I acknowledge your upset and frankly, I agree with much of what you said. I’m defending nothing.
And yet it’s still your anger at an institution not meeting your (and many others’) standards.
That’s still not the same as doing nothing, or, to put a finer point on the Trump vs Biden difference, that the Overton window in one case could even possibly trend in a direction you and I can agree is positive.
I’m done here, friend. Be well and take care of yourself.
I appreciate that your answer was something other than violent revolution or its buddies. Thank you for elaborating!
If you’re willing to share: where would you go?
Yes, the “fascization” of the US government has been unfolding for decades.
To make a leap from that to an inevitability that “destroying the system to start over” is the only cure…
Well, isn’t the cure is worse than the disease?
What are the practicalities your presumptive solution hand-waves away?
Insurance and reinsurance markets, for example, provide regional/national/global stability for business to happen in the face of mass catastrophe. Medicare and Medicaid provide millions of people with healthcare.
These details, and literally thousands like them, make up the everyday function of government—even if they are currently not working in some places or not working as well as we’d like in many others!
If you’re actually committed to the welfare of millions of ordinary people, then your position has got to be more nuanced than “destroy the system!”
What are we destroying? What are we replacing it with? What kind of work are we doing to ensure a reasonable transition? Who is the we that is organizing toward a new vision? How do we work with opposing forces inside and outside of our camp?
All of those questions fall under the banner of politics and the answers are constrained by the agendas of the participants engaging with the existing system.
Where on this thread did I defend Biden?
Our anger at the Democratic Party not doing enough to X, Y, and Z is valid.
As far as I’m concerned, feel free to beat up on the Democratic Party.
From my perspective, I was calling out the parent poster for a lack of rigor.
A national political institution not meeting our standards is not the same as a national political institution doing nothing.
Additionally, it also doesn’t work for us to equate a Trump presidency with a second Biden term as though one clearly won’t be worse than the other for many of the values you and I seem to be mutually committed to.
No, it doesn’t work like that. You are claiming nothing has been done on any of those issues. It’s prima facie a bold and likely specious claim.
Speak honestly: have you looked for any counterexample?
Or are you content to make extreme claims, hook people in with emotion, and throw the effort onto others to check your work?
Come on.
Nothing
Source please.
I’m sure it’s not at the level that you and I wish for, and your grievances are valid…
But calling it “nothing” and then insinuating a Trump presidency will be equally bad as another Biden term?
Come on, friend. Let’s be more rigorous than that.
I don’t agree with all your conclusions or timelines, but you’re perfectly cogent enough. Ignore the haters. You literally pointed them to Kahneman 4 sentences in and they couldn’t be bothered.
I enjoy the use of language. Not that you need me to say it but keep on doing you and know that—to the extent you’re willing to make yourself understand—the message can be received.
To all the haters: Look at OP’s post history. This person’s views are coherent and nuanced. Their creative unusual use of language doesn’t merit ad hominem attacks. How about calling yourself out as unwilling or unable to grok the communication?
The background to OP’s comment is that human beings have two modes of engaging with the world:
Our world order counts on reason being sufficiently related to reality. Otherwise, law (which is entirely reason-based) can be weaponized for the sake of the feelings of the powerful. Rule of law then becomes a smokescreen for “might makes right.”
None of this should be surprising so far. OP then makes some pessimistic predictions about the inevitability of a Trump presidency and its dire consequences for the more-or-less reason-based world order we’ve grown accustomed to.
Will a sufficiently powerful mass of anger, greed, and fear snuff out the infinite possibilities of empowerment, creativity, and uplifting spirit that human beings can generate? OP says yes (referencing the Great Filter) and predicts some timelines.
OP, if you’re willing to share I’d be interested in hearing how you came to the timeline conclusions.
OP, I don’t think a Trump presidency is inevitable. And, tangentially, the scope of the underlying structural situation scares me. Seems like we can have a good conversation (maybe here?). Thanks for posting.
Never Biden voter on all of us to make sure we put in someone who will
Ok troll, take your sanctimonious BS and go home. If Biden or Trump (or, Godwin’s Law arriving right on time, Biden or Hitler) are equivalent in your eyes, you are lost.
I’m pushing back on the notion that telling someone “don’t stress” is in any way helpful.
They would already be not stressed if an obstacle didn’t come up. Telling them to not stress is akin to telling them to not be depressed or to just chill out. There’s no pathway to how. There’s no meeting someone where they’re at. There’s just a well-meaning person lacking emotional tooling to support another.
There are lots of ways to actually provide the support. There are lots of ways for a person to reset their nervous system. “Don’t stress” isn’t either.
“Don’t stress” is terrible advice to someone who has no experience of control over what upsets them, which seems to be an issue OP deals with.
You’re a human being in the body of a human animal. While you can try to use your thoughts to fix/rationalize/justify your feelings, I suspect you’ve already made those attempts with limited success.
OP, here are 2 implementable suggestions:
DO stress. If you’re already in that state, trying to force yourself to feel another way will make it worse. Let yourself feel what you feel. Have the experience of allowing the sensations in your body to be what they are. If the sensations involve pressure, heat, discomfort, tension, etc, have them. If you find yourself having new sensations in reaction to the feelings you experience, have those new ones too. This kind of somatic practice can help you discover a new way of experiencing life that your mind doesn’t dominate.
Pick a breathing exercise and do it for 2 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever works. Doesn’t matter which one, as long as it doesn’t have an end goal. Breathwork can help you discover the different modes of being in your experience.
Look at what Hamas could extort from the Israeli government with one hostage (see: Gilad Shalit).
At a certain point, the Netanyahu administration needs to sit down with its military apparatus and get answers to hard questions like:
It’s not hard to imagine a calculated decision around a table where the outcome favors eradicating Hamas over recovering hostages.
And with respect to
But are Hamas going to be blamed for those deaths? When in reality the hostages were killed due to an aerial bombardment coming from Israel?
It seems like academic distinction at this point. There is casus belli for Israel to attack Hamas. Now there’s a war. War sucks for many, many, many reasons, among which is collateral civilian damage. Made even worse when the Israeli military fights against irregular forces who have deliberately embedded themselves into and under high-density vulnerable targets amongst their own population. Do you blame the missile striking its target? The institution with justification to launch them? The deliberate design decision for the Hamas government to bunker up their terrorist leaders underneath civilian hospitals?
What are you trying to sort out for yourself by deciding how to mete out the blame?
War is war. Innocent people will die. So it goes. “Poo-tee-weet,” as Vonnegut wrote about the whole disgusting affair.
Eliminate Hamas > free hostages
Yes, very well said.
I’m considering the Lusophone world for myself and my family. My vision is to find a place where my kid can put down roots. I’m having a hard time working out the details, though.
I have climate-driven concerns about living near the equator or in Europe. And as part of the contraction you mentioned, I expect moving around the globe will become difficult or problematic.
That doesn’t leave many options.