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America leads the world when it comes to access to higher education. But when it comes to health, environmental protection, and fighting discrimination, it trails many other developed countries, according to the Social Progress Imperative, a U.S.-based nonprofit.
The results of the group's annual survey, which ranks nations based on 50 metrics, call to mind other reviews of national well-being, such as the World Happiness Report released in March, which was led by Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, or September's Lancet study on sustainable development. In that one, Iceland, Singapore, Sweden, and the U.S. took spots 1, 2, 3, and 28—respectively.
The Social Progress Index released this week is compiled from social and environmental data that come as close as possible to revealing how people live. "We want to measure a country's health and wellness achieved, not how much effort is expended, nor how much the country spends on healthcare," the report states. Scandinavia walked away with the top four of 128 slots. Denmark scored the highest. America came in at 18.
The Social Progress Index gives the US poor marks. America may, however, still lead the world in funny cat videos.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @06:40AM (40 children)
The tolerant left, everybody!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @04:06PM (3 children)
Tolerance has its limits, and fucktards like uzzie cross the line. We are tolerant of Muslims, yet intolerant of the ones who become terrorists. Tolerant of conservatives, intolerant of the ones who promote the destruction of our country through oppression of its people. You may not understand this, you may be angry about such an attitude, but until conservatives realize the the GOP is a terrorist organization things are not going to change. Liberals have tried to compromise, tried to reach out, yet conservatives double down on ignorance and get angry at "elitist liberals". The problem lies with the group of people that won't join the 21st century and consider things like discrimination and environmental protections as "polished turds".
Tolerance only extends to things which do not harm others. Conservatives may thrive on anger but they don't have a monopoly on it. Grow up you sensitive snowflakes and stop with the persecution complex.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 23 2017, @05:37PM (2 children)
Unlike you, I support your right to be a miserable, bigoted fucktard as long as you aren't harmful to others. Sure, I'll mock you for your ignorance, but someone has to play the role of fool. It might as well be you. So go ahead, feel that two minute hate. Show us the love!
Well, Buzz tolerates you. I guess that makes him the better man.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @09:09PM (1 child)
Awww you don't like being in the out-group? So saaaaad.
You can twist words into whatever makes you feel like a holier than thou martyr. Typical gas lighting from the conservative base here, flip the blame, cry wolf, project your own issues on to others. Adult babies.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:42AM
Same could be said of all those ethnic groups who've ended up such over the millennia. I gather that you think that was a bad thing.
Well, you seem really intent on showing us just how much of a fucktard you are. Good luck with that. I find the blind hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance interesting, but it must make your life hard to have so much really dumb conflict going on in your skull.
At some point, you might want to get consistent in your thinking. If bigotry is bad when other people do it, maybe it's not so good when you do it too.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 23 2017, @06:18PM (35 children)
Read Popper's "The Paradox of Tolerance," please. Tolerance of intolerance is not tolerance, it's self-destruction. You're making the same mistake libertarians everywhere do, and the same one de Raadt did when licensed OpenSSH under the BSD license and complained that big corporations weren't contributing anything back.
Here's the key: maximal freedom is not the same thing as minimal rules. Try and figure out why.
(PS: Crai. Sum. Moar. Your tears are delicious, though oddly high-fat. So exercise more too.)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @06:45PM (2 children)
You mean when like when you tolerate Muslims? The most fucking intolerant, backwards-ass culture on the planet?
You should practice what you preach dumbass.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 23 2017, @08:02PM
Uh, do you know who you're talking to? I routinely get yelled at on here for being anti-Muslim when I point out just how backwards and dangerous they are. Try again, needledick.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @09:15PM
I would be tolerant of many Muslims, the same way I'm tolerant of most Christians. If a Muslim has the jihad mentality then the tolerance goes away, same for extremist Christians who promote violence.
This isn't a tough concept, but I guess conservative brains just can't function without broad labels. "All muslims are terrorists! All liberals are elitist gay drug users! All taxes are bad!"
