SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
What was it that one learned through a great books curriculum? Certainly not "conservatism" in any contemporary American sense of the term. We were not taught to become American patriots, or religious pietists, or to worship what Rudyard Kipling called "the Gods of the Market Place." We were not instructed in the evils of Marxism, or the glories of capitalism, or even the superiority of Western civilization.
As I think about it, I'm not sure we were taught anything at all. What we did was read books that raised serious questions about the human condition, and which invited us to attempt to ask serious questions of our own. Education, in this sense, wasn't a "teaching" with any fixed lesson. It was an exercise in interrogation.
To listen and understand; to question and disagree; to treat no proposition as sacred and no objection as impious; to be willing to entertain unpopular ideas and cultivate the habits of an open mind — this is what I was encouraged to do by my teachers at the University of Chicago.
It's what used to be called a liberal education.
The University of Chicago showed us something else: that every great idea is really just a spectacular disagreement with some other great idea.
Bret Stephens's speech warrants a full read. It makes valuable points that we all need to hear, even on SN.
(Score: 5, Disagree) by c0lo on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:11AM (4 children)
If there's any other mod but "Disagree" on the comments of this FA, you'll disappoint Bret Stephens: you clearly didn't learn anything from what he's sayin'
No, seriously now.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Disagree) by meustrus on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:58PM (3 children)
The best part of this comment section is the sheer number of high-modded comments marked "Disagree".
This is a good place.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:07AM (2 children)
Disagree. Being contrarian on suggestion/command is never a good thing - it's not skepticism, it's compliance.
Case at point: if it would be a natural skepticism, you'd see "Disagree" more frequent in other FA/stories than only this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday October 02 2017, @04:59PM
I thought it was funny. And normally I'm not so sure about the "Disagree" mod. It doesn't really add to the conversation, but I like having it as an option when I despise the post but can't come up with a good reason why. In some places I (or another moderator) would pick a negative mod that doesn't really apply, like "Troll".
But real disagreement comes from responses. If you have a disagreement, it's better for everyone for you to put forth your argument. Otherwise, we're just a chaotic mess that can't learn from the mistakes of others, let alone our own.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @07:27AM
> Being contrarian on suggestion/command is never a good thing - it's not skepticism, it's compliance.
Er, I respectfully disagree. Both with "never a good thing," as devil's advocate is a useful tool to stimulate thought, and with your assertion that compliance at one meta-level precludes skepticism in an entirely different domain.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by martyb on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:13AM (4 children)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @01:58PM
Welcome to the 20th century fuck face.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:52PM (2 children)
exampla negativa gratia: The Mighty Buzzard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:01PM (1 child)
Using latin (I presume, I'm no fan of dead languages) does not make something more tactful, just in case you thought it was.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:58PM
Latine ignorantia non excusat.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by moondrake on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:21AM (25 children)
Interesting article. And I agree to some extent.
The question I would like to as him however is:
It is clear that intelligent opinions should be protected, and should be listened to, and, if we disagree, we can do so after fully understanding them.
But he also mentions hate speech. Now I am too lazy to look up what exactly is the definition. But I am going to assume that hate speech not necessarily is a very intelligent opinion. What about this. Should we really protect the speech of individuals or organizations who set out to on purpose spread a lot of emotional ("populist pap" as he calls it himself). I feel his speech is left intentionally vague on this subject, and since this is exactly where the problems come from.
In the past, there were far fewer people engaging into intelligent debate. Populist speeches with intellectuals do not get you very far. But these days, everything some people say and do is seen an heard by the majority of the population. And they will sometimes act on it (or at least vote on it). I think disinviting people has more to do with a concern about the effect that the speaker (and your apparent endorsement) would have on society, than with doubting your own ability to engage in an intelligent discourse.
But perhaps I am just being elitist again.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:47AM
You should. Because otherwise, you just end up granting a monopoly on it (also known as "propagand") to the powers that be.
And when counter-propagand is forbidden by law, as "hate speech" or whatever, they will easily drum up popular support for absolutely any kind of atrocity. Modern history is littered by examples.
(Score: 5, Disagree) by VLM on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:37PM (9 children)
That's a huge mistake in that regardless of what something IS, NAMING and calling out something as hate speech is a mere propaganda tactic to censor speech regardless of what it IS.
In practice a democrat calling republican ideas "hate speech" doesn't mean its hate speech, in fact it has nothing to do with what the speech is, it merely means they have enough government and media control to have the government forcibly censor the speaker. Historically that always backfires and results in guillotines, showers and gas chambers, etc.
There's also the big lie effect. If I'm claiming the world will end for biblical numerical code reasons tomorrow, no one will believe me, thats dumb. It doesn't need censorship. Or even crazier, VIM is superior to EMACS or systemd is great, those ideas don't NEED state sponsored violence to censor them. On the other hand take a political movement from the 60s (although going back much further) and it no longer usefully models or predicts reality yet it controls the government and media. You have to violently censor opposition to shut opposition down, because, after all, the opposition is currently correct. Nothing says an idea is true, its fundamentally verified and proven and useful, like the only remaining weapon against it being violence, or even worse, state sponsored violence. Nothing admits the death of left wing political opinion like its demand that the only defense it has against modern right wing thought is state violence. It no longer has a moral or ethical justification, its no longer useful predicatively, the general public has lost its faith other than the occasional social striver types... The left demanding state supported violence as its only remaining argument means they're done, obsolete, stick a fork in them, kaput. All the left wing has anymore as an argument is a boot stomping on a human face forever. No remaining moral or ethical arguments, mere violence. Which of course will eventually be responded back to in kind times a hundred, which of course leads to eye for eye stuff which never turns out well. Calls for violence are intellectually cowardice of a dying belief system. The right doesn't need violence to be wildly popular, that is what terrifies the left into demanding violence against them.
