RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive454

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, (new)(back)

Conspiratards in comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvNLvheMhqs Are these fundie conspiratards serious? All they do is claim that Lebron is Satan worshipper. They got info from some obscure conspiratard website and now make their conclusions based on this. When somebody expresses a different opinion, these conspiracy idiots play mental gymnastics to make themselves right, like "You are blind to see the truth". And most of the comments are like this. And most of them want Lebron will fail or be punished by God, instead of praying for him to be redeemed or forgiven by Jesus. How Christian of them. 🇷🇸 Serbian Arbiter (What would you have your arbiter do?) 11:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I have not seen a comments section quite like this. Scrolling through newest, there’s some funny ones and some deranged ones. I feel like, that in the end, these nuts’ll contribute nothing to the discourse. People have said things like this of other celebrities. Alastor (talk) 16:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, people have gotten weird about celebrities for eons. In this case, however, a Google search seems to indicate that 4chan (/pol/ and /b/) played a role in spreading this video. So apply shitpost filter - probably some of this is real and probably some might be for the LULZ. (Also a touch of racism too, perhaps, given the source? Who knows. What LeBron James did was far less weird IMHO than a relatively recent video where a bunch of fundie Arizona senators were praying over a state seal and speaking in tongues, in the hopes that abortion would be made illegal. Without context, you'd think that was some "Baphomet" shit...)

Ironically, the subject of LeBron James' weird "tribute", Kyrie Irving has also been a conspiracy theorist nut from time to time, getting into Black Hebrew Israelites bullshit for a time, and even briefly spouting flat earth conspiracies. BobJohnson (talk) 17:11, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

That is a very very worrying video, concerning the Arizona court. Days like these make me wish we could go back to radio…Alastor (talk) 19:00, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

it's the same weirdness that JK Rowling's political takes embody. It's never Baphomet, it's always Mammon you esoteric weirdos. Torrent (talk) 03:44, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Vegan Argument Bingo

I think there's a bingo card missing from the list here [1]. Let's collect the many faulty arguments the radical animal rights and vegan community constantly uses in arguments to "prove" their many faulty points and force a person to become one. Just saying. Fun:Vegan argument Bingo TheEternalOutsider (talk) 05:35, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I am not a vegetarian, but I do try to work one day a week into a vegetarian, hopefully vegan, diet. Not because I believe in it, exactly. I haven't fasted on Ramadan yet. No cheese, no butter, let's talk about by what you can eat if you want to moonlight veganism. Not all tourism is bad. Torrent (talk) 09:14, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I am kind of curious how exactly Eternal determines what is and what is not a faulty argument, and if they realize it often has very little to do with the actual position that an argument is being made from. You can just as easily make a meat-eaters bingo, I don’t think there exists a single diet or lifestyle without it’s fair share of common yet technically fallacious arguments in support of it. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 09:20, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The issue is the legions of sanctimonious nutcases like PETA, Vegan Gains, Forks Over Knives, Kishna, and countless other shills and influencers. Whom all seem to get impunity for their behavior more often than not. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 09:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

but that’s just nutpicking isn’t it? It’s also a guilt by association fallacy to take that veganism is somehow morally incorrect or intrinsically based in faulty logic, solely because some vegan people and organizations do immoral things. I know plenty of vegans who hate PETA. You don’t have to tolerate PETA, or Vegan gains, to decide you don’t want to consume animal products. Also nice dodge to avoid having to give an account of what makes am argument faulty. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 10:22, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Beyond that, shouldn’t we have this discussion? It’s about time, right? Recently I tried some vegan food again, and it’s getting better and better. Vegan is just a diet. There were lots of hippies starting fundamental discussions who were into new age stuff and mysticism. The magic pseudo-science associated with it is pretty predictable. New world (talk) 11:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The bingo cards on this site are in general "nutpicking". One can enjoy certain "New Age" things (like yoga or soothing music) and still get a kick out of the New Age bingo card, which targets the more kooky "mystic / esoteric" side. Same with the conservative bingo card, which in general targets the populist pundit-generated hot air, or the politicians (hi Ron DeSantis!) that largely spout such whargarbl. Conservative-oriented arguments certainly exist that don't stoop to such trite stuff. It is also possible to make a bingo card out of, say, environmentalism or anti-fossil fuel movement excess while still maintaining positions that yes, one needs to treat the environment better and also reduce fossil fuel usage in light of climate change. As one of the purposes of this site is to document cranks, you're going to find some nutty stuff here. And fad diets or shilled diets are full of cranks (vegetarianism/vegan is not a fad diet mind you, but it does have some "overenthusiastic" shills that adapt crank positions around it). Certainly you could make a "bingo card" of some of the carnivore diet / low-carb diet fanatics too. BobJohnson (talk) 13:47, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ While I don't think by any means that veganism is inherently cranky, I do think that a bingo with the worst arguments used by vegans could be fun. Yes, we would be strawmanning and nutpicking vegans, but I feel like this is true to many bingo cards we have. It's not like fun space has very high standards. Heck, a carnist bingo would just be as fun. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 14:04, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The problem with veganism is the incompleteness of the diet (lack of B vitamins etc) and the tendency to 'my way or you're doomed, I tell you, doomed' (Dad's Army Private James Frazer reference). Also there is an element of 'slap the word vegan on a product and up the price' commercialism.

The human body can cope with a wide range of diets from 'carnivore and proud of it' to 'the various flavours of vegan and vegetarianism' end of the spectrum (including seasonal and other choices, and health aspects) and people can enjoy prepared foods which are vegan or vegetarian options, without considering it an issue. Anna Livia (talk) 00:08, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Over-consumption does exist, and over-population potentially too. We shouldn’t forget about that. And yea, Bio and vegan food costs too much, and that’s not changing in the near futur. Electric cars cost a lot, result: Europe is discussing if it wants to block the Chinese E-car market, because the low-prices of Chinese cars "hurt the native market", full of overly expensive cars. In the end, doing stuff for the ecology without economic considerations, like getting the prices up because 60 year old Harold from Kulz needs to finally stop destroying the planet, or banning gas-powered cars, is not going to have the same effect as, say, forcibly getting the prices down just to save the climate. Because, contrary to what those right-wingers might believe, Harold and his wife don’t really care that much about politics, they might have some questionable opinions here and there, that’s all. If it helps the climate, if it looks good, and if its just an upgrade from what he has now, Harold might as well get that E-car. New world (talk) 01:38, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The incessant preaching and rhetoric on par with Christian fundamentalist missionaries is the main issue concerning veganism, in which said vegans hawk their beliefs as if it was a panacea. And it is still a major facet of woo in the health community, leading to the occasional schlockumentary that pops up again and again which rejects science and cherry-picks or fabricates studies just to push that panacea narrative. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 04:30, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I am not even vegan but I feel that carnists are just as preachy. I lied about having a meat allergy for years, just because I didn't want to deal with people getting super fucking defensive about meat. Some people will sing its praises until their face is blue, I have been on the receiving end of that, and it's like listening to the sort of individual who is way too defensive about their porn consumption. The whole panacea shit comes about with "carnivore diets" and weird woo regarding raw meat, as well. The problem is with general misinformation about food, which comes from various diet fads and lifestyles. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 07:00, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

If anything, I'd want to see those quacks all get deplatformed. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 12:57, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

New Bingo Proposal / Fine Tuning

Maybe I'll broaden the scope to something that could work a lot better. Perhaps these Bingo cards, Fun:Hard Green Bingo and Fun:Food Woo Bingo, would work a lot better for what I had proposed rather than focusing on one narrow point. TheEternalOutsider (talk) 08:49, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I know bodybuilding and gym vlog is actually big right now, so going from vegan to general food woo is somehow more difficult. Hard Green is also tough because, well, nobody is paying attention to the nutso bonkers hard green. Like, where you are getting your laughs are maybe not where ratwik would like to spend their time. Can you start either page yourself, like food woo being all carbs are bad or something? I don't have any idea how to contribute to this. Torrent (talk) 05:51, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

What makes veganism especially "nutty" compared to other diets? People here complain about preachiness, but the irrational hate of veganism itself comes off as a little preachy. It just seems like this complain has more to do with style than substance. Almost nobody here is taking up the actual arguments presented by vegans for veganism, or if they are they're simply nutpicking and ignoring the crux of the issue, or that veganism is not a monolithic entity. Ethical veganism is a separate beast from purely dietary veganism. I don't know, this is just hard to take seriously. Carthage (talk) 23:28, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

The issue with some vegans is indeed absolutism and preachiness, but as you say, that's just as true for some carnivore diet absolutists / preachers (or a lot of other "human" things, diet or otherwise, shall we say.) I don't think anyone in this thread so far has dismissed veganism out of hand. I do think that veganism is more wrapped in morals / ethic questions than vegetarianism, and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with posing the questions they do, moral debates are always going to get "touchy". As long as people respect other people's opinions, though, no issues. The loudest mouths on the issue often don't, though (this is as true of vegans like Morrissey as meat-only promoters like Jordan Peterson). BobJohnson (talk) 00:07, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

As much in mush, I would like to point out that I am for an entirely renewable resource energy grid. A lot of people are clearing their understanding and agreement with veganism, so it made sense to do that. The trouble with Hard Green and Veganism is clearly not the points they are making. Torrent (talk) 05:47, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

If the points are sound, what makes it nutty? Keep in mind "hard green" can mean a lot of things, some more repulsive to those of liberal or leftist sensibilities than others. I doubt we would be saying that ecofascism has any merit to it. So I don't view "hard green" as being a really useful term to overgeneralize about. Carthage (talk) 05:58, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Because the nuts don't make sound points, and they don't consider any other viewpoint but their own (often whacky) position to be correct. For instance, Morrissey once proclaimed that eating meat is comparable to paedophilia and the horrors of Auschwitz. Any conversation with him on the vegan topic is a obviously a non-starter. Most people do eat meat, and most people's moral qualms about it range from "some" to "none". Morrissey's s moral high-horsing and extremely stupid hyperbole is incredibly unhelpful and will change very few minds; instead, he has become one of the poster children for those of the (overgeneralized) opinion that vegans are intolerant pricks. BobJohnson (talk) 13:46, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I was responding to Torrent's comment that "the problem with 'hard green and veganism' is not the points they are making." Carthage (talk) 23:57, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

OK, so let's dig in. Veganism mitigates harm to larger animals with complex brains, like cattle, hogs, sheep, goats. It would redistribute farmland away from high water crops that humans don't get a lot out of eating themselves, like corn and alfalfa. Corn is also ethanol, so that's not going away. Veganism and a big yellow corn cob are not healthy partners. Alfalfa is a legume, and we don't eat the bean? because it is a cover crop good for grazing. Peanuts and snap peas are legumes. The role of a cover crop is to absorb minerals and then be tilled back in to the soil, damaging the matter and making those minerals and proteins available for the next plant to pull in via osmosis, which we all remember. So the amount of water put into a cover crop that is both valuable grazing and mineral sequestration, I absolutely have no clue if it's worth the water. A chicken can feed a few people well, a cow can feed a lot of people. I think there is a lot of confusion about feed conversion ratio and how it relates to consumption. Every pound of meat that goes in the trash because it was not sold or consumed does not correlate to every pound of meat produced for market. I would say, in order to farm this meat, it is very likely that every pound of feed is closely monitored as an expense. So altogether, the waste, like any production model, comes down to the consumer, but it is also not the consumer's obligation to change the production model. Producing hormones costs less than feeding livestock that aren't super jacked on steroids, but I can't imagine a world in which the cash production of feed increases despite which animal it is fed to. I'm saying the price for wheat, corn, and alfalfa doesn't change in line with beef and pork. Part of it is subsidization, but that seems backwards in a sense. You must be paid to keep feeder crops low so livestock returns can fluctuate delicately at the whims of consumers? Nobody is eating ethically sourced, and I'm not saying everybody can raise their own chickens or have a potato patch. I'm not even saying the US agricultural system is broken, (although it is a little silly in the 2000's to screen every vehicle entering California for specifically a fruit or vegetable), I'm saying it's complicated. Veganism on moral terms is not, really, and I accept my damage every time I buy meat. There's not really any other way for me to do it. Torrent (talk) 07:19, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Running Slowly?

Salutations, good to be here. Has anyone else experienced any lengthy wait times loading pages here, or just me? I am precisely sure it cannot be my computational devices responsible for the… pause. Looking for the input of another soul. Alastor (talk) 21:04, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I been experiencing this same thing, only for Ratwiki’s recent changes page, as of recent, but seemingly only on my phone. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I see! I get the iffy signal especially trying to browse random page and recent changes. The chromebook in my possession loads slow on everything here but not elsewhere, and so does my phone. Is there any underlying cause established? Alastor (talk) 22:38, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Easily the worst for me is the WIGtW page. The others will load fine, and that one will take up to a min (and its just a blank page and it looks more like nothing is happening then anything "slow")Revolverman (talk) 23:23, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Slow load times have made me lose a few edits. Carthage (talk) 23:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Intermittent 'slow times', both on phone and PC. Too random to be really predictable, and it's not like RW eats bandwidth.

But perhaps RW is not alone... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxrz350qyy5o

KarmaPolice (talk) 10:15, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Me too. Constantly. Every page. So far it’s just a few sites, including this one. New world (talk) 10:24, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘This issue was raised 10 days ago on RationalWiki:Technical support#Is it just me or is the searching function getting slower? Best guess was that is another DDoS attack. As to the BBC article, that seems to be pertinent to websites going down, not slowdowns. Bongolian (talk) 16:58, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The crux of the BBC's argument to 'why' was basically 'the bones which hold our online world are a lot frigging older than you'd think', which could also account for degrading performance issues as well as shutdowns. I recall this issue happening quite a lot with UK banks in the '10s; the main culprit was their 'bones' were from the 90s [or even the 80s] and as they demanded zero interruption of service it had been modded/patched up to hell since to the point they'd become a virtual massive 'ball of wires' with near-zero documentation. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:26, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I have no clue who or why but apologies have to be made.