Don't do propaganda, cause propaganda is bad mmkaay?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @08:03PM (30 children)
Careful. Your crazy is showing again. Try toning it down a little.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 23 2017, @08:43PM (29 children)
What crazy? That's derived right from the Law of Non-contradiction: A != !A. A thing cannot be its own negation. Did you fail logic in school? ...did you go to school?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @10:23PM (28 children)
(PS: Crai. Sum. Moar. Your tears are delicious, though oddly high-fat. So exercise more too.)
For your reference:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=14894&commentsort=0&mode=threadtng&threshold=-1&highlightthresh=-1&page=1&cid=389176 [soylentnews.org]
There's the crazy I was talking about. Maybe check your prescriptions? If you have any? Or take up yoga and meditation, I hear it helps.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 23 2017, @11:16PM (27 children)
None of that is crazy, sorry. No matter how much you want it to be. Angry != crazy (or wrong for that matter).
It's been said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Turns out that's wrong; it's actually tone trolling. If my tone is hurting your precious little yellow snowflake feelings, feel free to have an attack of the vapors on yonder fainting couch whilst clutching your pearls :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @11:24PM (26 children)
It doesn't have to be crazy. It just has to sound crazy for you to be less likely to persuade people.
Of course, if this is just Random Angry Performance Art, I stand corrected; rave on.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 23 2017, @11:31PM (25 children)
AC, some people will *never* be persuaded by anything. That's the point. For those people, all that remains is mockery and denunciation, to make them a negative example for the less-far-gone who may be watching. Hilariously, this group often thinks they're the smartest people in the room, and say and do things that make them look worse than anything I could possibly say/do to/about them. They don't know what I refer to as the first rule of holes ("when you're in a hole, stop digging"), mostly because they aren't aware they're in a hole.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23 2017, @11:44PM (24 children)
Yes, yes, I get all that.
Let me see if I can explain something to you:
Unless you somehow mark this as Random Angry Performance Art or similar, you also by extension make the rest of us look crazy. See how it works? Every time MSNBC catches one of Trump's fanclub fulminating, you know and I know that they're the craziest person that the newscrew could identify. But it doesn't matter. All the trumpeters get associated with that crazy. Your conduct affects the whole movement.
I hate to dig up such trite phrases from the early days, but "The personal is the political" is still meaningful.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 24 2017, @12:06AM (23 children)
That makes no sense. Look, the "conservatives" have *already* decided that anyone who doesn't toe the party line is morally insane or worse, so what does it matter anyway? They're completely off the reservation, engaged, in their own minds, in an endless life-or-death struggle with us. 3/4ths of it is happening in their own demented imaginations.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @12:35AM (22 children)
Fair enough. You've claimed the freedom to be the left's Ethanol-Fueled.
Welp, it's a free(ish) country (for now). Knock yourself out.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 24 2017, @02:31AM (21 children)
Hardly. Eth is a professional troll. He's also an awful person but the ratio of "hilarious over the top cesspit humor" to "stuff he really ought to be slapped for" is high enough to keep him on the humorous side so long as he's not angry and losing his temper.
Me, I'm dead serious. If I were a troll, several people here would likely have died of apoplexy by now :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @04:18AM (20 children)
Maybe you're trolling me by faking being dense, but I'll try again:
to the casual observer you are indistinguishable from the professional troll, which does the cause harm because you help them other everybody who stands for tolerance. You might be being all slick and clever and ironic, and maybe you think you're having a wild old time and nobody's getting hurt, but you're not presenting what you say you think you're presenting.
TL;DR: you're not helping. You're making your comrades look stupid. Try more propanolol or whatever it is you take.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 24 2017, @05:38AM (19 children)
Then the "casual observer" is fucking retarded and can piss off. And they can stop entertaining the fantasy that the really hardcore "conservatives" are ever going to be anything but degenerate small-time sociopaths. That's all that's left on the "conservative" side except for a few slow-to-catch-on fiscal wonks anymore, sad to say. There is no more time to educate those people; all that is left is rightful ridicule, derision, and excoriation.
Don't you get it yet? The "conservative" population of the US is either stupid, insane, or evil. We're not dealing with functioning, social human beings here any longer. All we can do is ridicule them whenever they decide to drop trou and take a leak in the meme pool. And I think we're not going to win this fight; this generation and this country are fucked.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 24 2017, @06:06AM (18 children)
Well, I think that this is the most eloquent argument for civil war I've heard.