There's also the truly weird meta observation that its somehow seen as good to have the state use violence against non-violent speech, and the state should use violence against stupid opinions. The first problem is it eliminates non-violent civil disobedience as an option. Bye Bye Ghandi, hello assassins and death squads. The wheel always turns and now that the precedent has been set to violently punish non-violent right wing people, after the wheel rotates some more, we have precedence to give antifa people free helicopter rides, or send them to death camps. An eye for an eye, like that ever works. What would someone gain by cranking up the volume control on political violence for no really good reason? The second issue is even weirder big brother like. If its good for the government to use violence against dumb opinions, then we have a world where football sportscaster commentators and economists will be dragged out on live TV and beheaded by our own police when their predictions are wrong. That cooking recipe on the TV show has the wrong ratio of liquid fats for an ideal chocolate chip cookie? The police will blow her head off on national TV. Again it just seems idiotic to increase the level of political / police violence for no apparent good reason.
There's also the dog whistle effect that leftism, being intellectually bankrupt, is merely racist and sexist anti-white-male ranting in the modern era. Calling for violence against the right is "really" just genocidal calling for violence against a race and gender. That will be responded to in kind; note who has historically brutally ruled the earth. It wasn't Somalians and feminist lesbians setting up gas chambers in Germany. Go ahead, if you're brave, go tickle the dragon and see what the response is. Its not gonna be fun, but its gonna be ... effective ... In that way, calling for racist oriented violence against historically the worlds strongest and most ruthless race of warriors is somewhat suicidal.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:20PM (3 children)
Score 4:disagree - that's impressive, in and of itself.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:04PM (2 children)
Your post really should be modded Disagree.
An infinite amount of Disagree mods can be applied because they don't change the score. The comment gets labeled with the mod reason with the highest number of occurrences. In the case of a tie, the last mod reason of the tied reasons get applied. So a comment that gets modded Disagree, Insightful, Insightful, Disagree, and Funny in that order should be labeled Disagree. If it then gets modded with Funny again, it will be labeled Funny.
4 Disagree beats 2 Insightful on VLM's comment.
The only exceptions appear to be Underrated and Overrated. No comments can get labeled that. You can't even mod a comment as Underrated or Overrated unless some other mod has been applied first (including Disagree, oddly enough).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:20PM (1 child)
Doh! Bug.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 27 2017, @09:09PM
Which part? I think I have mentioned the Disagree + Underrated/Overrated combo before but I never filed a bug on it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Disagree) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:51PM (3 children)
So basically your entire post boils down to "Don't fuck with the worst of us, it'll go badly for you. Don't use our methods against us. We're bigger assholes than you." Lovely. I really like how people like you just utterly spill your guts unintentionally when you say things like this. Just come out and say you want to be a big man in your new right-wing utopia already. We get it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:43PM
It really is eye opening. I tend to give people too much benefit of the doubt, it really REALLY helps me to see the unfiltered bullshit people believe in. "Why yes, there are evil fuckers who would throw you into a concentration camp if they could." I wonder how much is from their persecution complex, maybe in the 1830's VLM would be regarded as a sophisticated intellectual with quite the liberal sensibility.
I couldn't even read his rant, but apparently they are learning from us liberals and trying to coopt "dog whistle" like we did with snowflake. Little late to the game, typical beta.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:34AM (1 child)
So what exactly is your point, holocaust denial, or some kind of moral argument against "beware of dog" signs?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 28 2017, @04:10AM
My point, VLM, is that you have repeatedly on this site, and more blatantly as time goes on, shown yourself to be an ally and fellow-traveler of fascists. You essentially just said "hey lefties, don't try to out-Nazi us, we do it better 'cause we're the originals."
And you're right about that, in a way: very few liberals I've ever met are anything like the staring, wild-eyed, twitching genocidal fanatics all too many right-wingers I've seen turn out to be. You've just added yourself to that list. Go (back?) to whatever Hell you want, just leave us decent humans alone.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:46PM
Oh Noes! Not the "White Genocide"? Actually, VLM, it is more just about you, not whites in general. So not really genocide in any coherent sense.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by choose another one on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:58PM (2 children)
I agree with essentially all the article, my only fear is that in doing this I have missed the point...
Who defines which opinions are "intelligent" and therefore protected and which are not, and therefore not?
How can you even _begin_ to decide unless all opinions can be heard and are therefore protected?
There isn't one, or at least not a single agreed one. That is part of the problem, in fact it is arguably central to it - the idea that you can ban something when there is no agreement on what the something actually is.