If you can say you're sorry ONE TIME, you can go back to eating each other alive. You will henceforth agree to the term "agreements are self evident" and start by agreeing with one point in an argument, the easiest being a mutual apology. I turned down a mod sponsorship. I think we can do this. Torrent (talk) 03:57, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Not sure what this is about, but please sign your posts. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 12:42, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Added Torrent's signature for them. Nowhere Man (talk) 18:05, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Judging by his post in the Social-democracy - Socialism section, I trink he‘s saying that we‘re all total morons. New world (talk) 22:27, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe if I knew y'all better, haha, but no. I'm calling you baselessy contentious. Thanks for signing for me, that's a bad habit of mine. Torrent (talk) 07:27, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I think I've discovered a cult on Reddit

I was scrolling through Reddit recently, and I happened to stumble across a sub called r/alphanumerics. From the looks of it, it appears to be a weird community run by this guy, Libb Thims (u/JohannGoethe), who has some very... out-there ideas related to science, language, and many other subjects. On r/alphanumerics, he talks a lot about his own fringe theories related to Egypt, but he moderates a bunch of other subreddits, as well, and there's even a whole network of subreddits that are related in some shape or form to his website, Hmolpedia, which claims to be "an A to Z Encyclopedia, or 'cyclical 111', of Human Thermodynamics, Human Chemistry, and Human Physics, aka the two-cultures disciplines". I also discovered that Thimms was banned from Wikipedia over a decade ago for promoting these theories, and really, there's an entire rabbit hole you could go down related to this guy. I don't even know where to begin with his weird theories, and the fact that I haven't seen anyone else talking about this is concerning, to say the least. 131.194.202.106 (talk) 01:03, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

A) One of the ways you can spot a certain sort of crackpot is if they constantly brag about their purported IQ scores and how much of a genius they are. (See: Scott Adams) In real life, no one cares, it's all about the results. Libb Thimms proudly boasts of his purported 225+ IQ, multiple times, ^{[citation needed]} be damned. That certainly sets off the ol' "crackpot alert!" sensors.

B) The Google scholar reveals no citations for Libb Thimms, other than his self-published "Journal of Human Thermodynamics". There, using HUGE amounts of technobabble and a whole bunch of non sequitur, you will find a lot of strangeness. Examples include a paper on "thermodynamic proof that good always triumphs over evil", and an entire paper whose premise is to garble the first law of thermodynamics (a part of this is, of course, thermodynamic work) to occupations (e.g. human "work").

The summary of the later seems typical in the weird random nature of his papers - "gamma ray photons" and "structural changes in octet rule bonding stabilities of these CNS hydrocarbon molecules" "motivate" the "human molecule" in order to transmit "the mechanical equivalent of heat in the varieties of occupation, human endeavor, otherwise known as 'work'". Huh? It's obvious this guy has read a lot of "sciency" things, and it's also obvious that this guy has little if any comprehension of the "sciency" things he read. So you get nice touches in his papers like a random diagram of various unsaturated fatty acids appearing for no reason.

TLDR - Internet crackpot, move on. I don't think this is a cult, it's more one of those wonderful examples of "Internet scholars" you find in the 'tubes from time to time. BobJohnson (talk) 14:35, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Gamergate 2 (continue)

Sweet Baby Inc Detected curator launches DEIDetected websiteJohn123521 (talk) 02:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Spud is remembering his sister

Long term users would have known this was coming. Tuesday 30 April 2024 would have been my younger sister's 48th birthday if she hadn't died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 42. As usual, I will be marking the event by having a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar because I will always remember how much she enjoyed our Saturday treat as children. And, yes, on her one trip to the United States (to New England) she adored the hot food and ice cream at Dairy Queen. Looking at their current menu, I think my sister would still have a cheeseburger meal deal with a strawberry sundae. But it would be great if you could do something, anything, to celebrate the all-too-short life of someone whose favourite film was Back to the Future and who enjoyed all of the trilogy to some extent, who loved the music and fashion of the 1950s, who loved Looney Tunes, the films of the Disney Renaissance and all stop-motion animation, who loved Asterix, who loved new British comedy shows of the 1990s, who loved old American sitcoms of the 1960s (The Munsters, The Addams Family, The Beverly Hillbillies, Mr. Ed, I Dream of Jeanie), who loved all things pink and girly and said that if she were a man she'd definitely be gay, who loved her friends, who loved her husband, who loved her daughter, who loved life. Spud (talk) 14:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

This is the sweetest, saddest, most amazing thing I have seen today. I hope you feel better. Koafox (talk) 18:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The local Dairy Queen just opened for the season, and as I'm a lifelong New England resident I'll stop by. I'm glad that my native New England could be a positive memory for someone, and know you're always welcome here too. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:31, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I’ll hit up a DQ, Spud. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 05:37, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I will do a DQ run tomorrow. A cone sounds about right, right about now. Torrent (talk) 05:23, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Internet...... stuff

I recently heard about an internet thing called "cats in blenders". there isn't a Wikipedia article about it (that I could find). does anyone know anything about this? Koafox (talk) 20:12, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Try Know Your Meme if you *really* want to know. Parts of the Internet are really shitty places. I prefer the parts that are nicer, devoted to things like cats in boxes.

BobJohnson (talk) 20:58, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

There's these lovely picture shows and photographs of cats in fish bowls! Exceptionally delightful imagery.`Alastor (talk) 02:21, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I am thoroughly allergic to cats, so I know one of those cats is sTaring through the photograph, sussing me out in order to sleep on my neck. Torrent (talk) 05:28, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

r/LeopardsAteMyFace

One place I have found enjoyable and a great place for news articles is the Reddit feed r/leopardsatemyface. Thoughts? Euromec (talk) 19:12, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

None. Enjoy it while it lasts. New world (talk) 19:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Wow, that’s actually pretty solid. It’s still Reddit though, but solid. New world (talk) 19:18, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I definitely enjoy that community. Luigifan18 (talk) 22:57, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

It's an interesting read when posters keep to the theme and rules. Unfortunately, of late far too many posts are less LAMF (as the term goes there) and more generic "Ha, ha, conservatives is so dumb". (It's not even a left-wing subreddit as such, rather the left rarely engages in true LAMF behavior.) Kencolt (talk) 15:30, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Rising authoritarianism in Israel: This is what will probably happen if Trump gets 4 more years in office

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/palestine-gaza-israel-hamas-west-bank-benjamin-netanyahu-freedom-speech-4277876

Israel is arresting critics of the war efforts in Gaza Strip. I still say that this is a modern rendition of the Vietnam War. Authoritarianism, police brutality and anti-war protests. --Trans Fem Agenda 11:30, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure the two are exactly comparable. The Vietnam War was a military occupation in furtherance of American empire, whereas this conflict is the continuation of a century long project to demographically replace the pre-Mandate population of Palestine with a Jewish majority. Likewise, I'm not sure how popular the Vietnam War was overall, but there is definitely significant support for both this current conflict and the long-term end goal of a Zionist Palestine. There is definitely increasing dissent over this war, but I'm not sure how much of that dissent has to do with rejection of the Zionist settler colonial project itself (which this war is the continuation of) and more how this war is being conducted. Israel will continue to occupy Gaza regardless of how this war ends, whereas the end of the Vietnam War saw a withdrawal of military occupation. Two fundamentally different situations at play here. Carthage (talk) 16:07, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

It's a bit difficult to really find a direct historical analogy for this, but I could imagine it would be like Americans protesting say, the Mexican–American War or the annexation of Hawaii. The thing which really needs to be noted is that Israel has morphed into a 'garrison state' where the majority of public opinion supports policies which can only be described as 'apartheid-like'. So the best analogy is of white South Africans protesting in the 60s-80s. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:06, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Funny thing is there were Americans who protested the Mexican-American War. Henry David Thoreau was among them. I'm not so sure if there was anyone who protested the annexation of Hawaii, but that reflects more a lack of knowledge on my part than any statement of fact. Carthage (talk) 23:30, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I hear that the Biden administration is trying to push the Israeli Saudi Arabia Normalization Agreement as a base for a State of Palestine. However Israel probably ignore it. --Trans Fem Agenda 23:32, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't doubt there were people who'd protest about those, Carthage. I was mainly pointing out that they're somewhat analogous to those events [at least more than the Vietnam War]. There were also whites who opposed apartheid within South Africa. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:32, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Thoreau was a misanthropic antisocial curmudgeon, which should be obvious to anyone wondering why someone would spend a year or two alone. I don't really care what what his stance on international politics was. CorruptUser 06:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Cory announced, as if anyone asked. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 20:36, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Is Trump going to win?

With Biden being hugely unpopular, might we start seriously asking ourselves if Trump will have his 4 years, and what they could look like? Can Trump even realistically win, something he’s never done in his entire career (with the popular vote)? And if Trump passes the popular vote, is the electoral college trustworthy to at the bare minimum keep democracy safe when it’s defenseless? New world (talk)

National votes seem to favor Biden, however, when it comes to specific states, Trump seems to have the edge, especially when Kennedy and Cornel West are thrown in the mix. Patty Pat 18:13, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Biden is not hugely unpopular, and Trump has not won a popular vote and never will. Biden follows in a long line of moderate democratic presidents, and he has presided over a relatively good economy despite all the right-wing distortions of reality. Why all the dissatisfaction in polls? Americans today are spoiled rotten on both the right and the left, though the right has gone completely overboard in support of Trump lunacy, while the left looks in vain for a partnership with Republicans. It's funny that many people think it matters who the president will be as opposed to which party can be trusted to do what is best for American interests and the general benefit of Americans. I fully expect Trump will be soundly defeated. He should be in home detention at Mar-a-Lago by November, or somewhere in Russia. UncleKrampus (talk) 18:28, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd say it's a coinflip at this point-you see Trump leading in some polls, Biden leading in others, and in either case their lead is within the margin of error. Of course, this dynamic resembles 2022, when a lot of people thought the GOP was going to have a good year, but the truth turned out to be a lot more complex.-Flandres (talk) 19:18, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@Patty Pat: According to what I’ve read Kennedy is more attractive to non-voters than to the GOP or dem base. I could be wrong though. Biden is economically a rather Clinton-type fellow, though he’s changed some of that to counter Trump. Are there any studies on Kennedy’s electorate (aside from being tin foil people)? He seems important, hovering at around 10 percent in the polls. New world (talk) 19:26, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Anything is possible. But at this point, I'm giving Trump 3 to 2 odds of winning. CorruptUser 20:00, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Polling is not meaningful for the general election at this point. Rump is getting crushed in the courts. A criminal conviction might turn non-MAGA supporters off enough to stay home. Bongolian (talk) 21:08, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

There is also the unresolved issue of Palestine. Biden isn't very popular with Muslim or Arab voters right now, for very obvious reasons. There is also a growing movement within the Democratic electorate to vote uncommitted, at least in the primaries. Whether or not this will hold over to the general we will have to wait and see. Carthage (talk) 21:28, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The flip side is the noticeable "post-Roe" bump towards Democrats seen over the last several years. It all factors together to be a "coin flip" in my mind, I'd actually give perhaps a slight edge to Biden due to pro-choice enthusiasm, but "only just". Palestine is a pretty big wildcard IMHO.

The "horse race" narrative from the media, even the mainstream outlets, was truly awful in 2022. Pundit after pundit predicted a Republican wave, even if polls didn't really support that. I suspect similar "pundit hot air" this cycle, unfortunately, there seems to already be this "Biden is doomed" narrative floating around despite an essentially tied race (by the polls, perhaps a small Trump edge, but no more). Liberal media my ass.

Polling itself has gotten a "bit shakier", due to:

A) The emergence of a ton of partisan polling outlets, or worse, garbage polling outlets that simply PIDOOMA numbers, over the years.

B) People not answering random phone calls anymore to the ton of garbage spam that pollutes the phone. This hurts even the good pollsters.

From my perspective, this means that I have "less confidence" in the polling "confidence interval" (or what is reported as the "margin of error" in polls). In statistics, sampling a population only works if the sampled population is actually representative of the whole population. I'm not *cough* confident that they can get that nowadays. You can probably predict the result if a good pollster shows a very high lead, but all these "Trump leads by 2%" polls mean nothing to me, or maybe even a fair bit higher than that (either way) due to the problems in the polling industry at the moment. BobJohnson (talk) 23:12, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

In my estimation Biden needs to lead comfortably in polling if he's to win — remember it's the electoral college that counts at the end of the day, not the popular vote. In 2020, third-party voters preferred Biden over Trump by a good margin, and if he could recreate that this year, that could be key. I've assumed for months that Trump will win the election this year. Something that gives me pause about it is just how strangely unpredictable US politics have gotten. I would tend to assume the worst, take nothing for granted, but be open to a real possibility of success. Biden is apparently preferred among supporters of Nikki Haley by a surprising margin, which could be a key element considering how many voters she got in the Republican primaries for some states.

