Human nature isn’t evil, it’s dumb. We can only focus on what’s in front of us because we’re inherently biased towards the self. That’s the source of billionaires, wealth inequality, and the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Humans are very much capable of overcoming this issue, but to do so we have to acknowledge that it is an issue. Putting your fingers in your ears and saying “my team knows the way” isn’t going to help anyone. Especially when it’s obvious that your team does NOT have a handle on these issues either.
I disagree that there is such thing as evil. It’s a distancing tactic for people to give space between the horrors they know humanity can do and what they believe that they’re capable of. It’s just a knock-on from tribalism and othering.
Pretending that my argument is about what you want to talk about instead of what I’m actually saying is cowardice. Like I said, China is next up which is why I’m using them as the example. But since you’re going to sit on an irrelevant thing in an attempt to make me appear like I can’t come up with an example, here are the concerning things about China right now.
They have massive income inequality. Second most billionaires of any country in the world.
They favor creating national cohesion by reducing differences between populations in their country, rather than creating a unifying national identity aimed towards some goal.
They create treaties with poorer countries that boil down to “we’ll develop the infrastructure to extract this resource in exchange for getting the extracted resource”, which is eerily close to early colonization tactics.
They have imperial ambitions on sovereign (or formerly sovereign) territories that they consider to belong to them (Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong)
I don’t think these are unique to China or even particularly egregious, but they are signs that if China gets on top they’re going to do what every other country does when they get on top. Use it to benefit their citizens at the cost of everyone else.
You mean to say imperial ambitions, not empirical ambitions.
E: also you’re not using that word right.
If you’re open to taking some criticism, it seems like you have a media based understanding of the world. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, we all internalize stuff from media, but you’re talking to people who tend to have an understanding that’s rooted in study as opposed to media and who have a communist perspective that reenforces their understanding because communists love writing books about stuff almost as much as they love reading books about stuff.
Once you get hit with the ol’ tankie wall of links, consider clicking on some of them. It’s easy to see someone posting a mess of links in response to you as an argumentation strategy, but it’s actually an education strategy.
Once you get hit with the ol’ tankie wall of links, consider clicking on some of them. It’s easy to see someone posting a mess of links in response to you as an argumentation strategy, but it’s actually an education strategy.
As someone guilty of this, I actually disagree. The wall of links is more for argumentation, as you want as much supporting evidence as possible. For education, the person you’re talking to has to want to learn, in which case fewer, specific links tends to be remarkably more effective.
Now, there’s always hope that onlookers will see and click the many links, especially ones they are curious about. However, when there are many in a comment, the hope generally is in persuading the audience to agree with me, which then turns to them either checking the links directly (always fantastic) or deliberately trying to educate themselves.
Marxist pedagogy is an understudied area I’m trying to work on improving in my own life.
Yeah, thanks for the advice. I can tell that they’re trying to flood me with information in order to get me to shut up, so I can’t make myself read those links. I’ve tried a couple of times, but even with material I’m extremely open to… non-fiction is a no-go for my narrative keyed brain. The ADHD is strong with me.
I really should’ve shut the hell up once I realized I put my foot in my mouth earlier. Sorry, and thanks for the grace
Evil, stupid, whatever. You’re fundamentally misanthropic, and I have no interest in that shit.
As a Marxist I get to have revolutionary optimism. I can believe humans are better than this, and even though the hitherto history of the world is the history of class struggle, we can get past this dark age through scientific socialism.
You, meanwhile, are convinced that nothing is going to change when the US empire is inevitably defeated. I feel bad for you.
Nah man. I got that same revolutionary optimism. I’m just having a real hard time connecting my thoughts to words today. It’s pissing me off, too, which is making it even harder for me to make clear what I’m trying to say.
I know humans are better than this, and I also know that requires us to acknowledge what our gaps are so we can address them. Just don’t have the words today, just all the wrong ones. Sorry man. Cheers
Human nature isn’t evil, it’s dumb. We can only focus on what’s in front of us because we’re inherently biased towards the self. That’s the source of billionaires, wealth inequality, and the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Humans are very much capable of overcoming this issue, but to do so we have to acknowledge that it is an issue. Putting your fingers in your ears and saying “my team knows the way” isn’t going to help anyone. Especially when it’s obvious that your team does NOT have a handle on these issues either.