Absolutely not, once we have a universal consensus on a definition of "populist pap" it should definitely be banned. I started on a working definition, the bible and the koran are obviously out due to being hate speech, as is anything that criticises them because that is anti-religious hate speech, young earth creationism is obviously pap, but then I got stuck at the "flat earth" guys because I cannot figure out if they are actually satire...
One wonders how we ever had civilised debate and disagreement when hosting a speaker is "apparent endorsement". Presumably anyone who hosts two speakers with opposing views should be locked up and forcibly treated for schizophrenia...
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:43PM (1 child)
> I agree with essentially all the article, my only fear is that in doing this I have missed the point...
+1 Funny. But perhaps you might have missed my point as well.
I wrote my post like that because I feel the author is inconsistent on these issues. He does (presumably on purpose) talks about intelligent debate. So he is not that convinced by his own idea and added this subjective adjective.
I am very aware of the silliness of trying to decide where to put the line between good and bad opinions (should have made that clear). But, at the same time, I can perfectly understand people that ban speakers because they fear what they are going to say. And I did indicate why: there are consequences attached to having some people give their opinion. And I am not prepared to say free speech is better than a riot (not saying it is the other way round either. I just do not know).
What I disagree with is that I do not think people have lost their ability to disagree but that the ones that did int he past are in the minority now. And I do not think that is fixable in the short term.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 28 2017, @03:20AM
I suspect the speaker would be fine with your pointing out inconsistencies of his. It's part of the ethos he subscribes to (i do, too, as a fellow alumnus of his). Be ready for him to come back at you with sharper reasoning than before, though. It's the beautiful dialectic that can arise when we do not let each other get away with mental laziness; everyone gets smarter.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @03:11PM (10 children)
People rarely hold beliefs they find to be stupid. We always consider our opinions to be the intelligent opinions.
And our opinions are more often than not a result of our culture, which changes constantly. For instance in many Muslims countries the vast majority of the population believes it is perfectly moral and ethical to kill individuals for not believing in the right god. It's part of formal law in a variety of countries, notably including the head of the UN Human Right's Council - Saudi Arabia. Our notion is that people ought be free to worship whatever they choose and so we view that as the 'intelligent' view. I think the natural defense is to say well we support freedom - and freedom is naturally intelligent, so therefore we are right. People ought be free to do things that are in no way directly harming others. It's intelligent - it's logical. So a man should be free to masturbate in public? Any harm there is a product of people's own imagining, much in the same way that these Islamic countries find not believing in the right religion to be an unbelievable assault on common decency. Pointing out such contradictions exposes the fact that our views are hardly based in some rock solid foundation. We're just another culture that defines what's right and just (and intelligent) as "what we think."
Or for instance I do certainly agree that there is likely a different distribution of intelligence among racists and non racists. To suggest otherwise would be rather denying reality. On the other hand I also would agree that there is a different distribution of intelligence among whites and blacks. Again, to suggest otherwise would be rather denying reality (and substantial data). It's interesting that though both statements are little more than an acceptance of data, one is considered progressive and enlightened and the other is considered borderline hate speech -- certainly racist at the minimum. And I'm certainly no racist nor 'hater', but again just illustrating that what we define as culturally acceptable or 'socially intelligent speech' is really quite arbitrary. And so defining what is or is not allowed to be said on moral level (e.g. the reason you cannot yell fire in a theater is rather different than what we're discussing) is something that can only lead to abuse.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:57PM (9 children)
Regarding those last two (differing intelligence in racists/non-racists vs. different intelligence in whites and blacks), it is entirely possible to accept both...but in order not to have it make you a racist, you have to look at the second one and NOT jump to the "obvious" conclusion "therefore blacks are inherently, genetically, less intelligent."
Two things about that: 1) a fair amount of intelligence is environmental. One of my friends from my old high school got into Cooper Union on his own merits, and since that school was Bronx Science, he got into THAT purely on mental muscle too. He was about the color of recording tape. But his parents were also rich, and he lived in (what was at the time...) a nice part of Brooklyn. And 2) Even if it turns out some group *is* genetically less intelligent as a whole, SO WHAT? Does that make them less human?
This is the problem with most people and statistics: they think statistics are moral judgments. No. They're just facts; they're dead, inert spreadsheets of data. They tell the what, not the why or the how.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:14PM (8 children)
Very off topic, but I do think this is an interesting though somewhat depressing tangent. I used to plan to adopt. My wife is in her mid thirties and enjoys her career. As a child I was part of the 'Big Brothers and Big Sisters' program and it changed my life, radically, for the better. So I've always wanted to give something back. We likely would have adopted a black child. I think people like Morgan Freeman, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, etc have done a phenomenal good in this world. Anyhow it'd be easier for him to get a full ride as well! ;-) But seriously black children are mostly unwanted and this perpetuates a cycle that I also felt primarily a result of poor environments (and certainly a bit of poor culture as well). Genuinely give something back to the world, and help raise a child that could give even more back? What more could one want?