But those are crossover voters, and Biden has also risked alienating some of his own base on some issues like Israel, or immigration. His lean into reproductive rights is probably savvy, as a significant chunk of voters are concerned about that, but as always, economy is the king of issues. If I had a line to the White House, two things I would recommend they talk about more would be specifically Trump's stolen classified documents case (some polling indicates this is the case that repels voters the most from supporting him), and also issues of pollution e.g. Trump's repeal of federal rules preventing contamination of drinking water. Chillpilled (talk) 23:47, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

People working themselves hard to convince themselves someone who's lost 90% of their "thumbprint" candidates since 2020 and is doing worse since 2020 is somehow gonna total win. Revolverman (talk) 00:50, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

That’s the danger. In 2021, following the German federal election, the media was all like: "the far-right lost a total of four percent, thats a democratic breakthrough, but let’s look out things don’t go bad", now, a war, a bunch of sanctions and an economic crisis later, the AfD is party N. 2 at 23 percent. Marine Le Pen, member of an actively fascist party until she rebranded it, is at 30 percent in polls. 30. Above Macron, the right, and the left. Polls are never really accurate, and honestly they influence election results so much they should probably be banned. But gosh, far-right pre-fascism is so damn clearly on the rise, it could take some dumb idiots in the US of A and boom. Did you see what’s happening in Peru??? Antauro Humala?!? Keiko Fujimiro? Argentina? Brazil? In Colombia, the last elections where between the left and an "anti-corruption" fellow currently in prison who literally said Hitler is his favorite philosopher (what the actual fuck?!), no danger in sight right? I could continue. Israel (sort of, not getting into that now)? Russia? Italy? Sweden (partially that one)? Austria? VOX in Spain, while not a direct danger for now, is literally admiring effing Franco! Netherlands? The entire wider West is touched. New world (talk) 01:15, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

The whole makeup of the GOP electorate is fucking strange to me, we don't want big government, we want rules, rules rules rules, except for an ability to enforce those rules and if somebody steps outside the rules which aren't regulated, law law law, but not precedent, case by case. The worst thing about the 2016 election was it got a ton of people who do not care about civics to care about politics. I do think it is still possible to put the horse in front of the cart in America. Big reason I was really frustrated and disappointed Nebraska went ruby red. The state has a unicameral, the point is to have a governing body that is actually not unified. To what end? I can't be certain, but I imagine the idea was not fascism.Torrent (talk) 06:08, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I think it is somewhat damning of "the electorate" that this *is* a coin flip race; even if one was conservative, I cannot imagine anyone with a sober perspective seeing Trump's term as anything but a disaster; at least Biden is actually *competent* at his job. It's telling that post-presidency, Trump never was in any of the ex-presidential "ceremonial circles" (even Dubya hated Trump).

Of course, it's not quite "the electorate" per se. I generally see the root cause of Trumpism as a 30+ year propaganda effort from the asshole side of the billionaire class, the ones that probably think a China-style authoritarian capitalism isn't all that bad of an idea, to get the rubes to associate "conservatism" with "patriotism" and "Godliness" etc. by tweaking at the innate racism and asshole personality etc. built into far too many people. Trump would not have been possible without Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and the like, with honorable mention to the consolidation of media like Sinclair and Salem, and of course a shout out to the Southern Strategy (where it all began) and Newt Gingrich (the pioneer of the modern GOP shitshow).

(In the same manner as Brexit, however, methinks the billionaire class pushing this ethos isn't quite going to get what they want out of it, even if "their guy" wins. So...) BobJohnson (talk) 15:09, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I think Trumpism and the far-right is using the move to neo-liberalism by the various socdem and demsoc parties of Europe, as well as some traditional left-wing Latin-American parties, to its benefit. Essentially it’s the type of populism where your program is a billionaire uto- actually dystopia- while you constantly attack the establishment for unegalitarian laws, and while associating those laws with the general and all encompassing incompetence of the "woke" left-wing. The idea is that the left is just a bunch of uneducated "woke" people who go complain to the manager, while Fox News is the final intellectual instance to cite (sadly, things having made a turn for the worst, the academic elites clearly are woke retards these days).

In the US, to many, Trump had the "outsider" effect Bernie had in the democratic base, since the democrats 'never were a truly socdem, let alone socialist, or even modern liberal (post-fdr, most democrats were very moderate when it came to the economy, and since the Clinton era the dems had been bordering on neo-liberalism) party. Trump could legitimately attack an establishment, for being economically incompetent, both for the poor, and for the rich, and societally stupid and "woke".

That and the fact many if not most Trump supporters are absolute morons, not just for believing in his contradictory rhetoric. 40 percent of the US-population doesn’t vote, which explains a lot. New world (talk) 16:18, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure the failures of neoliberalism is driving some to embrace "anti-establishment" votes, but it's comical to turn to Trump to voice your dissatisfaction. Is the authoritarian capitalism that the Republican party is drifting towards really what these folks want? There's certainly an "establishment" and "deep state" in China, Russia, Hungary, and other places with the authoritarian capitalist model. Trump, having authoritarian instincts, would no doubt love a system like that. People who brainlessly want to "blow up the system" don't seem to recognize that what could replace "the system" could be much worse for them, with an "establishment" that not only could be deeper than ever, but could also merely arrest you for speaking out against it. (And yes, there's always been a touch of bullshit in this direction in the US, but it could be far worse.)

It has been fascinating over the years to see so many "anti-establishment" figureheads turn around and end up sucking Vladimir Putin's cock, figuratively speaking. From reporters like Glenn Greenwald to muckrakers like Wikileaks to the reactionaries that embrace ruscism to a large part of the conspiracy theory scene. In other words, they aren't really "anti-establishment" at all in the end.

Of course, keep in mind that what propelled Trump to the top in the 2016 Republican primaries was actually "saying the quiet part out loud" regarding Mexicans and Muslims. Even today, per a Feb. 2024 Gallup poll, the #1 issue that is "the most important problem" is... immigration. (28%) [2] Anger at neoliberalism isn't *completely* what Trumpism is all about. BobJohnson (talk) 17:15, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I’m not saying neoliberalism is the reason for every problem facing America today, but it certainly helped Trump convince voters dependant on Obamacare to vote for him. I think I mentioned that the actual programs and plans introduced by these parties are very pro-buissness. The far-right has this tendency to pursue a protectionist persona during the campaign in order to lure voters away from other parties.

And just as a little side note, on Russia and the US of A, I am definitely not going to give wikileaks as an exemple. Let’s not get into the details, it’s not worth it, let’s simply and peacefully agree to disagree. I don’t know the development of post-assange wikileaks, but if your talking about Assange, I would have done the same. The US has a deep state, not like Hungary, not even like China, more like Russia’s deep state, inherited from the USSR. There are expansionist strategies, strategies to ensure stability, strategies to impose the US-american view on things etc. The US never goes into a conflict from pure altruism, never. And since the US won’t go into a conflict without profiting from it, the US has zero right to be "special" and play "world police". When leaking something, it needs to be important and shocking. Other, less impressive, leaks are also important, but less so than the leaks revealing how much of a jerk some politician or nation or military can be. I think Crimea should belong to Russia, unless a new left-wing government, and that’s really unlikely, gives it back. Mainly because, according to the latest (…) reliable (…) polls, Crimeans want to stay in Russia. The suffering of Kyiv does not justify a counter-attack on Crimea, since the Crimeans largely favored the transition, feeling left behind in Ukraine. Otherwise we’re entering revanchist thought, French-German style. Specifically on wikileaks, I prefer mentioning the fact that Zelensky is ruling on behalf of an oligarch himself, and banned some parties here and there, as democrats do, and then talk about my obvious rejection of Putin. Because saying Ukraine is the democracy is complete bullocks. I support Ukraine, and I condemn the Russian invasion, that’s all I can say. Assange seems to be a lefty type, and the leaks on some people and not others might have to do with that bias. You want proof that the US is not a very democratic nation when it comes tto opposition to the state apparatus and foreign policy, well, take the exemple of Julien Assange.

The US government, similar to many other governments of the western world, like Germany, decided, with Macarthy, to fight the communists, because they are anti-democratic. And they also let Nazis be. Literal nazis. And the US secret agencies are far more dangerous than the French or German ones, and they are more prone to observing allied leaders. In conclusion, in my opinion, the United States of America, for people outside the US, is should be a nation to stay away from. If only we could. New world (talk) 17:47, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

UncleKrampus (talk) 22:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Just for context a number of reliable polls from 2014 showed popular support (in Crimea) for the right of secession: [3] [4] [5]

Obviously whether or not the polls showed popular support wouldn't have changed Russia's mind, but it does add a wrinkle of nuance to the claim that the Russian annexation of Crimea was imposed on the people of Crimea without their consent. Of course, the consent of the indigenous people of Crimea (the Tatars) to rule by either Ukraine or Russia, is another matter entirely... Carthage (talk) 23:21, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Carthage, you had so many points you could have refuted, so many things you could have said, but instead, you tacitly supported New World's point by expanding the claim of "taking Crimea was okay because a poll said so". Why? And don't hide behind "I was giving context", you didn't need to help support his point, but you chose to, so now you can't claim innocence or "you're strawmanning me!".-Ryan1257 (talk) 07:33, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Honestly I have enough of this. It’s exhausting… Really exhausting. These people care more about the "fuck Russia and Russians, finally!!!" part than about the subject at hand, a dictatorship, a government, not a people, tyrannizing another people and a another questionable government. What we need now is solutions, for the Russian minority, but that’s too late now, for the Crimean Russians, for peace, for the Ukrainians, and all that while making an acceptable compromise for both the Ukrainian government, and the Russian dictator. It’s like saying WW1 had to happen because France needed revenge on Germany. It’s warmongering bullshit. New world (talk) 13:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

@UncleKrampus: Oh please, I’m not a troll. I have differing opinions from some other editors here, but not handing Crimea back to Ukraine is generally supported by radical left-wing movements across Europe and Latin America, as a way to find peace from the exterior. I do not think Ukraine can win this war. I support Ukraine, and if Ukraine is going to push back the Russians, then I’ll be happy to be proven wrong. However, Ukraine is not a clean democracy, to say the least, and Russia is a dictatorship. The Russian minority was ignored in Ukraine, which helped Putin by giving him an ideologically grounded justification for the invasion in the first place (to be clear, I am not blaming NATO or Ukraine, but I am saying that Russia got the needed ideological boost). The US isn’t the best protector of anything really, because the US has its own interests to pursue. In fact, if it doesn’t pursue these interests, and we saw a glimpse of that with Trump style isolationism, this will have effects on the prosperity in America. I’m not saying the US is a dictatorship similar to Putin, I am saying that the US is the exact same thing Russia is when it comes to foreign policy and direct attacks on the state apparatus.

Might as well call me a Russian bot while we’re at it, that’s equally ridiculous. Anyway, this is about Trump, right? We all agree on that guy, at least. New world (talk) 02:01, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Why I'm glad to see you support Ukraine. I am also glad to tell you Russia doesn't stand a chance to dominate Ukraine as long as the western alliance holds and I expect it will until Putin is killed or dies of "natural causes." "I am saying that the US is the exact same thing Russia is when it comes to foreign policy and direct attacks on the state apparatus." That's adorable and troll-like. You think that they are equals. America has been the leader of the "Free World" going on a century. While Russia presides over a failed, morbid, and catastrophic empire. Google says "somewhere between 28,326,000 and 126,891,000 people were killed by the Communist Party of the soviet Union from 1917 to 1987." You really think it matters that "not handing Crimea back to Ukraine is generally supported by radical left-wing movements across Europe and Latin America...?" Yeah, you really look like a troll. UncleKrampus (talk) 19:38, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@UncleKrampus: The USA has been nominated world leader since WW2. However, the US, with that, became the dominant superpower next to the Soviets, the sort of thing which makes nations tyrannical really quickly. The US has a deep state, that is a fact. You do realize they want Assange convicted for how many years? 140, 170, something like that? The US is pursuing its interests, it needs to. I support non-alignement. NATO is alright, if only the US wouldn’t be a part of it. Recently, US secret services decided literally spying on the UN secretary for his "positions" on Russia was a good idea. The damn UN secretary. To be clear, no nation has any special rights in any region, nation, context, continent, world. I don’t really give a damn about the US in this conflict, aside from being skeptical they support anything out of moral considerations. It’s about Ukraine, the most democratic post-Soviet state, and Russia’s invasion of it. What exactly is trollesque in my post? If, if Putin doesn’t die suddenly out of nowhere, then the little chance we have at peace lies in letting Russia have Crimea. Many Russians believe in the propaganda they see. Why wouldn’t Crimean Russians believe in it? Oh, and please, I could talk about fundamental issues with American society, but the open russophobia sometimes seen today, in connection with the Russian Government’s invasion and tyranny, isn’t a good thing. Otherwise, why not talk about the report of the commission on international religious freedom concerning France, you know, the one in favor of fucking cults. Even though the US has no special rights on France, or any other nation, not even Cuba, not even Iraq.