The other side are not merely deplorable, but permanently, irretrievably evil. (OK, or stupid or insane - neither of which hold out much hope for rehabilitation.) They're not "functioning, social human beings".
Well, hell, Bubba, if'n them varmints're all got tha rabies, we'd better get shewtin'!
By that standard, the DC diamond shooter was just opening fire in the civil war, and justifiably so.
If this is really, truly, what you believe in your heart of hearts, you should probably just leave your closet and be an out-and-proud warrior for Team Blue. But somehow I doubt that you actually believe you're sharing the country with a substantial population of irredeemable monsters - you just don't want to contemplate the hard work of building bridges.
Try it anyway. It's worth it.
Or just, y'know, start shooting 'till them varmints get ya.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 25 2017, @02:52AM (17 children)
I hope to Cthulhu it never comes to that. As it is I'd rather flee than kill someone, but if I get backed into a corner...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 25 2017, @06:02AM (16 children)
You're the one who called people evil, stupid or insane. What else were you planning on doing with them? Locking them up in some kind of conservazoo? I think you'd have to win a war to be able to do that.
Or were you just planning on running around town same as before, and waving the crazy flag online when whining about the fact that you can't see half the country as human? Oh, sorry, functional social humans.
I'm sincerely hoping that you're more self-aware than that, and that your hyperbolic whimpers are just a substitute for therapy that will help you come to terms with the situation. Otherwise, if you really believe your own ravings, I can't see how or why you wouldn't start the next civil war.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 25 2017, @08:23PM (15 children)
Oh fuck off you tone-trolling little prick. What i intend to do is go to ground somewhere and wait until all this blows over, hoping and praying I don't end up as collateral damage.
Humanity has always been majority insane and majority evil. This is nothing new to me. I'm just hoping the crazies don't get *so* politically powerful they end up collapsing the nation on top of me.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @03:28AM (14 children)
So let's get this straight: you think the majority of people everywhere are insane, and/or evil. Including in the USA. And that in the USA, the conservatives (i.e. people who think that government should be modified in a gradual and careful fashion - or did you mean reactionaries? Or populists? I'm not sure what you mean any more, really.) are particularly evil and/or insane.
And your solution is to hide in a hole somewhere and hope that any explosions don't hit you - while getting loud and proud online.
Admittedly, you sound less crazy now. Also, less sincere (much less sincere) but less crazy.
Possibly in due course you can come round to the idea that people who disagree with you politically are not necessarily the wicked infidels to your enlightened priesthood but just, y'know, folks.
Who disagree with you.
And are much more likely to respond well to reasoned and reasonable dialectic than spittle-flying, finger-waving, puce-faced screeching scoldings.
The hard part will be seeing them as people. People who love their kids, want rich and stable communities, and a healthy environment.
They just disagree with you on how to get there.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 26 2017, @04:41AM (13 children)
Are you done with your arrogant tone-trolling bullshit yet? Sorry if you don't like the fact that I've written most of the human race off, but long study has convinced me most of the world population is irretrievably insane.
And if you think disagreeing on such things as "our government shouldn't be subsidizing massive tax cuts on the back of the already-poorly-off" DOESN'T make someone a piece of shit, well, all that proves is that YOU are a piece of shit too. This isn't tribalism, this is plain old common sense. Which is increasingly rare these days.
tl;dr: go have your attack of the vapors on the fainting couch, you cowardly fucking troll. And shove your false equivalences so far up your pusillanimous ass your grandparents, all four of them, get a cramp in Hell.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @06:35AM (12 children)
I think that you should first attempt to ascertain to what extent people genuinely think things such as "our government should be subsidizing massive tax cuts on the back of the already-poorly-off". Arguing that people shouldn't believe things that they don't already believe is part of the crazy sound, not the persuasive sound.
You could probably dig up a few loonies who actually think that tax cuts for the elite are a good idea, regardless of who suffers, but more often than not, the question comes down to a demarcation dispute. One side's vital, must-have benefits are the other side's optional extras. Both sides might agree on a social safety net, but disagree utterly on how big and elastic it needs to be. They might also attach different values to the size of government, to the priorities of various government functions and of course to the limits of government.