Then I bumped into this [wikipedia.org] study. It's a longterm study of upper class intelligent whites, in Minnesota, adopting minority children. It followed the children for their prime early schooling years - age 7 to 17. The results are terribly depressing. The racial background of the children has an extremely strong and apparently causal link to their educational performance and IQ. A good early age environment can help mask genetic issues, but a recurring theme with IQ is that while our early IQ is driven by environment - our later age IQ is more and more driven by genetics. Even an incredibly privileged upbringing, as these children all had, is insufficient to overcome this. By age 17 the children who had two black biological parents were already about a standard deviation under the median. If you're not aware of how IQ works, it is population relative. The median is set, by definition to 100, with a standard deviation of 15 points.
I think there's a pretty natural objection here. It could still be culture. Especially as the child grows older, the influence of the parents is going to diminish and if the child chooses to adopt a culture that doesn't put education first (to put it one way) then it'd be natural to expect that their performance would decline - regardless of genetics. And this is where it gets more depressing. The study, completely inadvertently, had a phenomenal control group for this. 12 of the children who had one white and one black parent were misidentified by the adopters (and themselves no doubt) as being completely black. They thus would have a more or less identical environmental/cultural drive as the other children who were genuinely from two black parents. Their performance was the same as the children who were identified and aware they were half black and half white. That is... depressing.
I expect that study is a large part of the reason that organized and well planned studies on IQ and various groups has somewhat gone by the wayside. I'm certain the intended goal was to put a nail in the coffin of prejudice, but instead they told us precisely the opposite of what we all felt and wanted to be true.
----
Regardless of course I do agree that this does not make anybody less human. At the same time, I think our increasingly politically correct culture is doing a great disservice to people. Imagine you were 5'9" and told you could make it in the NBA, anybody can if they just try hard. Here we'll even give make it just a little bit easier for you to get recruited. You'll see, all you need is some encouragement and role models! Muggsby Bogues did after all and he was just 5'3"! Of course he was also an absolutely outlier freak of nature in practically every other trait related to basketball. If he was born a normal height, let alone tall, he would have gone down a Michael Jordan instead of a trivia factoid. But let's not mention that! I don't know what the solution is, but telling everybody to just try harder is simply disingenuous when viewing things at a population level granularity. I can't imagine the anger and frustration that must build in the individuals who are born into a competitive world where genetic characteristics, completely outside of their control, hold them back, like a man trying to win a race with a weight wrapped around his foot and everybody keeps trying to explain why he's not winning without ever mentioning that weight - simply because the thought of that unfair and inherent inequity is something that's discomforting to even consider.
But if you start with the assumption that people are inequal, then I think there is a much stronger case to be made for having a strong social safety net and a general overall improvement in the quality of life for people of all 'classes.' It's the paradox of politics today. Conservatives believe individuals are inherently unequal, and then argue anybody can improve their position in life if they just 'pulls themselves up by their bootstraps.' That makes no sense. And similarly liberals propose that people are all inherently equal, but we need programs to help the less privileged. That also makes no sense. If everybody is equal then the only difference between the various stories of homeless to Harvard is a matter of people putting their mind to the task at hand. That is most certainly not true. Fundamentally, I think the right path forward is always the truth - even when the truth is something that is painful to seriously consider.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:42PM (6 children)
That was looking very close to a troll post until the last couple sentences, and I'm still undecided. The fallacy there is the "...liberals propose that people are all inherently equal, but we need programs to help the less privileged" bit. Specifically, you're equivocating; inherent equal worth is not the same thing as having equal intellects, strength, talents, etc.
Don't confuse the two; it's precisely that conflation that leads to the racist-arguments-from-statistics problem I pointed out above.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:46PM
But mehhhhh logic is haaaaaard!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:28AM
The greatest lies ever told:
1) The check's in the mail.
2) I won't cum in your mouth.
3) All men are created equal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @05:35AM (3 children)
How, precisely, would you define an individual's worth?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @10:25AM
as being equal to all other individuals.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 28 2017, @04:50PM (1 child)
We're talking about innate humanity here. Human? Worth 1 human. There are other dimensions, but they have nothing to do with basic humanity.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28 2017, @06:52PM
Right, I think you're more or less obligated to answer this way following your last comment - though I did not want to make assumptions. Let me explain why this belief might be hampering progress. I think my views are relatively typical in that I've always understood that there are biological differences between individuals, but felt that these differences are mostly irrelevant - and largely supplanted by environmental factors. If we're using a scoring system then people might start on a range of 0-10 where genetics adds or removes a point or two, but then environmental factors add or remove 5 or 6 points.
Because of this I've always been hugely in favor of systems for helping to improve the education, opportunity, and access for groups for disadvantaged groups to rise to their full potential. As mentioned, the 'Big Brothers and Big Sisters' certainly 'worked' for me. However, at the same time I've always looked a bit dubiously on things that work to provide comfort. I worked my way out of the 'hood' in large part because it was awful. I did not want to be stuck there for the rest of my life and the only out I saw was education - my state university, which is also very highly ranked, had guaranteed enrollment for anybody in the top x% of their class. So it set a clear target.