In order for you to understand: Either they go there, make a democratic government, spend a lot of money, and then fuck off for good, or they don’t even come. New world (talk) 20:16, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure that in your mind you really said something, but it was only Troll music. I'd say "to hell with the Russians," but they are on their way there on their own ticket. You keep talking about Assange as if anyone here thinks he is not a Russian Stooge. Russia can have Crimea if they can keep it, but they will have to continue to pay for it. I wouldn't stand near any open windows if I were Putin. Good luck with that comrade. UncleKrampus (talk) 20:53, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@UncleKrampus: Ughhhhhhhhhh. Whats others opinions about this? Your a CIA bot saying someone who didn‘t commit murder (Assange) deserves Prison for Life. The American justice system is extremely flawed. If by "comrade" you mean communist, then your wrong, I am not a far-leftist. Come on, the Crimea thing is strategic, to (try to) end the war if Russia, a nuclear power, doesn’t magically become a democracy, I morally support everything you support. American nationalism is on the rise, as I see. I won’t insult Israelis or russians or whoever else. But here are my opinions on the matter: In the end, the very end, Fuck America, Fuck Russia, Fuck China. Oh and if the next thing you do is call me a 'tankie', that is a "person favorable towards communist regimes", then I tell you that I am not a far-leftist. Assange doesn‘t deserve it, that is undeniable. Are you even a lefty? New world (talk) 22:45, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh? So you are an anarchist? Fuck off! UncleKrampus (talk) 01:43, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you UncleKrampus for putting up with this guy and showing us his true colors. These types say, "Fuck Russia", for appearances, yet they vastly prefer Russia since it's not The "decadent" US. After all, in his mind, Russia is a "reasonable" power, unlike us subhumans fucks in the US, and wants only Crimea (which rightfully belonged to Russia to begin with according to him and Carthage just because a poll said some locals liked the idea). Who cares about the fact they hostilely invaded? Rather than focus on the fact Ukraine is fighting tooth and nail to keep as much of their land as possible from being annexed, you know what New "Fuck Russia" World's main concern is? "Russophobia" and that Crimea should not be liberated or attacked by Ukraine since Russia deserves that land. After all, Russians are not Americans, they have more "nuance"! And don't let the fact Putin claims to have annexed a third of Ukraine currently and has not even once suggested letting them go for peace, but who cares? They aren't American, their actions are more "nuanced". And I won't even talk more about Assange, that fascist sympathizing, Russian lapdog who actively helped elect Trump (even tried to collaborate with Trump Jr. to become the Australian ambassador to The US). I'm legit surprised he still has stans after all he's done, though, New "Fuck Russia" World would suddenly have a more sour opinion of his lord and savior if he leaked documents on Russia.-Ryan1257 (talk) 07:33, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

@Ryan1257 and @UncleKrampus: I am a reformist socialist and support non-alignement, a break from NATO, better ties to the democratic socialist governments (who are in favor of this compromise) of Latin America (yes, even Venezuela, which isn’t constantly hated upon by those democratic governments..), a rewriting of the European treaties, a social Europe (what most traditional socdem and demsoc parties explicitly wanted previously, before some of them turning neolib!) etc. I’m neither an anarchist nor a communist. I think you got confused by the term radical, but that’s a larger debate, left-wing parties it is. I don’t give a fuck about nations when people could die from war. We need to stop this war. Crimea seceded, Russia annexed it. There was a Russian minority, to say it out loud: a minority. There are tons of minorities who, out of frustration, do stupid stuff. That never justifies xenophobia. You two are Americans thinking that the USA is obviously culturally superior, you can’t listen to criticism, you can’t even stand me answering your damn posts. Russians have nothing to do with this war aside from being largely convinced by the propaganda, but that’s manipulation, they are humans, like you and me. As to Assange, (our own article is way better than the shit your saying), he obviously doesn’t deserve prison for life!!! It doesn’t matter if he hacked your glorious computers, or if he’s a dick (you know, to an extent, he, and you, and me, we have the right to be an ass, you can’t put him in prison for that…). Let’s see how this will end. New world (talk) 10:58, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh and, I’m not nuancing, Russia is a dictatorship, with nuclear weapons, finding peace is more important than your shit. The US, on the other hand, is a democracy, where you can still change things, and which has problems even admitting it does immoral stuff (In Russia they don’t care anymore). You know, Assange deserves prison for life? Why not execute him straightaway then? That’ll teach him a lesson. New world (talk) 11:13, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Apparently "just for context, there's a little bit of nuance to the claim that the Russian annexation of Crimea was imposed on the populace without their consent, although Russia would have invaded anyway even without popular consent" now equates to a ringing endorsement of the Russian invasion. What a joke. Carthage (talk) 14:48, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Yet of all the points you could've made, you really wanted us to know the locals were "cool with it". Don't pretend the context wasn't there.-Ryan1257 (talk) 15:58, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

You have no textual evidence to support your smears. Every post you make is hypercharged with bad faith accusations of malice with weak to no evidence. This makes discussing anything with you next to impossible. Even mentioning the results of a local democratic referendum is enough to warrant accusations of malice from you. Carthage (talk) 16:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, sending troops on the ground in a naked invasion as well as hosting an election by a country known for its fraudulent elections (and conveniently excluding the rest of Ukraine) is simply a local democratic referendum to you. And I do have proof, all I have to do is look at what New World posted and the fact you swooped in to back him up on such a moot point. Context matters.-Ryan1257 (talk) 16:45, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

A referendum which multiple Western outlets have reported as being reliable. If you actually had integrity, you would concede the point that there was popular support for secession inside Crimea. Why does the rest of Ukraine matter to this point? If Chechnya wanted to secede from Russia again, would the opinion of Saint Petersburg matter? Crimea was colonized by Russia, and then Ukraine. Notice how I point out that nobody gives a shit about what the indigenous people of Crimea want? That would kind of imply I am only mentioning this for context, and don't really give a shit about Russia's legitimacy in this annexation. To that end, I also pointed out Russia would have invaded anyways regardless of popular consent. You still have no textual support, Inspector Javert. Carthage (talk) 16:54, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Regardless, I think it's a bad look for you to post when the context was from a guy who supports the annexation. It comes off as agreeing with him. Though, I'll concede and take the more charitable explanation from you now that you've explained yourself and put the matter to rest.-Ryan1257 (talk) 17:22, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with everything Carthage has said, and I didn’t see myself saying I "support the annexation", I didn’t say support or opposed, I said I oppose war, Russia, the US and China, and a lot of other things, but most importantly war. It’s about the war and the deaths, not about some kind of ideal other than peace. New world (talk) 18:25, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Where have I said I wanted Assange in jail for life? Point it to me. My contention with that is that I simply don't buy the idea that his lawyers and his wife have cooked up that he'll be in prison for over a hundred years. The US justice system tends to bundle charges together and give a rather reduced sentences rather than sentencing on each charge, especially with a crime like this. Leakers, if you've noticed, generally get comparatively small prison times and have not been sentenced to death. Plus, they can be granted clemency like Chelsea Manning was. And the fact is, all you have been doing is supporting Russia's position in the war and pretending they're more "reasonable" than they actually are. Where do you get this idea Putin's willing to pull out of all of Ukraine, have peace, and just settle for Crimea? Did he ever say that? It's wishful thinking is what it is, though not surprising considering you've come off as a bit of a loon.-Ryan1257 (talk) 16:16, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

@Ryan1257 The founder of WikiLeaks faces 175 years in prison in the US. That’s your justice system. With Russia, it’s not wishful thinking, it’s strategic. I specifically don’t believe Russia will become a democratic state in the near future. However, other nations, and political parties, from the outside (by outside I don’t mean exclusively the US, that’s unlikely) need to try to make peace, and since Crimeans seem to support the annexation, and were left behind in Ukraine, making Crimea either independent or Russian, that means proposing this, until it might work, is a possible compromise. If Russia does become a democracy, then it is obligated to give everything back, and to pay reparations.

New world (talk) 17:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

From the article:"Assange's indictment is unprecedented in the US because he is being prosecuted under the Espionage Act. This strict law against leaking classified information has never before been used to target journalists. Assange faces up to 175 years in prison". New world (talk) 18:12, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I love the smell of whataboutism in the morning.

A couple of points to ponder though:

A) While Barack Obama's administration sadly did abuse the Espionage Act on whistleblowers considerably, on this specific realm, he did, in the end, pardon Chelsea Manning, turning a 35 year sentence into a 4 year one. And, more to the point, his administration actually chose not prosecute Assange.[6]

B) Which administration did then? Why, the administration of Donald Trump, that's who! [7] Y'know, the one I mentioned of the party that was really drifting towards that authoritarian capitalism model, which would really be worse than the current state.

C) As the administration has changed, the most recent word is that Biden is considering dropping charges against Assange.[8]

So, if you are a US citizen, if Assange's treatment by the United States is a big concern, well, I hope you know who to vote for.

If you are just "stirring up shit" to stir up shit, on the other hand, you can fuck right off. BobJohnson (talk) 12:07, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

@BobJohnson: I am not a US citizen, it’s not whataboutism (I was talking about Assange, giving the exemple of Russia. The discussion was moved towards Russia, I answered on my actual point, Assange, and on Russia, and the absence of counter-arguments leads me to think Ryan doesn’t have them), Chelsea is different from Assange (yes, if you want, we can open a hole section about Assange, and talk about what I mean by that), Le Monde is a center-left newspaper, and classified as one of the highest ranking and most neutral ones in Europe, similar to the New York Times, so go argue with that journalist, and yes, I do know who to vote. I simply don’t like the treatment of Assange by some in the American left. It’s not about Assange as a person (most of you are angry on the Clinton thing, but darn it, it happened, Clinton is the ass here, not Assange. Everybody already knew Trump was an ass). It’s about Assange as a leaker. Biden isn’t the most liberal in the room, it’s not like Obama was much of a specialty in the pre-trump democratic base, he might as well be getting doubts, (that is different from, "as the administration has changed, the 'most recent word' is that Biden is considering dropping charges against Assange") but that’s really, let’s say, insufficient. He should just drop the charges altogether. Biden was Obama’s vice-president, remember? This is about justice, and moral judgment applied to law isn’t just, so no, it’s about justice, not about getting that dick to prison. It’s about justice for an individual who showed a superpower it doesn’t have the right to fuck up hard, no matter what superpower he chose, most of them are trash, if you haven’t noticed, he did something, and he is being put to prison for that something, the good thing.

The man had gotten the authorization to go to the UK by the prosecutor, so the story started bad from the beginning. If Biden does this, then my respect for him will double, if he doesn’t, I won’t be particularly shocked either. It has absolutely nothing to do with Trump. I was just commenting your initial post on anti-establishment folks.

New world (talk) 12:33, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Assange honestly is a poor hill to die on from my stance -- he seems like a shitty person, and a shitty "journalist". Some "state secrets" really should be secret (you don't need to dox, for a start), but Assange didn't care, endangering the safety of many. And yes, he's also a useful idiot stooge to Russia. I am pretty sure that he would have gotten in hot water in any country for the shit he pulled. In China, he would have been executed, methinks. In other countries, he probably would have been jailed for a bit. The United States has had an excessive incarceration problem for a long time (as the abuse of the Espionage Act shows among many other things) and what he is charged with is too much. But Assange isn't an "innocent victim" in my view, and I am not one who thinks he should never have been charged with anything... let alone one who considers him a "hero of journalism" or something like that. This, of course, is my "personal opinion". BobJohnson (talk) 13:05, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh but I agree. He is an absolute dick, a charlatan even. That still doesn’t justify the accusations and the length of the prison time. What do you think Biden cares more about, the names made public or the fact that the guy showed some USA in action? If he was in China, I would be protesting his execution, if he was in any other country, it stays an injustice. If he is in the US, I will raise my concerns over his treatment. They want him to pay. That’s what’s unjust.

In conclusion, like many people around the world, he’s an unprofessional dick who did some good. For me, the accent is still on the 175 years he’s facing, and not on his being a moron. New world (talk) 13:20, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Part 2

Is not the question, for both Biden and Trump on age grounds, in part what the Vice President Candidates' several opinions are? (In the UK 'tactical voting' is a known practice.) Anna Livia (talk) 14:46, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The useful vote for Biden is probably justified by the fact he‘s not-Trump. New world (talk) 14:59, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

We already know who Biden's running mate is and she does not really differ from him ideologically. Since Trump is obsessed with loyalty and a key tenet of Trumpolatry is that only people who slavishly obey Trump are worthy of being included in the political process his running mate will also essentially be identical to him. There is no point, then, in subjecting the running mates to any exceptional analysis, since that just puts us back where we started.-Flandres (talk) 15:25, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess we´ll find out when the results are in. Gang O' Shadow Wizards 🧙‍♂️^{Bore me} 15:22, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

A 'possibility that has to be considered' rather than a prediction. And - whoever wins, 'Events, dear boy, events' will be a factor. Anna Livia (talk) 13:09, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Israel should take this deal

https://m.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-798593

Hamas disarmed would be beneficial but Israel would have to get it's head out of its ass. --Trans Fem Agenda 12:05, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I see two practical problems with this deal: 1 Hamas could be very well posturing. ETA did something similar in 2006, just to start their attacks again a few months later, so it would need international supervision, just like what happened with the IRA. I doubt they would accept this. 2 Hamas and the Bibi need each other. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:49, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Indeed.

“” Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.

Benjamin Netanyahu Monet ^Ye 14:04, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Other problems with such a deal is the fractured leadership of Hamas, with leadership within Gaza not always having the same strategies as the leadership outside. The non-Hamas factions within Gaza (who are purported more extreme than Hamas) would seemingly need to also be on board with such a deal (Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa). Bongolian (talk) 19:13, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

The current path has so far killed a bunch of people and still didn't destroy Hamas leadership. The options: Negotiations or violence. --Trans Fem Agenda 15:37, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

"GOPisms" Over the Years

Let this topic be an appetizer to the May US Election Update topic I will post when time is right. Any "GOPisms" you've encountered over the years from the mouths of the Republicans? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 08:55, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

The current "Lee Atwater style phrase of the moment" is, of course, DEI and woke. (Is critical race theory already yesterday's news?) Since the Southern Strategy, the GOP has always needed some coded "bigot outreach" to make the strategy work. Past "bigot outreach" phrases have included "politically correct" and "welfare queen".