Hell, even folks on the left have a hard time figuring out how much of what should go to whom, and in which order. Just this week I was having a discussion with a person who felt that trade unions should be subsidised organisations on the grounds that their role is so important. The ideas that, respectively, subsidies might lead to undue influence on the one hand, and that as private organisations they don't need subsidies, didn't really seem to cut much ice.
So obviously, there's room for mature disagreement.
You should try it sometime.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 26 2017, @07:24AM (11 children)
Well, here's a place to start: every other first world nation has single-payer healthcare, and before someone starts with "butbutbut MUH CULTURAL HOMOGENEITY" or "too many people!" or "America does all the drug research!", maybe consider that the problem here is the insurance companies and other rent-seeking middlemen who've brought themselves a government.
So enough with that "One side's vital, must-have benefits are the other side's optional extras" stuff. We are on the verge of giving the already tremendously wealthy even MORE unearned wealth on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable, and I don't see anyone from the groups I've been labeling "degenerate" and similar speaking up. Nope, it's more "go team, make dem goddam lib'ruls squeal like a piggy!"
Mature disagreement presupposes that my opposite number is mature. But the longer I live the more I'm convinced most people never made it through middle school in their own heads.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 26 2017, @04:22PM (10 children)
I think I see the problem; you're not well aware of the sober opposition, as opposed to CNN's conservafreak-of-the-week show (oh, those nutty neo-nazi trumpies!) and consequently you aren't aware of the more balanced, and nuanced opposition to your views.
(By the way, you're wrong about the single-payer universality thing. You should probably do more detailed research - and even where it's kindasorta true, it takes radically different forms.)
... so no, not enough with that "One side's vital, must-have benefits are the other side's optional extras" stuff. You're screaming at a village idiot, while ignoring a well-equipped opponent. Making fun of Fox is good sport, but let's not pretend that they're the best and brightest of the opposition.
What about the techno-libertarian point of view that the problem with medical delivery is primarily one of cost, which is primarily driven by the government's maintenance of the patent regime (for drugs) and groups like the AMA who limit the entrants into the medical field? I'm not endorsing this point of view, but it's a fairly well-supported, well-researched and nuanced one with an actual basis in fact that you run across with some frequency here. If you're not unpicking that position, while screaming your bile at some ultra-rich class warrior ghost in your head, you're not helping.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 26 2017, @04:51PM (9 children)
Have you not seen how many posts of mine rail against regulatory capture?
Look, I'm not a typical leftist. I've studied these things in some depth and am entirely in agreement with the people pointing out artificial barriers...when they *are* barriers. The problem is every self-described "libertarian" I've ever met, techno- prefix or not, has this bizarrely black-and-white, almost Calvinist, worldview. They think either there needs to be no regulation what-so-freaking-ever, or else everything is regulated, badly, to hell and back by those eeeeeeeevil gubbemint bureaucrats. They do not make the distinction between regulation and regulatory capture, nor between necessary and unnecessary regulation.
Ironically, they're making the same mistake the gun-grabbers on the left do. They will be the first to say "guns don't kill people, people do" but when you point out "regulation doesn't kill industry, corrupt and/or incompetent regulators do" they scream and melt like the Wicked Witch of the West.
The other problem they have is thinking "minimal rules" is the same thing as "maximal freedom." I sincerely hope this is just naive shortsightedness on their part, as the *only* other possibility is that they know goddamn well that the last rule standing will be rule of force, and are somehow thinking they are naturally going to be the ones ruling. This is more or less the same thing as Theo de Raadt wetting himself over corporations taking his BSD-licensed OpenSSL and not giving anything back, when the GPL has always been there.
Face it, AC, at least half the adult US population *is* "the village idiot." We have entire villages, towns, cities, effectively even states, of idiots. I live in Wisconsin and would offer this state as a prime example. Take also Texas, with Austin as one of maybe two or three small pools of relative sanity in a zillion square miles of desert idiocy. The malignant ones in charge ride the massive tide of fools and smother the few principled and educated ones out there. It's hopeless. All that remains is for this plague to burn itself out.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @02:26AM (8 children)
So, because half of people fit into some category that you deem fit to refer to as the village idiot, thoughtful policy analysis is off the table?
