote responsibly. We should also treat that right to vote much more seriously - e.g. have a requirement where you pass a test to be able to do it, perhaps the same test that immigrants must take in order to become a citizen. How can someone vote “responsibly” if they aren’t even aware that the number of branches of government is three?
I am with you. We should take POWER seriously, and in addition to civics power literacy should be taught.
Because voting and the entire Western civilization rests on the bottom up people power.
It’s like when pirates had true democratic governance before any country did. Because each pirate was willing to kill every other pirate in their sleep, and they each knew that about themselves and each other, and made a rational decision to vote. But imagine if most pirates were NOT willing to kill, and this unwillingness was also well known? Why the fuck would they each get a vote then? Think about it.
That’s the thing - we shouldn’t all have a vote. The founding fathers warned us about if we did: the elites would sway those who most easily prostrated and gave themselves up to that, hence power would go to those most willing to do precisely that.
That is why the USA was called an “experiment” in democracy - it was a test, not assured that we would make it. The fact that we have come this far by no means acts as a guarantee that we have the ability to go any further. And somehow the people who routinely fall for chain email scams are the ones in charge.
What made it work, in the past, was that the elites enjoyed the fiction of allowing people to vote - they were pacified, and the real stuff got done regardless, however they wished. However, now with globalization and automation, that precept is no longer true. Mega-corporations don’t need or want much of an educated workforce, least of all one that acts entired, demanding a higher share of profits.
I see government itself becoming less relevant than it used to be, as multinational corporations amass more power than those are allowed to retain. But to the extent they are allowed to continue existing, they become a tool of those in power to exert even further control. Meanwhile we talk as if We The People are in charge, but the more the masses say that, the less true it is. Especially when they refuse to even so much as read a book or watch a video about how things really are. They prefer to watch sports or reality TV shows, confident that big daddy will give them everything they hoped for, not realizing that what they deserve is so, so much ah… different.
Things are going to change, that’s for sure, as we settle into a new equilibrium that better matches the updated set of circumstances that we see now and expect to come soon.
Anyone who takes the time to educate themselves on the issues should get a vote. But if you don’t even want to be aware that there are 3 branches of government, and like what their names are then… the vote is worse than unhelpful, it becomes an echo of the people who are trying to bring the system down. Then nobody gets a vote, especially when votes themselves are done away with.
Once voting becomes conditional, it’s a precedent and then it will invite all kinds of people to adjust the conditions, to apply conditions selectively, etc.
A universal suffrage is much more defensible and harder to abuse.
Your concern is best addressed by making civics and power literacy mandatory, and sanely regulated gun ownership also mandatory. AR-15 is not an assault rifle. But people with a verifiable history of violent domestic abuse or violence toward animals at any age, no guns. Anyone caught in possession of a firearm while intoxicated, instant loss of the gun privilege. Armed robbery, larceny of firearms, no guns. Etc.
I find it extremely interesting, and highly ironic, that Jesus Himself hated religion. With a passion. He preached love & forgiveness, except to those who would “lead little ones astray; better that a (heavy) millstone be tied around their neck and be cast into the sea” - the only negative words He said about people were to that sort, calling them “whitewashed tombs, fully of rot and decay”. So I halfway get that religion sucks, b/c it is a system of control for the rich old men, and in the West it is usually white (and almost always cis+het, or at least present externally that way). As the famous atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett used to say, it is an evolutionarily “good trick”, to convince people to go out and work HARD in the farms, while you kick back and shoot the shit drinking cool and warm drinks, having access to medical care and such while you actively prevent others from doing likewise.
Watching Hillary Clinton lose to Donald Trump in 2016 woke me up to the level of naïveté that liberalism in America has. Almost every educated person is liberal, as are most people in cities who are at least aware of the basic premise that “we are all in this together”. When someone gets sick, they spread it on the public transit systems, and even a wealthy person may be impacted by e.g. their cleaning person not showing up due to an unexpected illness (or death). Don’t let the whole red vs. blue state thing fool you - it is all rural vs. urban. And to be fair, at some point it was more honest that way - like a rural person would legitimately live and die by their belief system, so e.g. when they opposed ObamaCare, even though many did it without truly understanding what it even meant, others on the other hand did know what it meant, and still opposed it, even for themselves.
But that was then, when e.g. George Bush was a progressive, and then the Tea Party was coming in with so many changes, but before it could even finish taking over, the Alt Right swept it, and now we have… whatever the fuck this is, perhaps we should call it Trumpism (except they don’t even listen to him - e.g. he “invented” the vaccine, and thus in his ego told people to take it, but this part they hushed up; so Trumpism has Trump as their figurehead, but even he is most definitely not in charge of it).
What truly messed me up though was watching CGP Grey’s video Rules for Rulers, which isn’t quite Machiavellian though it gives off similar tones in that it encourages people to open their eyes to some of those uncomfortable Truths: that “corruption” isn’t so much a flaw - although it most definitely is that too, especially when taken to excess - as it is a necessary grease to keep the system working. We ignore this at our peril.
But now I see Biden doing the opposite sin: caring so much about the behind-the-scenes events that he forgot to explain things to the American people, who even if not during his 4-year reign as king, yet in-between that and his next anticipated 4-year further reign (of let’s be honest his administration, though it seems increasingly doubtful that he will be much of a participant in it anymore) they are the ones who get to decide whether he continues or not. Therefore, right or wrong, the inflation situation, the events in Gaza, and somehow more important than either (WTF?!) his debate performance, was a mandatory key that he had to turn in order to win. But instead… he does nothing, and exactly like Hillary Clinton did in 2016, he just keeps repeating the mantra that “but everything is fine tho”, in defiance of everything that people see and KNOW and truly FEEL in their daily lives. i.e., BuT tHe EcOnOmY tHo. Oopsie.