In the past, there was often some sloganeering for the "bad at finance" crowd to promote and disguise ruling class tax decreases, like Mitt Romney's "47% don't pay income tax" remarks. Though not in action, it does seems like there's less of that sort of rhetoric ever since the party has essentially been taken over by Trumpism... BobJohnson (talk) 14:20, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Nixon's "Let me make one thing perfectly clear."[9] and "Well, I’m not a crook."[10] The only words that Spiro Agnew will only be remembered for, "nattering nabobs of negativism". Gerald Ford's "Whip Inflation Now" which was little more than a slogan. The GOP since tRump seems to evolved from dog-whistling sado-populism (e.g. welfare queen, trickle-down theory) to dog-whistling outright fascism (alt-right glossary stuff). Bongolian (talk) 20:39, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Barbados has recognized the State of Palestine as a sovereign nation

https://barbados.loopnews.com/content/barbados-recognizes-palestine-state

I find this to be interesting news. --Trans Fem Agenda 23:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Barbados, as a sovereign nation who delivered us Rihanna, is allowed to do whatever they want. Their flag is pretty cool, too. Torrent (talk) 05:56, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

What I find sad is people are likely seeing the United States as an Israeli puppet that does whatever it wants. Not a good look for my country. --Trans Fem Agenda 11:31, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Really? I thought it was the other way around, weirdly. M-ETO sure is in a bad state, holding on to Luxemburgian tyranny in Ukraine. New world (talk) 11:38, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I doubt it's close to puppet as much as squirming. Which is also not great. I am fully unaware of Luxembourg as a power other than maybe economic. Even if it's a joke would you care to explain? Torrent (talk) 03:21, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The US is the "iron wall" that protects the Zionist state from the indigenous Palestinians they have colonized. In return, Israel is aligned with American interests and buys and uses American weaponry. Israel is essential to American foreign policy in the region. Carthage (talk) 04:36, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@Torrent: Middle East Treaty Organisation. New world (talk) 13:00, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Setting aside the 5th grade mentality about the Middle East above, given that Barbados has massive crime problem in Crab Hill and in significant parts of its capital, Bridgetown, it would behoove them to do something about that before making useless noise about a conflict they'll never have any role in. I hardly think that the PA is feeling more secure in their position now that oh my god Barbados supports them. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:08, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Carthage (talk) 03:17, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

That would be your reflection you're looking at. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:57, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

This is an I-P thread. I'll just remind everyone that due to this topic tending to result in "lively" debate, please avoid insults. CorruptUser 06:19, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

With full respect, I am still thoroughly confused about the through line of Luxembourg, M-ETO, Barbados, Ukraine and this conversation. If anyone wants to insult me for not getting it, I would take it as constructive criticism. Torrent (talk) 09:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

It only makes sense to New World as far as I'm concerned.-Ryan1257 (talk) 17:26, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

METO = Middle East Treaty Organisation: You understand? What’s your IQ? 60? New world (talk) 18:46, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The METO is a NGO who's main focus is removing WMDs from the middle east. If you're talking about the HISTORIC METO (more commenly known as CENTO), that ended before the god damn 80s. Revolverman (talk) 01:20, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

ah dang, whoops my IQ must be low. Torrent (talk) 06:42, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

@The Blade of the Northern Lights It seems fallacious to suggest that a nation state having problems of its own ought not comment on the status of other nation states. If that is the case, might as well abolish international law and politics in its’ entirety. That’s absurd. And considering we are talking about Barbados, there is something vaguely racist about suggesting a high crime rate among a black majority population should discount sociopolitical stances that come from that demographic. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 20:45, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Any racism exists only in your head. If we're talking fallacies, this is a great example of poisoning the well. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:22, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

No, it’s not lmao. You made a fallacy of an irrelevant premise, I called you out on it. Pointed to the obvious counter-argument that all states are free to criticize or bolster other states regardless of their problems, otherwise international politics would be impossible. The criticism that arguing that black majority countries can’t criticize others because of “high crime rates” has unfortunate associations with racist stereotypes about black people is just a matter of fact. It’s also a complete non-sequitur to then use that to argue “ergo, Barbados can’t say x is a legitimate state”. It’s completely unrelated logically. That is not an example of poisoning the well. Please buy yourself a book on logic and/or critical thinking. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:59, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Your attempting to drag race into a discussion having nothing to do with it gives away the game. That Barbados has a massive crime problem is a statement of fact, and has nothing to do with race. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:35, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

What the FUCK does this have to do with Barbados recognizing Palestine? Torrent (talk) 04:06, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't, the dipshit doesn't realize how the mere statement of a high crime rate in Barbados isn't the issue, but rather the fact it is being brought up as if it is relevant to Palestinian recognition (it's not). The dude wouldn't use socioeconomic inequality in the USA, or Britain's national debt to discount their stances as to whether or not they are credible in their recognition of other nation-states. The guy doesn't know the difference between merely stating a fact, and "using" facts cynically as a means to an end. He is just cherry-picking some random irrelevant detail to dismiss a particular country's stance that is inconsistent with his general hostility towards Palestinine. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 04:28, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't going to say it, but now I will; I've changed a week-old colostomy bag, so I know what I'm talking about when I say you're more full of shit than one. You have absolutely no idea what I think about Palestine, and your willfully ignorant ramblings aren't going to change anyone's policies towards Israel or Palestine, so accordingly I'll give them as much attention as they deserve: none. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:31, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Could not have said it better myself. Torrent (talk) 04:53, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Blade, I can see your edit history and see your past interactions with Carthage and others. You’re not that much of a mystery. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:14, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Tornadoes, April 26

Things I was planning to do got a little off-railed today, to say the least. Multiple super-cells for Tornadoes started ripping across the north central midwest. My mom called me almost crying to make sure I was paying attention to the weather, she is very scared of tornadoes. I do pay attention to weather. I kept radar up and tuned into tornado chasing channels. It was quickly obvious that the storms were moving too fast past my area to form in any damaging system. I got small hail, but I have a very clear southern view. About 40 minutes northeast of me, storm chasers caught up to the system, and it did a bunch of damage. I have driven through a lot of really strange weather, but watching storm chasers drive into this, man. The only thing I can say is, mostly everybody out here knows how to shelter. It's a drill that we all have been through. And the drill and the seriousness of it can't save houses, but today it saved lives. Torrent (talk) 04:21, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Being said, if you are driving and a tornado comes up, never seek shelter under an overpass. With wind that high and pressures in so low, that is like where somebody puts a finger in front of a hose. Both sides Of the split created by the overpass are going to increase in pressure. Your best move is to drive in the other direction, or keep driving, depending on whether you are in front of or behind. All wind will most likely be moving towards the tornado, so much like steering a ship into a swell, if the Wind is pounding at you, you are moving in the right direction. Torrent (talk) 04:36, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

around an hour and 10 minutes things get real and there will be about 6-8 live tornadoes. To respect a weather phenomena enough to chase it is to also respect it enough to understand the damage. Next excitement is at 3 hrs 16, 3 hours 28 is a small level explanation of finding what happens after an extreme wind event. 3 hours 31 is the next tornado. From then on it isn't much worth looking at tornadoes, but response to a tornado. These guys seem to be really eager to chase the tornado, but have a reluctant obligation to be first responders. An f-350 might have the weight and room in the bed, but it is really cool that their backups are full sized vans that can help move people and things, that clearly stay out of the actual tornadoes, but are close by for search and rescue. Torrent (talk) 06:00, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Dan Dennett R.I.P.

Idk if y'all saw (or even have many thoughts on this) but Daniel Dennett passed away this week. As someone interested in cognitive science and combatting bad metaphysics in philosophy and science, I was a little sad to see him go. I haven't read too much Dennett (mostly have engaged with him through lectures and interviews) but I am always impressed by his prose for its directness, rigor and humor. Not sure if anyone's interested but maybe we could have a little discussion here about Dan's work, how it relates to RW, what he got right and what he was maybe off the mark about. Anyway here are some random thoughts that might be jumping off points: 1) I find his approach to criticizing religion to be far more productive than Hitchens or Dawkins'. 2) I don't really know much about the details of this, but his championing of the work of E. O. Wilson always made me uncomfortable. I have very little knowledge of evo-bio so I'm sure there is a lot of useful thinking to be extracted from Wilson without committing one's self to other fallacious views, but Dennett seems to go one step further and portrays Wilson as someone only committed to the truth without the least ulterior motive while his opponents are just an ideologically-blinded horde. 3) Dennett's recent forays into ethical debates surrounding AI strike me as mostly unhelpful. He is at least sober about the prospects of developing AGI and the cult-like paranoid beliefs of some major AI people, but his suggestions for remedying the problem of 'Counterfeit People' which he argues (somewhat convincingly in my view) to be just over the horizon seem to me to be overly committed to the idea that individuals or groups targeting other individuals is the most worrisome outcome of the point when the technology is capable of producing 'Counterfeit People'. I think Dan is a little too constrained by his tendency to think of society as working approximately in the manner that liberal political theorists describe it (or at least that society is constantly struggling to realize such an approximation). Greater is the problem of this technology being used to target already vulnerable social groups and to exacerbate the issue of growing economic inequality in rich countries. 4) I find Dennett's attempts to deflate traditional theories of consciousness and eliminate all traces of mind-matter dualism to be an incredible contribution to the philosophy and science of consciousness that emerged out of the Anglo-Analytic logical empiricist tradition. While I don't always agree with the details of Dan's criticisms of those who claim qualia is real in a more fundamental way or that adopting the view that there may still be an undiscovered scientific technique or theory for the study of consciousness that will solve 'the hard problem' as we are more or less currently able to formulate it, I do find that I often have the experience of trying to come up with certain counter-arguments to Dan's points different from the one's he is already responding to and then realizing that Dan's argument was actually already equipped with a premise showing that the new counter-argument is fallacious. I think this is the mark of an exceptional thinker. FirmlyGraspIt (talk) 20:35, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Great eulogy. Torrent (talk) 04:00, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

People always feel uncomfortable when their prejudices are undercut by arguments or even bald intuitions from a mind with the kind of accreted status of someone like Dan Dennett. Philosophers decide for themselves. Us ordinary folk look to one another for approval, often in vain, and often resort to authority, because we are amateurs. It appears to me that Dennett was such an authority. One can disagree with him but the weight of many enthusiast opinions cannot overcome the intellectual austerity of his philosophy. It was not made to make others feel good.UncleKrampus (talk) 17:44, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Musk fucked with archiving tweets

It seems that Musk told the Twitter engineers to come up with a way to fuck up archiving of tweets both on the Internet Archive and on archive.today. I've compared several archived tweets made in 2024 vs, those made in 2023 or earlier. The 2023 ones work fine for the most part, but the 2024 ones consistently go into spnning-wheel-of-death mode. Sample archive from 2023:[11]. Sample archive of the same tweet from 2024:[12]. The rationale for Musk would seem to be two-fold: 1) Staunch the exodus from Twitter. 2) Enable Twitter Nazis who are doxxed to cover their trail better. Bongolian (talk) 19:47, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how preventing archiving would accomplish either of those goals. My guess is it's a side effect of an attempt to fix the worsening spam bot problem. Christopher (talk) 19:57, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

In July 2023, Twitter put a rate limit on, ostensibly to prevent spam [13] but also because Musk is pissed at competing AI firms purportedly data scraping Twitter. [14] (Why any AI firm would think *Twitter* is a great source for data, who knows, but anyways...) These rate limits might have also broke the archivist bots based on a few posts I see. [15]

While these rate limits surely have been tweaked since then (I remember back when it was first implemented, reports were that Twitter was DDOSing itself), if Musk hates data scrapping for AI, this certainly going to have the side effect of fucking up archiving bots, which also "data scrape" too. I doubt this will have much of an affect of staunching the exodus from Twitter though, which at this point seems to be a "slow bleed-out" instead of a Digg-style collapse. Rather the opposite -- these additional limits are just an additional point adding to the difficulty of using Twitter. BobJohnson (talk) 20:13, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Try Ghostarchive, or archive a mirror of a post via one of the few still-working Nitter instances. Also keep an eye on archive.today as they may fix it in a timelier manner than the Wayback Machine. But yes, it's getting more difficult. Chillpilled (talk) 03:47, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Nitter was officially ended last February. Ghostarchive works though. Bongolian (talk) 04:18, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Ghostarchive is not perfect 2 out of 3 successful archives so far on two different tweets. This is compared to Internet Archived and Archive.today, which consistently fail. Bongolian (talk) 04:39, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

There's a very small handful of Nitter instances that still work. Alternatively could maybe use some other sort of mirror like Thread Reader App or whatever. Chillpilled (talk) 07:48, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Add new article?

Should we add an article for sextortion? it seems to be a big problem. Koafox (talk) 15:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

If you feel capable of creating one then go ahead. I think it would be missional. Bongolian (talk) 20:33, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Obfuscation when dealing with spiritual types

https://pathwaytohappiness.com/about/gary-van-warmerdam/

I'm mostly drawing on the experience with the forum on that website. A lot of the people, when I try to point out how they might be mistaken on their views or ideas often seem to muddy the water rather than give positive claims about their ideas. Like someone there claimed to see entities and I said they might be mistaken and they are figments of their minds. I got stuff like "they exist as a figment and are real" (or something like that) to someone then going on about like "what does it mean to exist" "what do we mean by real", "are thoughts real", in short it felt like hiding behind uncertainty. In fact a common reply I got from there was that no one is an authority on reality, which I guess means everything goes.

Apparently the fact there are unsolved stuff like the Sabu Disk that means stuff like Polyvagal theory and panpsychism are good too (FYI I checked and polyvagal theory is discredited and considered nonsense but that doesn't matter): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabu_disk

I'm not gonna get into trying to tell them emotions and consciousness are brain stuff. I got "emotions reside in the body" and I try to tell them that the brain is responsible for those feelings only to get something about our guts. When I ask for proof of their claims I get nothing yet get asked for proof of mine. When trying to tell them stuff like the self is the prefrontal cortex and consciousness being a brain product I got stuff like how it's only a theory, some scientists think that, yada yada along with vague stuff like saying they research this extensively yet don't offer anything concrete to back it. But stuff like "integrating the heart and mind" flies there or how we aren't the heart or mind but awareness (which to me sounds like a concept and therefor is mental, in fact all of it is mental or the mind, or brains literally construct a best guess of reality based on sense data and use predictions to compensate for "Lag").

It just feels like beating a brick wall. I can't argue against personal experience. Every time I tried to bring up ideas, concepts and stuff like that to explain things broader I'm shut down by saying those are just beliefs and to tune in to my own experience. But like...dude...what do you think we assess our experience with? I even tried to get him to admit to tons of beliefs we take for granted like other minds and stuff, even asking how you know you dog is in pain when you stepped on her foot. I got "because she yelped", it was then I saw the extent to what I was working with.