Don't you think that taking the high ground of ideas is worth some time and trouble? In fact, the same time and trouble that you spend waving your Rage Flag and complaining about how Buzzard, or khallow, or whoever doesn't agree with you because they're stupid and evil and sacrifice kittens to their dark libertarian gods?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 27 2017, @03:05AM (7 children)
Okay, now I know you're trolling me. Bugger off with this tone bullshit; we're done. Go cry in a corner somewhere if I'm hurting your feelings.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @05:50AM (6 children)
I'm just going by what you're saying.
You explicitly discount thoughtful opposition, you paint your opponents collectively with a very ugly set of stereotypes, and you refuse to engage with them - your classic strategies of those who despise their adversaries. You do everything short of declaring war on them - shrinking from that by saying that, in essence, you want others to do your fighting and killing and dying for you, and hope to survive it all.
The First Amendment Options are generally better for society than the Second Amendment Options simply because they're less destructive. The only problem is that they take work. If you genuinely believe the things that you claim to (I have my doubts at this point) it would only make sense to actually support them on the memetic battlefield. Right now, you're acting more like an agent provocateur for the right wing than a thoughtful adherent of the left.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 27 2017, @04:13PM (5 children)
Listen, AC, most of the human race has *always* been somewhere between idiotic and insane. This is not new. And declaring an actual war on those people is a losing proposition due to sheer numbers. There would be no honor in victory, no sympathy in defeat, and no point in even trying. The stereotypes may be ugly, but they also hold more than a kernel of truth, and as I've pointed out many times before, *nothing* those "ugly stereotypes" say about people is as ugly as what those people actually do. At this point it's not even a stereotype, it's a goddamn news archive.
Do you understand where the monastic urge comes from, what makes people want to hole up on top of mountains or deep in the forest or in some far-off temple somewhere? It's having this realization. When you realize that there is nothing you can do, nothing you could *ever* have done, about the power of stupid people in large numbers, you get jaded. You beg history to release you from its grip. You become constantly tired no matter how much you sleep. You begin to despise the world, and start asking yourself how you can compromise with it to keep your sanity.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 27 2017, @05:54PM (4 children)
OK, so you're feeling dreadfully alone in an ocean of dissent. You're the bearded desert prophet, fed on locusts and wild honey, railing against the excesses of the worshippers of Mammon.
All righty.
But you're having a hard time getting the oafish infidels to hear your words. How could this be? You've tried carefully reasoned discourse (I presume - I can't say that I've seen this, but I'll take it on faith), you've tried angry rants, and you've tried insults and calumny. None of them worked.
Which, if any, resulted in constructive, on-topic engagement? Which, if any, result in constructive, on-topic engagement when done by other people? (Don't answer none, because I've seen counterexamples.)
I could go for trite statements about the value of being the change that you want to see in the world, or quote Michael Jackon's Man in the Mirror, but let's face it, you want facts, not feels. What will best move the needle in your preferred direction? Constructive engagement, with those who are most willing to hear your words. Ignore the idealogues, find the independents, and address them.
And try doing it in a temperate fashion. It works better.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday June 27 2017, @09:28PM (3 children)
In case you hadn't noticed, this place has long since polarized the independents away. I've had success with a few dozen people on other venues, but there really don't seem to be many centrists here, and certainly no actual leftists aside from Gewg.
There's nothing left to do with the degenerates except mercilessly mock them. If there is one thing their kind hates, it's being laughed at.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 28 2017, @03:30PM (2 children)
No, there are independents here.
They just tend to be shouted down by angry banner-wavers. If you read, looking for nuance, you can find them.
As for "no other leftists aside from Gewg" that says more about your definition of the left, than about the population at large here. First off, it's not actually true. If you're looking for someone who wants the triumph of the collectivist workers' movement, Gewg is the most vocal, but not the only one. And if you broaden your definition even slightly, there are dozens who fit that mould. Certainly there's no shortage of people who actively support even rather left wing versions of the scandinavian model, which can hardly be described as remotely centrist.
"There's nothing left to do with the degenerates except mercilessly mock them. If there is one thing their kind hates, it's being laughed at."