In hindsight, and particularly as I've learned more - I didn't actually achieve much of anything at the time. I never really had to try to get into the top 10% or even 1%. Until I got older I thought my achievements were mine. They weren't. I was a lazy and bad student. It was purely thanks to things entirely outside of my control that made it easy for me to achieve things that others would struggle with. Seeing that study was kind of the epiphany in what this all meant. And it also completely changed my views. I still do believe that we need to provide every opportunity to disadvantaged groups, but that is more for the outliers. The reality is that the vast majority of these individuals will never be able to effectively compete in society today, regardless of what we do. The data from that adoption study show the individuals who genetically had two black parents as falling about 1.2 standard deviations away from those who had two white parents. 1.2 sigmas translates to about 89% of that group having a lower IQ in spite of the fact that they were given the same privileged upbringing. Pretending these two groups can compete or perform against one another is just a lie that makes us feel good, but in reality is borderline sadistic. Can you even imagine being encouraged to do something that no matter how hard you try is always for some inexplicable reason just outside your reach? Can you imagine the frustration, the anger that would build inside of you? It's cruel!
For some data to support my proposal that most people do not believe people are inherently unequal, 69% [rasmussenreports.com] of individuals oppose government efforts to expand food stamps, 56% [rasmussenreports.com] of Americans believe "too many" people receive welfare, and so on. These numbers obviously transcend politics. I think the only way forward for our society is to begin being truthful. On the other hand it is absolutely crucial that we always distinguish between the individual and the population. We need to ensure the Neil DeGrasse Tysons have a way to reach their potential, but we also need to stop pretending that everybody can be Neil degrasse Tyson if they just put their mind to it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @09:20PM
According to you blacks are statistically dumber than whites, but they are taller and more athletic.
Superior white intelligence created the atomic bomb, rockets, and many horrible diseases and chemical weapons. These will be used to destroy civilization, leaving us with a world where physical strength once again rules supreme. People of color will assume their rightful roles as rulers of the Earth, and natural selection will add new traits to adapt to the changed climate. Eventually new intelligent subgroups will arise from this species.
The movie came out in 1968.
(Score: 5, Disagree) by takyon on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:26AM
No! I'm goddamn lazy!
No! I don't need to learn anything!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:11PM (13 children)
This is one of the main problems. When it is Us vs. Them, any compromise is giving ground to the enemy and respecting or empathizing with their points makes you a traitor.
Moral foundations theory has been shown to be more effective at convincing those with opposing political views, but it is funny how repulsive people find it when they try to make moral arguments that they don't find very persuasive. I have a link below with some examples, but imagine a liberal making a moral argument of "respect for authority" or "preserving the sanctity of an institution" and a conservative making a moral argument of "being sensitive to the feelings of others".
I'm not sure that this is a war that can be won. Human psychology seems to work against us when it comes to genuine, intellectual debate and the methods used by those seeking to disrupt such debate are much more effective ("teach the controversy", false balance, FUD, trolling, etc.). It is easier to destroy than it is to create and it is easier to react emotionally than it is to think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory [wikipedia.org]
https://soylentnews.org/politics/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=18153&commentsort=0&mode=threadtos&threshold=0&highlightthresh=-1&page=1&cid=470892#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:56PM (6 children)
I don't really disagree with anything in your post but I would revise and extend some remarks on the above.
The quote above is a "know your enemy". I don't want to debate the gay marriage thing here, because forest for the trees and all that. But the modern-young-genx-gen-zyklon-alt right has differing outlook from ancient-neocon-religious-boomer-legacy right. You may have noticed that someone like Trump doesn't get along terribly well with congressman Paul Ryan. Its just classic sales technique, pitch your product to match the demographics of the recipient. Or if we must discuss this tree instead of the forest or forestry science in general, I'm just saying you can't sell gay marriage the same way to both boomers and older vs genx and younger, it just doesn't work because of modern viewpoints.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by c0lo on Wednesday September 27 2017, @01:41PM (3 children)
We certainly know the enemy, we've met them... and they are us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Disagree) by choose another one on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:16PM (2 children)
NO they are not, they are them, they are nothing like us, they are wrong, totalitarian, immoral, warmongers, evil, in fact everything we are not.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by c0lo on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:27PM (1 child)
You like trespassing into Poe's jurisdiction or what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @10:56PM
Poets have no jurisdiction, and story tellers are weak liberal arts failures!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:35PM (1 child)
"ancient-neocon-religious-boomer-legacy"
I have to ask why you would associate neocon with any of the other words in that tangled mess? Neoconservatism was never "widely accepted" by even the Republican party. It was an aberrant thing, that was ushered in with GWB and Dick Cheney, and pretty much packed up and sent to Texas when GWB left the White House. I personally found everything about neoconservatism to be repugnant. I really dislike Obama, and I really dislike Bill Clinton - but there was a lot more reason to dislike Bush's neoconservatism than either of those liberal fools.
Neoconservatism has nothing to do with religion, unless you happen to worship the Almighty Dollar. Nothing to do with boomers. It's not ancient, or legacy. It's just an aberration.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:32AM
uuhh may want to check out the coincidences there... from the point of view of the average gen-x gen-y kid the neocons are all "old times".
I would agree the neocons sucked horribly. But I wouldn't say there was no peculiar religious commonality...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:29PM (3 children)
"I'm not sure that this is a war that can be won."
It CANNOT be "won". Like many other wars, there is no way to "win". "the only winning move is not to play" - but good luck with not playing the game of life!! Let me see - there's the generation gap. Except, the younger generation always wins, because the older generation dies off - and suddenly the youngsters are the oldsters. Yes, one day you millenials will also be old fools who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. Just ask ANYONE born after - ooooooh - 2025.