It really just feels like argument from ignorance. Is there any way to get through to these people? It just seems like their argument is either "science was wrong before" or "science doesn't have all the answers" or "no one had proven the universe operates on math" (though I'm pretty sure they did), the list goes on. It's like the greatest hits of denialism.47.5.66.54 (talk) 05:11, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

No, there isn't. None is so blind as the person who does not want to see. The fact you cannot refute their arguments 100% is frankly irrelevant because if you could they'd simply ignore it and/or attack you (qv, Brexit). Coupled by the fact most people don't want to genuinely discuss topics (just state their positions). In cases like this, I simply ignore then (unless there are bystanders, in which I will merely 'make my case' and let them come to their own judgement). KarmaPolice (talk) 10:03, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Essentially, truth is just our most reasonable explanation, we don’t know if truth truly exists or not, on an objective level. Unlikely, nreasonable, irrational, unrealistic explanations are commonly called falsehoods. It’s unlikely that the world is a giant manipulation made by aliens from a parallel universe who created Jesus to start a dictatorial experiment of society, but it’s not impossible. There are people, on earth, who believe the world was made by an old grumpy fart in a garden with two nude people and an apple. Yea, really, no joke.

Tell them that truth is reasonable, and yes, conventional, and that beyond that of course we could all be living in a simulation, a dream, a hallucination, a dystopia, just, it’s unlikely, irrational. It’s a nice philosophical thought, but we shouldn’t push it too far, as we don’t really know, and can’t know, the details of that theoretical simulation, spiritual activity, deity, and co. If they continue after this, call them retarded morons, and never come back. New world (talk) 10:12, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

If an individual or group did not arrive at a belief based on reason, evidence and logic then it is very difficult to persuade them that that belief is wrong using reason, evidence and logic. You might be best served by asking them for the reason, evidence and logic they used to arrive at their conclusions and, if they are unable to provide same, then asking why they don't have these things.

Equally, if, (in the somewhat improbable event), they do have these justifications then you should be prepared to revaluate your own position.

Or, if such debates are simply too frustrating, just walk way. (Or invite them here.)Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:56, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Wait so, could someone please give the link to the forum? I would like to actually know what he’s gonna say. New world (talk) 16:13, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

The forum is a link from the site up there but you have to register to see anything on there. I can't link the forum because you need an account to view it. But I didn't really get reason and logic when I talked to them, just a lot of arguments on personal experience. When I questioned whether their experience was true or accurate I got called out for saying someone's experience isn't valid. I reigned in a lot on there but I did want to say that NO their experience isn't necessarily valid or proof of anything, only that they had such an experience. What it means requires further examination. But a lot of responses to my stuff was that "no one knows everything or that no one is an authority on reality", "science was wrong before", "are you 100% certain of that" (which is BS to me, nothing is 100% but that doesn't make you right and me wrong). In a sense it was more about casting doubt on my positions rather than proving or demonstrating their own, which is a red flag. One even pulled the Fine Tuning argument on me with materialism and said panpsychism is better according to Occam's Razor. I wanted to slap him as the Razor isn't a measurement of truth but more just like a guide. He also seemed to cite Alfred North Whitehead and Process Philosophy but I gave up. I asked him for sources on all his unsourced claims and got nothing. I even googled some and found they were wrong.47.5.66.54 (talk) 22:07, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

From poking around (if my impressions are correct), it looks like that Gary van Warmerdam at some point whisked the forum to another website called "self mastery community".[16] That's possibly a sign that the "community" has gotten a little bit too kooky and out of control for his liking. :) (Either that, or there is too much drama... maybe both).

From the Amazon bio, van Warmerdam studied with Don Miguel Ruiz, a regular on the Oprah Winfrey show and, per Wikipedia, apparently well-received by the New Thought community. My "first impression" of van Warmerdam is one who has absorbed some New Age "spirituality" stuff as far as self-help / positive thinking goes, but rejects the conspirituality and "oogie boogie" side of New Age. Still, you're basically talking about another Deepak Chopra here, in a sense. You are also talking about what is in effect a sort of religious belief, these are frankly not easy to change by conversations (actually few things are). I wouldn't even bother with a debate (particularly since this is a community of like-minded folks). This sort of New Age IMHO is sort of "mostly harmless", it's nonsense patter with a lot of feel-good mind-body-spirit platitudes. But it harms no one else, and if people feel positive about it, meh, let them have their joys. (The only potential harm, of course, is to the participant, perhaps, due to the often insane prices "gurus" charge for their "course" and any "extras"). BobJohnson (talk) 22:52, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

You might have a point, it would certainly explain the lack of evidence and how it just seemed like folks doubled down there. I can't really argue against them, you are right. I just wish their stuff didn't get stuck in my head. Like saying "nothing makes you feel because it's the beliefs and thoughts you have about the thing and not the thing itself" or "you are awareness and not the heart and mind" or "where are the feelings coming from" (the point being inside you and that you can create feelings at will with training which I doubt, even then what's the point? Just commit to being happy all the time?). There's a lot more but it's kinda mucking with my brain.47.5.66.54 (talk) 07:19, 25 April 2024 (UTC) For example stuff like this which would suggest one's life is a lie because we didn't choose these things:

The painful judgment It will make is “I’m the one making me angry”. “I’m the one making me afraid.” “I’m the one making me jealous.” “I’m doing all these things wrong.” But we say “If I feel this way, and I did it”, we’re the one with that inner critic turning its attention on us. But here’s the thing to notice, and I’ve integrated this here, is we didn’t consciously choose our emotions, in these cases. We didn’t consciously choose to be angry or sad or laugh at the joke or be offended at the joke, or how we reacted to the dishes. We didn’t choose that, in a way that wasn’t us. That was our belief system of automated programs we built in the past, with no awareness to what we were doing or the consequences later in our life.

47.5.66.54 (talk) 09:22, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I can understand your issues and your frustration - but I'm a bit unclear on your motivation. You don't seem to be enjoying your debates on the other site even though you have the better arguments and understanding. So - why are you involved? There will always be someone "wrong on the internet" - so why beat your head against this particular wall of wrongness?

I'm also unclear on your motivation for posting here. Pretty clearly we are going to agree with you. But beyond that - what is your objective?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 15:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess reassurance? I feel like if I was right and he was wrong he would admit it and stop. The quoted part there seems to say we can consciously choose our emotions but I feel like we don't? Like arguing that would lead to some infinite regress. We can influence emotions sure but it's not really a guarantee how we'll feel or what moves or convinces us. We can expose ourselves to info but that doesn't mean it will land. So I don't know why he thinks that wasn't us if the basis is that we don't control it, we don't control a lot of things about us, even what we believe. I'm just wanting reassurance of my view but for some reason I feel like the only thing that matters is what they think and whether they will admit they're wrong. I mean if I was right wouldn't that be true?47.5.66.54 (talk) 23:11, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

You said it yourself, when dealing with any spiritual or religious type, accepted by society or not, you will have to come by the fact that absolutely nothing is impossible, truth isn’t 100 %. With these types who don’t believe (we all believe in something) in reasonable and rational thinking, or evidence and effective logic, I think your forcing it by imposing your views. They won’t budge. Ask a Christian why he believes in Christianity. It’s not rational. I agree with you, but this type of need for confirmation is what drives most of these groups. You don’t agree with something, you can’t live with that thing existing, so you go somewhere else and tell us about your anger, somewhere where you get agreed with. In some cases that’s justified, and this one is one of them, but seriously, go out, touch grass, you don’t need to care. To reassure you in this, most people on earth actually disagree with someone, and most of them don’t care. Most of them don’t care about if they’re old at 50 or when therapy is appropriate for obese people. Most people just don’t care. There is a fair amount of bullshit on the internet, but seriously, a real conversation is way different from the internet, seeing a person makes you realize you don’t have to change your view, the only thing you can do is choose what’s the bullshit and what’s your truth. For them, you are the bullshit. For you, for me, and for most people on this site, they are the bullshit. They choose to be unreasonable, you can’t convince them of anything else. Discuss things IRL. They won’t change views, you won’t even do it yourself, and that’s good. All we can do is advise you to follow science. New world (talk)

That's easier said that done when I'm dealing with the aftermath of what I read on there and no one will answer questions or help. I can't post the actual article because it would be too long. I've tried to on here and it just flags it for spam. But suffice to say one of them had to deal with how "beliefs and thoughts create emotions and not the stuff that happens to us. IT's not the joke that makes us laugh, or the person who makes us happy, or the traffic making us mad, it's our beliefs and thoughts about it" and I don't know how to respond to that. It makes it sound like it's my fault for feeling bad and I have to change it and always choose to be happy because otherwise the suffering and pain you feel in your life is your fault because you choose to have thoughts and beliefs that lead to it.47.5.66.54 (talk) 02:07, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

It’s motivation, nothing else. You react to someone’s joke. I don’t see why some idiot (at least I perceive him as that) should be the main concern for my happiness. Of course you decide over yourself to a certain extent. These people tell you this to get you up, to get you going, and that can work for some. It’s the perfect exemple of the Placebo effect.

If you are experiencing depression or serious mental unrest, then a solution could be psycho-therapy. Personally, I would never take an individualist stance on something as personal, rather the opposite. It’s not really criticism on you, it’s for you, made for you, only you, for your well-being. The Me, the Ego, decides. You decide, forget the rest.

Get passed this shit. Move on. Don’t waste your time on this, it’s not worth it. New world (talk) 02:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

People often say what they want to hear. It's not always projection or confirmation bias. Sometimes, a person you respect has nothing to speak to you. The worst you could do is think less of yourself for something that has not much to do with you, the second worst is to extend that towards others. It is the joke and the person. Here comes a joke, it is ancient and I don't use it anymore, so I have to frame it out of context, but I swear it's a joke I wrote. 'Y'all see this Kaepernick guy? First, he won't stand for the anthem, now he gets free shoes? I hate this country.' Guess which side of the joke I am on. I think it is still clever, but it's a darling. Guess "psycho-therapy" didn't solve that for me.Torrent (talk) 08:13, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I’m just saying, perhaps our guest is reading these things for a reason, and in that case wouldn’t it be better to see a psycho-therapist? If the people on that site can’t get the IP happy, and if he or she needs it, then why not see a psychologist? If, that is. They have this individualist stance, and it wouldn’t be nice sticking around if this person feels offended (Again, in this situation, I just wouldn’t feel offended, they don’t mean to do that, they mean to motivate). Essentially, I’m recommending you to stay off the site, and, in case you’ve got something to talk about, see a psychologist. This site you’ve shown us, it seems, isn’t helping you. New world (talk) 11:31, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

To our IP poster. The world is full of people who are wrong. It's full of internet groups who are wrong about the age of the universe, the shape of the Earth, whether we landed on the moon, whether vaccines work - or the guys you are talking to with their woo/religious nonsense. I can understand that you may have invested some time debating with them, but not all relationships work. If arguing with them causes you more pain than than the pleasure you get from dismantling bad arguments then just walk away.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:43, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Often if you follow the logic of or the suggested logic of what they are saying you’ll realize it leads to certain incoherencies.

I.e. asking if thoughts are real. Yes, but thoughts exist as thoughts, if an entity exists as a thought, then what is the distinction between a “real” and an imagined one? If the answer is “nothing” then great! Entities are not mind independent, and they have “existence” status as imagined images of superman. They are imaginary.

But if there is a distinction between “imagined” entities and real ones, then they have to explain the distinction. If they can’t explain that distinction then how do they justify to themselves that they know such a distinction? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:34, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

The logic I was given for why it's not X or Y "making" you feel is that if it were it would be the same for all people, Buddhism says something similar. But like...nothing in reality works like that. I don't choose to laugh at something I just do, jokes work like that (well not exactly, there is some science to how humor works). Like...even if it was beliefs and thoughts everything around use affects and influences those so in a sense it stuff still "makes us" feel. Even if these people believe they can choose their emotions and whatnot they aren't, they're just acting in a way that he says is better but don't see it. It's just a different conditioned response. Everything is different and so is affected differently by different things but it's still the thing doing it...right?47.5.66.54 (talk) 04:33, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Don’t bother with them anymore, and forget all of this. New world (talk) 12:33, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

But I have to know whether what he says about that is true or not, because so far I haven't been able to feel anything emotionally since then and he hasn't been any help either with figuring any of this out. Saying that "stuff doesn't make us feel" but that it's beliefs and emotions, since then I haven't been able to really feel emotions. I've been suppressing them because it's not true that things make us feel and I can't get it to stop. So I've been looking to other people to see how they can help.47.5.66.54 (talk) 03:27, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

that is the most honest thing you can say, and you've said it well on your own. This sounds like a hard belief, something you've anchored yourself to, because it's worked. It's nothing wrong to have questions, and if your first discovery is 'I might be in a cult' well, maybe ask to Visit a Unitarian church. Or if you can, go there on your own. It's one of the oldest sects of American Christianity, I guarentee they will speak to you genuinely Torrent (talk) 07:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

New article

Hello. Left wing, previously a redirect, was recently made an article by an IP. Originally pro-far-left, I reversed that and now the bias is in the opposite direction. It still has a pretty restrictive definition of left-wing (which I agree with, I wrote it), just not as much as previously. The problem with that is that I’m not sure everyone here agrees Biden is a right-winger. Should we revert the changes, or keep it? New world (talk) 15:01, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Hm. We also used to have an article on "far-left". Why was that deleted again? Luigifan18 (talk) 16:25, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposal; merge into political spectrum. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:51, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Are you unfamiliar with or opposed to Horseshoe Theory? Or maybe that the monolith is the least empirical base to consider towards philosophy. Torrent (talk) 06:56, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I’m familiar with it, are you talking about the nazi part in the article? The IP wrote that part, I just changed some bits. Previously you’d think the entire left-wing is just the far-left. New world (talk)

I read it. It's well and fairly written. Torrent (talk) 07:07, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Rent and Landlordism in the US from the socialist perspective

I would consider myself sympathetic to socialism, but due to circumstances have found myself becoming a landlord. I want to charge an ethical price for rent, but I feel like that is almost an oxymoron. I would also like to be able to provide cheap rent to people who aren't just my friends as a public service, as I know a very low or no rent situation could be life changing for someone. Problem is I worry about someone coming in and ruining the property by being irresponsible. I am paying a mortgage on the house, but I don't strictly need income from renters (and I'm not sure it is even ethical to charge for rent in the first place). I worry that if I were to charge literally nothing for rent and open the door new tenants I would get someone who doesn't respect the property and damages it.