I don't believe that's true. In fact, on the evidence available I'd say that they're laughing at you because you're fulfilling their vision of the crazy lefty snowflake. Even if you look outside the world of Soylent, it rapidly goes topsy-turvy. Look at all the people who proudly reclaimed the Deplorables tag, cheerfully throwing it in Hillary's face. If you remember the 2008 election, you can probably remember bumper stickers reading something like: "I'll keep my God, gold and guns, you can keep the change." So as quickly as you paint on a sneer, it's ignored or inverted.
And if you think about it, it makes sense. "Redneck" has been everything from an affectionate punchline in the mouths of the likes of Jeff Foxworthy to a toxic slur as venomous as "Nigger" for decades at this point. The hectoring, finger-waving left has been just as responsible for building the resilience of those they despise, as isolating them. Frankly, the laughter of the left is something that they either ignore or welcome at this point. They're very well practiced at turning that around, and painting whoever the source was, as just yet another of the forces arrayed against them.
In a nutshell, this is why you aren't persuading them of anything other than who or what you are - and by extension, those who agree with you can be painted as being just as crazy as you.
The left has done the exact same thing over the years, of course. Everyone who suggested that the economy did OK under Reagan (regardless of how much he actually had to do with it) is immediately painted as either an american aristocrat with their hats out for government handouts, or a patsy for them, mocked with various slurs around the concept of trickling down.
So you should probably re-evaluate your strategy; the old one has stopped working (inasmuch as it ever did).
Also, a footnote: by lumping your opposition all together, whether they're Beltway-inhabiting Rockefeller Republicans, Westboro Baptists or Silicon Valley technolibertarians, you lose a lot of credibility.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday June 28 2017, @04:51PM (1 child)
For Christ's sake, I *know* there is a difference between the inbred Southerner who thinks moonshine is a food group and the "techno-libertarian" in terms of their methods. You're attacking the version of me from freshman year of high school.
And this is still mostly tone trolling. Understand something: I am a "values" woman. I searched for, and found, universal human truths, moral facts if you will, and the fact that they supervene on humanity rather than being God-breathed Platonic entities does not make them one whit less real. And no matter whether it's Billy-Bob Cornshucks with more toes than teeth or that creepy pedarastic vampire Peter Thiel, they are both elevating things (whether ideas or material things like wealth) above people.
This is the moral equivalent of a priority-inversion glitch. The economy was meant for humankind, not humankind for the economy. Ideas are objects and people are subjects, not vice-versa. And this kind of ass-backwards thinking has gotten so much volume, so much momentum, that it could very well spell the downfall of civilization. Worse, we've used up almost all the "easy energy" in the form of hydrocarbons already; if we really fuck up, we are *never* going to rise past the Iron Age again.
And the large mass of willful idiots, who think politics and metaphysics both are team sports, are gleefully cheering the ship as it goes down sinking, thinking that because they're not in steerage they'll stay afloat. What can be done with people like this? Nothing will convince them. I've seen better men and women than myself try and fail, over and over and over. If nothing works, there is nothing to do but curse them for their role in this.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 29 2017, @12:49AM
"You're attacking the version of me from freshman year of high school."
I'm not attacking anything. I'm trying to help you here. I see you expending so much energy counterproductively, and so I try to help you understand where it's not working, and why.
I'd also dispute that your adversaries are necessarily elevating things above people. Sometimes they're passionately involved in activities such as charity - they just disagree with you on what would benefit people in general.
As for the ones you call "willful idiots" I can only suggest that if you try, you might reach them, but if you curse them, you most definitely won't. In a sense, you're presently the architect of your own failure.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 24 2017, @10:39PM
Sorry, there is no Popperian "get out of jail free" card for being a bigot. The problem with your narrative is two-fold.
First, there is no sense of degree. Someone has their "intolerant" bit switched on and you thus, have your own intolerance bit set. There should be nuance - more concern about the extreme acts of bigotry rather than the piddling and often imaginary microaggressions. But it's all treated the same, as some sort of religious sin that is equally bad no matter how little is exhibited by particular out-groups.
And of course, that last term brings us to the second problem - ridiculous double standards where bigotry from one group (for example, white males) is widely criticized no matter how small or imaginary it happens to be, while bigotry from other groups is roundly ignored (for example, black males).