Trump will be a much worse President. But like someone playing a masterful game of chess and planning out in meticulous detail every single move forward for over a hundred, nay a thousand end-game scenarios, yet Biden forgot to handle the mid-game, and is about to lose, making all the rest become irrelevant.:-(
The fascists will win, because they deserve it, b/c they have opened their eyes to reality. And then we will all suffer under their harsh regime. Either that or Biden will exercise his newly-given powers, and perhaps become the very fascist that people hate, but nonetheless may offer people more comfortable lives than the alternative. Either way, fascism wins, b/c we are too dumb to take care of ourselves… maybe? At least that is my fear.
Just finished watching! Great stuff, thank you for mentioning it.
This is conduct of an ideal imperial subject: selfless to the bone. This self-effacement, self-denial, self-hatred never ever stays with just their own person.
The fascsists will never win. They didn’t even win WW2, never mind today. But will they leave a mark? They already have via SCOTUS. That’s not in doubt. Will they leave an even bigger mark before we clean them up? Almost certainly.
We are at war, and have been all this while. Cold war, asymmetric war, hot war, civil war, unconventional war, information war, etc. That’s the reality of living in a world with not just competing interests, but living with grossly incompatible interests, incompatible worldviews, and incompatible value systems all vying for dominance.
In a democracy everyone is a ruler, just not exclusively.
But culturally we have been bred for generations to have the mindset of a subject. We are learning what it means for each to be responsible for their own world the way a monarch would be, but without the exclusivity of a monarch.
This is an evolutionary process. When monarchies fell, the mindset, the values, the sensibilities of subjecthood didn’t just vanish overnight.
Democracy will prevail but there will be painful lessons.
I don’t deny that conservatives hate themseslves - it’s somewhat the definition of the brand (they hate others, but ofc it’s always someone else, NeVeR tHeM, who will get their faces eaten off), but there is also that pioneering spirit of “go west young man” that expanded America both before and especially after the 13 colony stage.
Think of fascism as a virus: sometimes it wins, other times not, either way it loses in the end b/c it kills the host, and yet… it just keeps spreading doesn’t it.
It sounds like you are underestimating the effect of the SCOTUS ruling. Or perhaps news headlines have been over-estimating it, and I haven’t researched it deep enough to refute that? Honestly I have no idea which.
I think some of the reason why democracy is not thought highly of in America is the electoral college, not its effect that is much more often talked about, but here I mean its mere existence, acting to reassure people that if they make a REALLY bad decision, then big daddy rich men will come in and clean it up for them. We should all be much more afraid than we are. We should study hard in school, if we want to earn the right to vote responsibly. We should also treat that right to vote much more seriously - e.g. have a requirement where you pass a test to be able to do it, perhaps the same test that immigrants must take in order to become a citizen. How can someone vote “responsibly” if they aren’t even aware that the number of branches of government is three?
I am with you. We should take POWER seriously, and in addition to civics power literacy should be taught.
Because voting and the entire Western civilization rests on the bottom up people power.
It’s like when pirates had true democratic governance before any country did. Because each pirate was willing to kill every other pirate in their sleep, and they each knew that about themselves and each other, and made a rational decision to vote. But imagine if most pirates were NOT willing to kill, and this unwillingness was also well known? Why the fuck would they each get a vote then? Think about it.
That’s the thing - we shouldn’t all have a vote. The founding fathers warned us about if we did: the elites would sway those who most easily prostrated and gave themselves up to that, hence power would go to those most willing to do precisely that.
That is why the USA was called an “experiment” in democracy - it was a test, not assured that we would make it. The fact that we have come this far by no means acts as a guarantee that we have the ability to go any further. And somehow the people who routinely fall for chain email scams are the ones in charge.
What made it work, in the past, was that the elites enjoyed the fiction of allowing people to vote - they were pacified, and the real stuff got done regardless, however they wished. However, now with globalization and automation, that precept is no longer true. Mega-corporations don’t need or want much of an educated workforce, least of all one that acts entired, demanding a higher share of profits.
I see government itself becoming less relevant than it used to be, as multinational corporations amass more power than those are allowed to retain. But to the extent they are allowed to continue existing, they become a tool of those in power to exert even further control. Meanwhile we talk as if We The People are in charge, but the more the masses say that, the less true it is. Especially when they refuse to even so much as read a book or watch a video about how things really are. They prefer to watch sports or reality TV shows, confident that big daddy will give them everything they hoped for, not realizing that what they deserve is so, so much ah… different.
Things are going to change, that’s for sure, as we settle into a new equilibrium that better matches the updated set of circumstances that we see now and expect to come soon.
We should and will all have a vote.
Anyone who takes the time to educate themselves on the issues should get a vote. But if you don’t even want to be aware that there are 3 branches of government, and like what their names are then… the vote is worse than unhelpful, it becomes an echo of the people who are trying to bring the system down. Then nobody gets a vote, especially when votes themselves are done away with.
Once voting becomes conditional, it’s a precedent and then it will invite all kinds of people to adjust the conditions, to apply conditions selectively, etc.
A universal suffrage is much more defensible and harder to abuse.
Your concern is best addressed by making civics and power literacy mandatory, and sanely regulated gun ownership also mandatory. AR-15 is not an assault rifle. But people with a verifiable history of violent domestic abuse or violence toward animals at any age, no guns. Anyone caught in possession of a firearm while intoxicated, instant loss of the gun privilege. Armed robbery, larceny of firearms, no guns. Etc.