Background: Due to a combination of knowing the right people, having a well paying job, and being able to split rent for around 10+ years, I have been able to save enough money to afford a large house. I have been sharing rent with a buddy of mine for 8 years, and he decided to rent from me after I bought a house. I am currently charging him half the cost of utilities and $500/mo for rent. He makes an unreliable income from selling art, and I worry about over charging him because he would have to move to a cheaper state away from his support network and I know he doesn't want to do that. An important distinction here is that I don't strictly need him to pay rent, I earn enough to support both of us. He is clean enough, and so I don't worry about property damage.

Thoughts? I would really like the perspective of people who are socialist. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 12:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Desire for clarification; is this property they're renting from you part of your home or a different property from the one you live in? In short; could you 'sell off' the bit your tenant is currently living in without having to do any major construction work and/or have to move out? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:17, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I am living in the property, yes. There is only 1 kitchen which currently has to be shared, so it would require a lot of work to make a separate living space. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 14:36, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Then I would class you as a homeowner with a lodger/permanent houseguest, not that you are a landlord [or running a boarding-house].

Therefore, I argue you are 100% entitied to make sure you are not 'out of pocket' from their presence. This doesn't just include utilities, food etc but also a) a contribution for wear/tear of furniture, appliances, decor etc, b) the inconvenience of you not having that room(s) they inhabit and c) the inconveniences of having them present in general. After all, I suspect you would have an 'alternative use' for that space otherwise and your 'rights' over your property are restricted by having them there. If I had a spare room, I'd have it kitted out as a home gym/visitor room, which means if I gave that up long-term I'd expect perhaps £50 p/m for a gym membership, another £100 p/m for an fund for hotel room for the former vistors etc. I'd then factor in the 'restrictions' and cost them; again, say £50-100 a month for an 'avoiding you/third wheel fund' for where traditionally I'd invite a person home or to 'simply be alone' but can't now because said wheel is now sitting in my front room. But on the other side, you should deduct any bonuses of having them there; for example if they did some household tasks you loathe [say, gardening], are present to take online deliveries etc. As you don't need the funds to pay the mortgage and [I assume] you wouldn't rent it out to other people, you can effectively 'weight the scales' in a manner which neither side is getting an advantage of the other - you are neither 'supporting' them nor 'taking advantage' of them. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:35, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Keep the lease terms strict and be not an asshole about it. It's fine to have terms about trash, noise, and guests, it's not ok to have curfew, a person must be able to enter or exit property that they are leasing. You can screen potential lessees, but a big part of being a landlord is holding the power of the contract. So you don't want to be an unreasonable asshole? Good news. You're not sure if your lessee might be an unreasonable asshole? unfortunately, good news, even if it's a little work if you must end the lease. The best news is, most people aren't unreasonable assholes. In the states you can ask them to submit to a background search, which is crime and credit. I've done years of hiring, and in my experience, small crime without abysmal credit are really solid candidates, followed by no crime no credit. Keep the lease short, 3 or 6 months, and you won't risk the worst year of your life. I had a landlord that ran, basically a slum property, duplex was built for 6 people and we had 6 on each side. He was extremely reasonable. If something broke and we gave him the receipts, he took it off rent. We were paying 180 USD a head in 2013 AND we were allowed to be late on rent. The problem was, we had an agreement between renters that if anybody left before lease, you had to fill that spot, and a couple people filled those spots carelessly. Still, for two years, some of my best early 20s friends from that spot. Living conditions were miserable, no central air, packed like sardines, lots of noise 24\7, but the social environment was agreed upon, so we enjoyed our time. Be up front and not desperate, you'll get a good enough one. Torrent (talk) 07:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

The issue is that the OP isn't renting a property out to a person, they're renting a room(s) within their home to them. Plus, they are their friend of which they've lived together at least eight years, so in this case they are a 'known quantity' - I am going to assume that chances are, the OP would have claimed 'no room at the inn' to shake Friend off when they moved out of the rental if they'd wanted/needed to. So it would appear much of the above wouldn't really be relevant in this particular case [though would be if you'd become an 'accidental landlord'].

However, Torrent you do raise a good point; that the OP does need some form of 'exit strategy'. This arrangement won't last forever; sooner or later, the OP's/Friend's life is going to change in a manner which means the co-living arrangement can't continue. The OP says outright that Friend is not be able to afford anywhere local - this is a problem and I suspect it very well might become the OP's problem if [for whatever reason] they need the space or to sell up. So I would say this needs to be discussed; that Friend needs to use the cut-price rent as an opportunity to get into a 'better place' [financially] because OP won't be there forever. A bit of probing might be in order, such as establishing whether 'unrealiable income' is actually disguising 'insufficient income'.

I would also agree in needing to have some form of written contract with Friend. Don't need lawyers or nothing, but getting it all down on paper, signed and witnessed is wise. That while you hope you will never need it... well, you just might. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:25, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Before I signed my duplex lease, I did room with a friend. He had a small house his grandpa gave him in our old neighborhood, and I paid a third of the lease. His brother suddenly needed place to stay and had weekend custody of his daughter, so I gave up my bedroom and went to the basement. I actually liked these guys, and I grew up in tight spaces, so it didn't really bother me. I got a text that was along the lines of 'you and 'my brother' had better start pulling your weight or you're out.'. It was a stupid and offensive message, because I took care of myself, helped with anything, fed myself, helped clean up if there were group dinners, i even babysat, completely sober if you can believe it. The way I found the duplex was by asking an acquaintance if they knew of a place to live, after said text. I was so offended by my friend\landlord. A couple weeks into my new living situation, I got a big text apology, 'aY it was my brother, not you, do you want to come back?'. 'No, man.' Not inside the text was these people actually get wide eyed when I help them clean for no reason, I don't mind keeping an eye on Cool Dave (the house dog) if I did't feel like going out, and I've got an attic spot, so instead of skinks and brown recluses, I get to deal with bats. Look, with uninvited pests in your bedroom, it's quantity, not quality. Two bat fights in my attic space over the course of two and a half years versus one brown recluse on the mesh of a crib, and dozens of skinks, I pick bats. It is funny to hear about people moving to first floor apartments near tall natural grass and being horrified by house centipedes. They are the scariest looking bugs, but they are eating the eggs of everything else you don't want. Torrent (talk) 08:21, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

This is where the contract comes in. If nothing else, it means you and Friend know what each expects from the other. The relationship for the OP has changed and you're best served accepting this. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:12, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

To answer some of the questions above, yes 'Unreliable income' was a polite way to say that their income is below the poverty line (<$7000/yr). They used to be a software developer and so were making good money which they were frugal with and put into savings; meaning they have a buffer. I would rather have them living there for free then have an anonymous tenant who pays the entire mortgage and leave my friend out in the cold (I could never live with myself). That said, I would like to make another space available for a low cost as a service. You guys had good insights, and I realize that without construction I can't really have a seperate living compartment for an anonymous tenant. I think the best thing to do would be to carefully watch my bills in the next couple months to see what the cost of a tenant actually is, and charge only that. I could cap it at a particular amount stated in a contract (say $500/mo) as certain things break and need repair, in order for a tenant to have a stable cost agains't which to budget. My hope is not to make a profit, but rather to provide some relief to those who need it. That said, I'm a but cowardly and worried someone might abuse the property and ruin it. My current tenant I've been living with for 8 years, I'm not worried about their habits. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 21:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

$500 A month, man, I can move in tomorrow, I'll sleep in my tent in the backyard. But seriously, that is a good goal, and it sounds like you have great intentions. Good landlords give bad landlords a worse name. Torrent (talk) 05:50, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

There is also a way, for your 8 year tenant, to report rent to build credit. I don't know how it's exactly supposed to work, but rent paid on time. I pay a sub 10 dollar monthly for some service that adds to my credit when I pay before the 5th. This has never been a problem for me, but I despise the idea of credit cards, so I have been trying it out for a little over a year. My credit score has gone up over 100 points. It seems to collaborate my rent payments and whether they come from my bank, which they always do in my case. My credit was never bad, but before I signed up was in the 'good' score for only paying student loans back over a decade ago, and now it's telling me I am ranked with people who maintain 5 credit cards. I have zero credit cards. I have been driving and maintainting a single used car, very close to a Buick Park Avenue for about 12 years. Free credit sites, as I just double checked, are also selling me loans and credit cards I don't want or need currently. Never believed in 'pay later' myself, but this really does help me keep options open if I leave my current lease situation. If consistency of rent payments is coming out of your long term lessee, maybe look into it to help them out. I wouldn't offer it as a carrot/stick to a new tenant right away. Torrent (talk) 06:26, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

This new information opens up a new facet of this discussion which I suspected would arise; on wealth gaps/power dynamics.

When OP and Friend were fellow tenants in a rental, the relationship was probably 'equal enough' [partly becuase I bet OP was also squirreling away a lot of cash for the deposit, which means they had a current SoL which was lower than possible]. But now the disparity has become more obvious because OP has moved from being 'fellow tenant' to 'landlord', and this also means the power dynamic has shifted too [because Friend needs OP while it sounds like OP doesn't need Friend]. Even more importantly, the rented property would have been decorated to the landlord's choice, the furniture [generally] unlikely to be decent stuff etc. Now it's OP's manor, their gaff; they can do what the hell they want with it and I have a suspicion OP is going to make it nicer than the rental which will make the widening 'friendship wealth gap' more obvious.

And that could become an issue; esp if you don't consider it - remember The Simpsons episode 'Homer's Enemy'? Homer was trying to be nice inviting Frank Grimes to his home for dinner, but all Grimes could see is a fat lazy idiot who was enjoying the considerable fruits of someone else's [ie his] labour and a SoL that he could only dream of [and Homer was too stupid to consider this, ending with his casual asking if Grimes 'wanted to see his Grammy' which I bet came over as humblebragging]. Not that I'm comparing OP to Homer Simpson, merely using it to illustrate.

The other issue is that of the spectre of charity. I don't like charity [at least for other humans]. I've been on the receiving end of charity [from individuals], and while it's utterly illogical to feel this, I ended up resenting the charity-giver. And asking others who have been in the same boat tells me that feeling wasn't unique [and being told that 'I should be grateful' just makes me hate it more] - which was why I stressed 'weighting the scales', so neither is giving/receiving charity. [Though you do need to work out whether having a stranger as a lodger paying 'market rent' is actually something you would do - if it isn't, you are not 'losing' any money by having Friend in there, are you?]

The OP says they wish 'to provide some relief to those who need it' - that is a laudable aim. However, considerations do need to be made re; how useful said 'relief' actually is - is hosting Friend indefinitely really 'helping' them? If they make no moves to find a 'permanent' solution, barring a fluke all OP is doing is kicking the can down the lane. Plus, 'opportunity costs' come into play again; what happens if someone the OP judges 'more needing' than Friend turns up [say, a relative loses their home from a natural disaster?]. Which is why I said above to 'discuss an exit strategy'; not just so 'each other knows where they stand' but also nudge Friend into coming up with a solution [for example, going back to a Real Job™ for a bit to build up a lump of capital so they can buy something outright]. KarmaPolice (talk) 14:18, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

... ... ... I wouldn't rent to Karma. Torrent (talk) 04:55, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Why? If I was in the position of Friend, I would do my best that OP did not feel that I was a 'charity case' - oh, and I have been in Friend's position [Young KP could have been a better perma-lodger, but I also have to accept they weren't in the best place at that point and was given zero help to climb out of it]. I have also seen examples of where the OP/Friend situation has gotten really sour; like one situation where a near 'rescue from the streets' situation turned into a five-year stint in which this 'Friend' did fuck all for long-term planning, which meant when finally they left [by this point, an ex-Friend] they basically returned to the situation they'd been in before [They were in fact quite surprised when the other party stuck to their guns, because they'd kept on trying to the 'but I've got nowhere to gooo!' aka making their problem their friend/coliver's and expecting them to sort it out.]