The battle of the sexes? Women know they are smarter than men, and men know they are smarter than women, but dammit - BOTH sides fraternize with the enemy!! There's no winning that one.
You can't win the war, that's why people invented this thing called "compromise".
Alas - we Americans have forgotten what compromise is. Everything is either left or right, white or black, low or high, and NOTHING IN THE MIDDLE can be considered - ever.
A lot of husbands and wives eventually learn that to get a little, they have to give a little. But, precious few of us ever learn that the same lesson might apply outside the home.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:38PM (1 child)
You anger me in that you enjoy being stupidly antagonistic with your right wing rhetoric, and yet you write things like this.
I suspect what you say and what you do may be different things; what is it you really want? because compromise usually isn't something you suggest.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:29AM
"stupidly antagonistic"
That is an opinion, of course. Maybe you're to close to the problem. Try stepping back, and looking at life. Stupid antagonism comes at me daily - I should give up my guns, I should never defend myself, Black lives matter (and white lives matter less, if at all), straight white males are all bigots and fascists - on and on it goes. When I rebrand the same shit and hand it back, I'm the one who is stupidly antagonistic? Think about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:01PM
There are plenty of people, I would say the majority, that are willing to compromise. You are basically highlighting the what the propaganda is trying to sell us. It is not reality, it is a manufactured controversy which keeps everyone in their own buckets. Anyone who isn't stuck in a bucket usually gives up after 5-20 years and settles into their more comfortable backyard pool.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:01PM
One problem with attempting to make moral arguments on the hardcore conservative/religious foundation is that most of those people subscribe to what is known as Divine Command Theory. A little philosophical investigation will show that DCT is empty, i.e., it reduces to moral nihilism, but *most people who think DCT grounds morals aren't even capable of doing the logical legwork to get to this point. (For the record, the reason DCT is empty is that is reduces morality to "whatever God says" or, in some of the slightly more sophisticated versions, "whatever is consistent with God's nature," which does not help *at all...*).
It's impossible to find common moral ground with people who (think they) have marching orders, and think these are the same thing as actual morals. Add that to the fact that most of them don't even really know their own God's supposed commands, and add to THAT the fact that the one source they have for their God's commands contradicts itself constantly, and we have a recipe for disaster. There is no common ground with DCT believers, and there never will be.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:09PM
I completely disagree. I'm as liberal as it gets - centrist by all definitions. And I stand behind preserving of sanctity of an institution, like the UN, like the EU, like the European Court of Justice. Seems that likes of American Conservatives are against this these days?? So your point is invalid? Or maybe Trump and like him are no conservative, but a nationalists that believes capitalism should be for the state ... there is a word for that ... oh yeah, fascists.
Respect for authority -- authority comes from the people, and people then respect authority that respects them. When you have police forces that respect human rights, then you have population that respects them in return. But if all you have is fear, then fear is not respect. Anyway, every society requires and needs order. Order is more important than almost anything else, because without order, you have chaos. You need to get order by any means necessary, then worry about respect.
As for "being sensitive to the feelings of others", I frankly could care less. Feeling of individuals are not important if some decision makes society more *fair*. You see, liberal views have less to do with "feelings". They have much more to do with *fairness*. A liberal society is where every member has as equal ability to succeed in their life as any other, as much as possible.
So I'm not sure what argument you are trying to make here. Maybe a backward one? Like imaging a conservative that actually cares to CONSERVE things? Sustainability should have been what "conservatives" should be standing for, instead of radicalism. You know, sustainable environments, budgets, society. Image conservatives standing up to these fake conservatives -- right...
(Score: 5, Disagree) by jmorris on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:24PM (17 children)
All that and more. A classical education taught free men how to think like free men must. To govern himself so that he doesn't need a top down government. He was taught how to think, to reason, to solve problems on his own. And yes, to come together and debate issues without fisticuffs.
Then something happened around the end of the 19th Century and things began to change:
Hmm. That doesn't sound very "American" does it? Would any of the Founder have claimed this thing as a countryman? Doubtful, but there it is.
Then the main Progressive movement kicked off with Wilson's misfits and we haven't even been trying to educate in the government schools since, just produce good little worker units. The "future ruling class" went to private schools. But they have screwed it up, no school now teaches and we are a nation of the ignorant, even at the top. A modern ivy league education no longer teaches how to reason, only to regurgitate the Party Line. A full college degree is inferior in many ways to a high school education of the 19th Century.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:42PM (12 children)
I don't know about that. The author was speaking from the ethos of the University of Chicago. As an alumnus, I confirm that is what they teach. We had it as: "If someone asserts it, challenge it. If someone challenges it, assert it." In other words, never take something at face value, always poke and prod at the idea to ascertain its worth.
I can't speak from personal experience at the Ivy League schools, because I was fortunate enough to attend a place that gave me an education, but I have had many friends and colleagues who did (poor dears!) and they don't seem like parrots or dittoheads to me. I suspect they were taught by enough professors who were alumni of the University of Chicago to not be entirely lost.