I disagree that there is such thing as evil. It’s a distancing tactic for people to give space between the horrors they know humanity can do and what they believe that they’re capable of. It’s just a knock-on from tribalism and othering.
Pretending that my argument is about what you want to talk about instead of what I’m actually saying is cowardice. Like I said, China is next up which is why I’m using them as the example. But since you’re going to sit on an irrelevant thing in an attempt to make me appear like I can’t come up with an example, here are the concerning things about China right now.
They have massive income inequality. Second most billionaires of any country in the world.
They favor creating national cohesion by reducing differences between populations in their country, rather than creating a unifying national identity aimed towards some goal.
They create treaties with poorer countries that boil down to “we’ll develop the infrastructure to extract this resource in exchange for getting the extracted resource”, which is eerily close to early colonization tactics.
They have imperial ambitions on sovereign (or formerly sovereign) territories that they consider to belong to them (Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong)
I don’t think these are unique to China or even particularly egregious, but they are signs that if China gets on top they’re going to do what every other country does when they get on top. Use it to benefit their citizens at the cost of everyone else.
You mean to say imperial ambitions, not empirical ambitions.
E: also you’re not using that word right.
If you’re open to taking some criticism, it seems like you have a media based understanding of the world. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, we all internalize stuff from media, but you’re talking to people who tend to have an understanding that’s rooted in study as opposed to media and who have a communist perspective that reenforces their understanding because communists love writing books about stuff almost as much as they love reading books about stuff.
Once you get hit with the ol’ tankie wall of links, consider clicking on some of them. It’s easy to see someone posting a mess of links in response to you as an argumentation strategy, but it’s actually an education strategy.
As someone guilty of this, I actually disagree. The wall of links is more for argumentation, as you want as much supporting evidence as possible. For education, the person you’re talking to has to want to learn, in which case fewer, specific links tends to be remarkably more effective.
Now, there’s always hope that onlookers will see and click the many links, especially ones they are curious about. However, when there are many in a comment, the hope generally is in persuading the audience to agree with me, which then turns to them either checking the links directly (always fantastic) or deliberately trying to educate themselves.
Marxist pedagogy is an understudied area I’m trying to work on improving in my own life.
😏
It’s okay that I called all people dumb because I didn’t call them evil.
Evil is immoral
Dumb is just a limitation of your meat suit
They’re not equivalent, like not even in the same category, let alone the same level.
It’s not that evil and dumb are the same thing, it’s that consigning all of humanity into the same category makes a fundamental mistake.
Yeah, thanks for the advice. I can tell that they’re trying to flood me with information in order to get me to shut up, so I can’t make myself read those links. I’ve tried a couple of times, but even with material I’m extremely open to… non-fiction is a no-go for my narrative keyed brain. The ADHD is strong with me.
I really should’ve shut the hell up once I realized I put my foot in my mouth earlier. Sorry, and thanks for the grace
It’s okay. You did good.
“I can’t be bothered to engage with my opponents arguments, so I’m just going to assume they’re bad faith”
Evil, stupid, whatever. You’re fundamentally misanthropic, and I have no interest in that shit.
As a Marxist I get to have revolutionary optimism. I can believe humans are better than this, and even though the hitherto history of the world is the history of class struggle, we can get past this dark age through scientific socialism.
You, meanwhile, are convinced that nothing is going to change when the US empire is inevitably defeated. I feel bad for you.
Nah man. I got that same revolutionary optimism. I’m just having a real hard time connecting my thoughts to words today. It’s pissing me off, too, which is making it even harder for me to make clear what I’m trying to say.
I know humans are better than this, and I also know that requires us to acknowledge what our gaps are so we can address them. Just don’t have the words today, just all the wrong ones. Sorry man. Cheers
You very blatantly don’t.
Fucking incredible. This is a parody of western liberal