But I do agree with you very much that education in the United States is designed to produce good little worker units, not free-thinking men and women. It's inadequate to the challenges of the 21st century. If continued, it will break national resolve and dash the country's accomplishments.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Disagree) by Virindi on Wednesday September 27 2017, @01:20PM
You are correct, an Ivy education is not entirely as bad as the GP claims. There is, at the very least, a lot of lip service paid to the concept of intelligent debate and questioning of values.
However, the issue is that there is a decline in diversity of actual opinion. Teaching that everything should be questioned is of only limited effect when everyone in the class believes the same thing.
A lot of lip service is also paid to diversity, but they are careful to mainly go for people who share a certain view of the world. This goes along with the indoctrination about how "you are the future leaders of society" and all that; people encountered there are almost universally those who trust in "the authorities", "the experts"*, and of course the concept of human control over other humans. The general philosophy that humans should control other humans is the most important. Or to put it another way, those selected to attend are those friendly to "the establishment".
*Note: do not mistake rejection of some authorities as counter-evidence, when they are really going along with the decision of their social group. There is some subtlety to this selection process.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:39PM (10 children)
I'm reminded of my generation's motto, "question authority". It was always my opinion that if authority had no answers to the questions, then their authority was bogus.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:11PM (1 child)
I think it's also fair to say that when authority provides answers, but the answers are bullshit – which is quite common – that authority is also bogus.
The problem is that authority is not the same thing as power.
For instance, the vast majority of the answers the government puts forth about the "war on drugs" are utter bullshit. But that doesn't mean they won't stomp you and your family and your future into the ground based on those answers.
Same goes for quite a few other things.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:37AM
BINGO!!
We've all watched videos of cops killing young black males unjustifiably. The Rice kid in Cleveland is my number one example. Cops all but run the kid down with their car, jump out, and start shooting. This is a horrible example of abuse of authority - murdering someone's child with impunity. Authority only has bogus bullshit answers to our questions. Obviously, this and other police departments are out of control.
But, we the people are so busy pursuing other agendas, that we can't even agree that the police need to be reined in.
How the hell do we ever force the police to exercise proper authority in a responsible manner? THAT is a worthy goal, and entirely achievable, IF we the people would just unite.
But, those agendas are all getting in the way.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:50PM (5 children)
Runaway committing an auto-argumentum ad verecundiam in refuting an argument against accepting authority: the mind boogles, the irony-meter has melted down, can the center hold?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:07PM
It can, but it's about to piss itself laughing :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:21AM
There is legitimate authority, you do understand. When authority is legitimate, and properly exercised, you're a fool to struggle against it. As I see it, your left is all about undermining legitimate authority, and trying to establish your own authority - based on bullshit.
What is the status of the Soviet, these days? And, "Red China"? Venezuela? Again and again the socialistic dream fails, but the left comes back again and again, "We just weren't doing it right, let's try again!"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 28 2017, @01:39AM (2 children)
The center holds - if you come in from far-left field, you'll see that the center is quite healthy.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Thursday September 28 2017, @04:38AM (1 child)
So, Runaway, you do not know what an argumentum ad verecundiam is, eh? It is OK to just admit it. Not everyone can know Latin. Especially Polacks. And you owe us a new irony meter!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 28 2017, @02:25PM
Argument from authority. I looked it up. Since you ask, I don't read much Latin, at all. I never worked in a field where it was necessary to understand dead languages, so I didn't study them. In fact, I'm linguistically impaired - I can do alright in Spanish/Mexican and closely related languages - I can order a beer and ask about the hot women in any country that speaks Spanish.
Latin though, I only know what I found necessary to learn. You might look up 'inter utrosque polos tridens'. I realize you don't need to look up the interpretation, but go ahead, put it in a search engine. Hook us all up with a picture, alright?
Back to your point - What, exactly, is "wrong" with an argument from authority? Let's say, you're scheduled for brain surgery. And, you decide that you want to tell the doctor how she should decorate your head - you want the scars to fit into a really cool pattern, over which you can tattoo an awesome picture. And, she tells you "NO!" Argument from authority. Is that somehow "wrong"?
Verecundia - knowing one's place. It almost seems that you are accusing me of being out of place? Of not knowing my place? Hmmmm - you do realize that I am an American, right? My place is obviously wherever I decide it to be. Surely you aren't implying that the linguistically impaired should occupy a lower station in life than the linguistically gifted? I fail to see how that differes from keeping to your station in life if you're _____________ (black, female, Polack, retarded, genius, gay - pick any term to fill the blank)
But, back to that argument from authority - isn't that the same shit you're trying to pull? "I been mod-banned, and TMB is a horse's ass, and I GOT AUTHORITY ON MY SIDE!!"
And, no, I won't soon forget your dig at my ethnicity. At least I'm not Greek!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:17PM (1 child)
Friend of mine had a "Question Authority" bumper sticker on the back of his car -- this was late 1970s. All it seemed to get him was more random stops/harassment by the cops.
His car wasn't a wreck. This was upstate NY. Guy was white, college student, did have long-ish hair. My similar car (no bumper sticker) and similar personal appearance only attracted speeding tickets (all well deserved!) and no other police interest.
Seemed pretty likely that the bumper sticker was the cause of his problems. We'd never heard the term "profiling" back then, but it was certainly going on.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday September 27 2017, @09:20PM
Well, seeing that he was an authority on the topic of questions, they perhaps wanted to see if they can learn something from him. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday September 27 2017, @01:33PM (2 children)
Disagree. Trump had this type of privileged education. Look how well spoken and articulate he is. Beautiful flowing speeches the envy of elegant skilled orators everywhere.
The best thing about Ivy League education is that if daddy's money is donated, you don't even need to have the ability to read or write beyond a fourth grade level in order to graduate from such a fine institution of higher learnin'.
So don't knock Ivy League edumacations.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 27 2017, @02:40PM
Well, it's true - Bill Clinton is thinking of adopting Donald J. Donny can be the son that Billy never had!
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday September 28 2017, @12:18AM
Compare donald trump today to donald trump 20 years ago. He was was always an egotistical asshat; but his articulation has declined considerably. He used to regularly put together complex sentences without much difficulty, without the rambling nonsense we see now.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday September 27 2017, @01:39PM
As for your subject line.
Indeed it is no accident. We don't want people who know how to disagree. We want them to accept what authorities tell them. Products rolling off the assembly line of the education system should be as
programmablepliable as possible.Reading books about the human condition might cause people to think for themselves. Reality TV is a good substitute for the books of old.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by lcall on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:21PM (10 children)
Enthroning honesty and the Golden Rule in our *individual* lives is essential, then seeking out honest others. Private virtue (e.g., trying to do the honest, kind thing, starting with one's own family and neighbors) is a prerequisite to societal peace. Belief in God motivates me to do that, because I have good reasons to believe that all the problems will eventually be solved, that the next life is interesting, real, important, and lasts forever, and there is a merciful and just Judge who cares and lets us learn from our choices. (Also because I see that when we justify lying or treat each other badly, we create misery for ourselves.)
It really seems like we all can get farther by improving the honesty and kindness in ourselves, more than by vilifying others. (Granted, it's so easy and tempting to criticize and maybe we all do it. But we can try to learn to help, instead. Fortunately there are good examples out there! -- sometimes quiet ones, of many persuasions, with whom we can learn and try to work.)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by lcall on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:34PM
I have started to realize, later than ideal, that a habit of peacefully receiving some unsought hurt while trying to humbly do the right thing with kindness, has the potential to do great good over time. It is related to love and forgiving (but separate from trust -- I'm not suggesting to freely allow others to abuse or destroy, or pretend that evil is good). A loving parent or kind mentor might be classic examples. Every one of us really needs some kindness and forgiveness. (It can take tremendous time and practice to learn to actually do that, but is worthwhile.)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @06:06PM (8 children)
And I do all that while being diametrically opposed to your religious beliefs, on philosophical, logical, historical, and theological grounds :) Interesting how that works, huh? Here's a hint: all the good stuff you mentioned is bottom-up, not top-down, and does not require a God to make it happen. And I'm not even an atheist!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:47PM (7 children)
If you try at those things and I try at those things, I think we can work together well.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:51PM (5 children)
Absolutely not. As long as you believe in a being that will fry most of the human race for eternity for not kissing its ass, we'll never see eye to eye. Jesus had a lot to say about people who were shiny on the outside and rotten on the inside.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Informative) by lcall on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:57PM (4 children)
It seems better to ask questions than to make harsh broad statements. I said we could work together if we try at those things (and hopefully encourage others). I didn't say we will see eye to eye. Like the point of the article.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:06PM (3 children)
The only question that needs answering here is "are you Annihilationist/Universalist?" If not, not only will we never see eye to eye, but I will have to consider you either ignorant of what it is you say you believe or a malignant sociopath. In case you're wondering, there is a good Biblical case for either, largely hinging on the use of the Koine "aion[ios/ion]" and "kolasi[s/n]" rather than "aidios" and "timoria," and the historical fact that of the six major early church centers, only the Latin-speaking center at Carthage preached endless, conscious torture, if this is what you're worried about.
In any case, though, if you are a divine command theorist, all these high-sounding morals you're going on about are stolen concepts from other worldviews, as if this is the case, yours cannot and does not include even the concept of morality let alone moral facts. This is not an attack; it is a consequence of the logic of DCT.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:11PM (2 children)
Does my memory fail me, or is ical our assigned member of the Latter Day Saints? You are not going to convince her, Azuma. Nothing can defeat Mormon nice.
(Score: 2, Informative) by lcall on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:23PM
A Mormon male. I give away software which lacks some things (like a demo video and slick installer or mobile support) but what it does have works very well (extremely fast & flexible personal knowledge organizer with a tutorial & docs; interchange features coming; AGPL):
http://onemodel.org [onemodel.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday September 27 2017, @08:32PM
Oh, Mormons are different. Whacky, but different. Most of them have three afterlife destinations, those being the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial realms; as I understand it most Mormons don't have a Hell proper. Their religion is also a Masonic con-job, and there's documentation to back it up, but as my own experience shows, religion grabs people powerfully.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday September 27 2017, @07:53PM
...and encourage others to do the same.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday September 28 2017, @03:20AM
Judging by all the Disagree mods flying around, the art of disagreement seems very much alive here on SoylentNews.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!