Too many people [esp Anglos] seem to think that 'socialism' means 'lots of handouts' - it doesn't [or shouldn't]. And while I don't believe in charity, I do in 'mutual aid'. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:35, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I was making a joke. You've described a lot of what I've actually been through, close enough at least, with leases and sublets. I will tell another story, lucky for me, I love writing stories. I moved into a house, rent was no issue. We had to break up the expenses, mutual aid. I had a Small stipend for my work in order to have a phone and internet in case I had to be contacted for work. I said I'd cover the household internet with it, and I did. A roommate who had been living there before me was in charge of the water bill. This particular roommate started acting strangely. Like 'I think I can scry with these crystals' strange. But he was still in charge of the water, and we kinda went with it for months. One day, we did not have water. Every roommate had been handing off their money. He had been getting really intense, so I asked him myself, 'why don't we have water'. He gave me an insane explanation about trying to use the money to make more. I said 'I don't care, we need water. If I give you this check, can you promise me you will get the water back on today?' It was something like $615 dollars, I guess they let you miss some payments in this city. But I gave him the check and that day water was back on. Eventually, we all realized and agreed it wasn't some weirdo art character he was pulling, he needed some help and we helped him get it. He is a real friend to this day. Later he offered to pay me back. But I can't be charged with metering that back out to everyone that paid in, and it had been years, so whatever, I had already long since budgeted it as a loss. I don't think of it as charity. I think I actually helped someone. Torrent (talk) 05:34, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Same house, different story. The neighbors (this was a duplex) were mostly under 21 'no parents!' First time partiers, and a close friend of mine, by social terms, had found a 19 year old pot dealer to take his room. This was awful for the rest of the tenants, on my side, because a 19 year old with no parents doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. He and his friends cleaned up, statute of limitations, I bought them a case of beer as a little present one time. And then he settled in. 24/7 minors just getting absolutely stoned in my living room. The elders spoke, (22-25) and again it fell on me to make the noise. I asked if he could keep it to one piece downstairs at a time (that was slang at the time for any glass used to smoke pot out of). And he, like a sitcom stoner, said 'yeah, I just really like a lot of choices to smoke out of.' Later that week, I saw a man throwing plates in t-3 backyard, screaming that he wasn't going to clean up after children. It resonated with me, but I didn't recognize the anger. I made a calculation, and proposed a trade. it was maybe a mistake, but that dude was the Fakest, most entitled man I've ever met. He didn't have an entourage of teenagers, I guess that was a plus. He did claim he was in town to study psychology, had a a pair of obvious reading glasses, told a friend of mine that he was volunteer teaching a wrestling team only to admit he was just kidding a couple weeks later when she asked him about it. There are many more stories I could tell, he was an awful dog owner, but in the end, it came down to cleaning up.he started complaining about the place always being dirty. I asked 'then why don't you help clean up? I have cleaned, I have helped Roommate clean, I have helped other roommate clean, and I know we have all cleaned up after you. But I've never seen you clean.' And he lost it. 'I could clean this place top to bottom and in a day it would still be dirty!' Calmly, I said 'Then do it. Complain after.' Dude did not beat me up, but he did disappear. Again, being the bad guy(adult) I did have to reach out about a motorcycle that was stored in the basement. We were either going to sell it to cover his rent, or he would have to get it. I was actually the guy who said 'hold on let's give him a chance, it's not ours just because it's in the basement. So of course, I had to contact the guy, and I asked 'are you gonna pick this motorcycle up cause otherwise it's going to be sold' and I was met with 20 or so pages of 'who do you think you are' and 'if a ever see you again's. Like, cool, I'm not delivering g the message because I want to. Torrent (talk) 06:26, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

If this is about your futon, I sold it to pay the phone bill that you skipped out on! KarmaPolice (talk) 17:59, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

like, really, that was the point. rent being not hard for me didn't mean it wasn"t hard on my roommates. There was nobody who didn't want to pay their rent, that's a big part of it. Torrent (talk) 09:59, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

If you think it"S suspicious that I gave a personal loan quietly on behalf of a house of 5 guys who got their water shut off, because I quietly and directly approached the guy who had been acing weird and privately demanded red the water be turned back on, and did not speak about it to the other roommates until things got, what I considered, dangerous, you do not understand the Midwest self-efficient lifestyle. You 100% would sell a futon to pay for a month of family plan. Torrent (talk) 10:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I take it you're not a viewer of Futurama, then. I went through something similar; our cable TV got cut off 'cos the person responsible for that bill ran up something like £250 on mainly pay-per-view porn. We also got fined £1,000 by the TV licencing people cos same guy took the licence money and seemingly spent it on weed. Though that was not as bad as the jerkwad who gave the property address to a taxi and skipped on the fare - taxi driver got a couple of mates [plus bats etc] and tried to break in later. Oh, and the place got put on some kind of local blacklist which meant nobody would do any pickups/deliveries there [think pizza, takeaways, taxis etc]. Worst bit was said jerk was a visitor. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:24, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

The fuck, pizzas and deliveries? We all had cars, nothing special around here. We hosted a friend's birthday party and his car got lifted from the closest parking spot he could find. On his birthday. We had neighbors who had a crime van pull up because somebody died in their yard and nobody knew what happened. I'm sorry your cable bill wasn't paid. We didn't ever have TV, sounded expensive.

Before I moved in, a friend of mine earned herself legend status for walking in on a guy stealing a laptop, by growling 'put it down' and he dropped it and ran away. And you would look at her, and think 'no way,' and then you would get to know her, and you would think 'yeah, ok' and then you would think you didn't know her and she growled 'Put it down' and man,that's some Bene Gesserit shit, that noise does not come out of that person unless it means your life. Once I was on this stoop on the 4th of July, getting drunk on a rare day off, and two guys were walking down the street towards our local corner liquor store. One guy was shouting about probably nothing, and my buddy started just shouting. This guy in the middle of the street started shouting back, and I can confirm, my buddy said no peaceful words, he just made 'bluhbluhbluh bluh' noises and then shouted 'get out of here'. It wasn't racial, he'd probably shout the same to me. Dude did run up the steps and throw a punch. We tossed him off the stoop, he demanded a fight, I told them both no. You won't believe this, but the guy was so angry he pulled his belt off and started slapping it on the ground, and his pants fell around his ankles. people came out and grabbed him and pulled him inside. During this, I shouted 'Pull your pants up!'. My buddy shouted 'super nintendo, Sega genisis!' And then immediately asked me 'Oh shit, was that racist?'. I told him 'yeah, that might have been a little bit racist'. Not the end of the story, but again, really sorry your tv got shut down. Torrent (talk) 07:50, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

"Fir on the lung"

Does anyone remember that time when a fir tree was caught sprouting out of someone's lung? I just learned that this was an actual thing that happened. Carthage (talk) 18:10, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

CBC News has a short skeptical piece on it... seems to suggest it may have been a hoax. Also apologies if I've butchered RW guidelines and writing conventions with this comment... first time posting on the site. Long time lurker. Will maybe create an account after work today. Also edited this to be signed. Impiricism (talk) 19:14, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 19:48, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting! This means I have officially fallen for a hoax! Good lord! Thank you for saving me from the fate of actually believing it for too long. ULTRACOMFY (talk) 07:15, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I know "truth is stranger than fiction" and all, but there is no way someone's lung tissue would be a suitable substrate for a freaking tree to start growing. Fungi, sure. But a fir tree?!? How would that even…?! Luigifan18 (talk) 20:20, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

In order to initially germinate, a seed does not need sunlight or even soil nutrients... all it needs is moisture and warmth. (Humans have known this for eons, hence malting.) There is a story about a germinated pea that was discovered in someone's lungs, and it seems possibly legitimate (reported in multiple outlets).

A germinated seed however is not going to last long at all without sunlight and soil nutrients. What makes the fir story seem bullshit is that the depiction of such as a "5cm-long spruce". A germinated seed is not going to look like a 5cm spruce tree. BobJohnson (talk) 21:20, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

There should be an article about Anti-Christian bigotry

I'm not surprised there isn't one considering New atheists founded this site but considering we have articles about Antisemitism,Atheophobia and Islamophobia.So we need to make a article on this topic ←§ Reichtangle (talk) 19:19, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

In this case, I think it might be due to 'lack of expertise' than anything sinister. Christian persecution / bigotry etc does happen, but mainly in non-Christian majority nations. And RW is pretty Americancentric. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

We do have an article on Anti-Catholicism, but yeah, that's too specific. To the suggestion box! Luigifan18 (talk) 19:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

This is reflected in the Christophobia article, it focuses more on the American fundamentalist persecution complex then actual examples of Christian persecution.

There are a couple categories [17] [18] dedicated to anti-Christian bigots / bigotry, at least. BobJohnson (talk) 20:06, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Would you want to make an article that documents Anti-Christian bigotry ←§ Reichtangle (talk) 20:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Christophobia? Don’t think we need much more. New world (talk) 20:25, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

That one is about the persecution complex of American Christians ←§ Reichtangle (talk) 20:27, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm getting deja vu. Hasn't this come up before? Chillpilled (talk) 19:55, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

We do have an article on Anti-Catholicism, but even then, most of that is framed from a conflict within Christianity. Probably the biggest reason we don't have an article about it is, outside of the New Atheist history of the site, is because most of us live in countries with a Christian majority (or at least, historically Christian), so few of us have seen targeted Anti-Christian behavior. Add onto the fact that right-wing Christians have a persecution complex which coule make even legit reports in the west seem false. That said, I think it should be easier to find examples of such instances and practices in the past and present across non-Christian places in Asia, The Middle East, and Africa. Plus, the implementation of "State Atheism" programs in some communist/socialist states in areas where Christianity historically was the major religion (you could say they were anti-religion in general, but if a major focus of such a program is one group in particular, it should count). Though like Islamophobia, the major distinction should be are people or institutions attacking or intimidating followers specifically because they're Christian rather than critiquing or not following their beliefs. On a personal note, I think we need to emphasize the problems and ignorance that comes with people categorizing Christianity as "the white people religion" the same way we point out the problem of treating Islam as "the brown people religion". This racial distinction is also guilty of ignoring that religion isn't a color and that people shouldn't be considered to have a "natural religion" stemming from race and ethnicity.Ryan1257 (talk) 21:29, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

"considering New atheists founded this site" Mmmm - that's going to be "Citation Needed". The site was founded by a group of ex Conservapedia editors who were fed up by by the anti-science, Christian fundamentalism and right wing nuttiness they saw there - and this is what ultimately gave rise to our mission statements. The founding editors included both religious and non-religious individuals - though certainly those skeptical about religion were in the majority. That probably continues to be the case today.

Given the varying points of view of the first editors we initially had a massive number of lively and informed debates about politics, religion and society. Anyone doubting this can look at the archives of the salon bar itself. I can't really think of a single individual of the first wave of editors who called themselves a "New Atheist" - though at that time that description did not perhaps carry the same implications as now. You can find a potted history here.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:08, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I do agree that we need this article, but we do have Category:Anti-Christian bigotry and Category:Anti-Christian bigots, so it's not like we're super lenient with the subject. If you want to write about it, I doubt anyone will deem it as not missional. Anti-cristianity is a problem that many people face, even if it's not a major problem in the Americas (except for a few enclaves like Cuba and perhaps some regions in the US that still have to deal with anti-Catholicism) and in Western Europe. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 14:50, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

DDOS rate limiting in place - 2 reqs per second per IP address

tl;dr 2 requests per second per IP is now in force on the front end. If you read RW by centre-clicking on 100 tabs in quick succession (as I tend to), you will get a pile of 503 errors and be annoyed. But normal readers won't, so suck it up Princess.

The problem: our DDOS buddy is some fuckwit on Alicloud (a Chinese cloud provider, like AWS except Chinese) who is making repeated requests for diffs and Special:Whatlinkshere pages at multiple hits per second. These are expensive computations for Mediawiki's poor little PHP brain to handle. So the server gets overloaded and everything slows to a crawl.

The setup: So the way stuff is served here:

• all incoming requests (port 80, port 443) hit nginx on the cache server;
• nginx forwards the requests to port 8080 of the cache server, which is Varnish;
• Varnish forwards the requests to the Apache server (a different box).

I tried limiting this arse-backwards:

• first the Apache server. I couldn't quickly find a simple way to rate-limit a proxied IP. (e.g., mod_evasive doesn't work with X-Forwarded-For.)
• then the Varnish server. vsthrottle is only available in the enterprise version.
• finally, having crawled all the way up my digestive system to my back teeth, I tried the retrospectively blitheringly obvious solution of putting a rate limiter on nginx.

The solution: I've set nginx to only allow 2 reqs/sec from any given IP. Above that you get a 503 error. So if your style is 100 tab bursts, you will be annoyed. However, our load average now hovers between 4 and 12, which is between fine and slow-but-usable.

I also tried blocking all of Alicloud, but I wanted an elegant solution, i.e. one that wouldn't break the moment our esteemed dickhead moved to the next shitty cloud provider. I may tweak it further of course. So I'm letting our bozos through but slow.

Let me know how it goes!!

And in conclusion, how dare you make me think about computers, my eternal enemy - David Gerard (talk) 21:18, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Update: somehow the rate limiter isn't rate limiting sufficiently, so Alicloud can bugger off and I'll do something when they move to their next shitty cloud - David Gerard (talk) 21:31, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Have you attempted to report the abuse to alicloud? 2600:387:15:2810:0:0:0:1 (talk) 21:48, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

sure did! and I'm sure they'll give a fuck before the sun burns out - David Gerard (talk) 22:44, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Whatever you did it seems to mostly work at least for now. Assets like the site logo and stuff load a bit slower (a couple times the WIGO icons didn't load at all) but that's the one pitfall I notice. Chillpilled (talk) 23:48, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

yeah, it's a very unsubtle bludgeon. In particular, the way MediaWiki works is that assets are pulled as separate requests chained off the first request and not in a single HTTP/2 burst. I might up the burst rate - David Gerard (talk) 23:57, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that's why I was getting 503s when I was loading a bunch of RW pages while editing another. I suspected it was my ISP [who is shit] or this PC [which is even more shit]. But thanks for sorting the DDOS, David. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:26, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, David! It looks like a side effect of the new page loading restrictions is that some images don't load on first page opening for pages with multiple images. Refreshing the page seems to load the images OK. Even so, it's an improvement over the long-term page loading sluggishness. ^{— Unsigned, by: Bongolian / talk / contribs}

@David Gerard Ya absolute legend. Thank you. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 23:29, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Would it be possible to set the rate limit to something like 20 requests per 10 seconds? That's equivalent to 2 requests per second, but would accommodate for situations in which a page may load several assets like pictures. I wonder if this would even allow for reducing the effective number of requests per second, by setting something like 20r/60sec or so. ULTRACOMFY (talk) 07:13, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

update 29 April: upped bursts to 20 reqs, which should reduce the image issues a bit - let me know. I got a response from Alicloud, which is that the servers on the offending IPs didn't open in their browser. This response is of a standard such that the entire provider /16 can stay blocked - David Gerard (talk) 15:25, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Cloudflare says DDOS attacks are up by 50% in 2024 and they are growing in size. A lot of elections are happening in the world in 2024. And with the war in Ukraine hitting a critical juncture, Russian hackers are busy too (French government hit with cyberattacks of ‘unprecedented’ intensity) Leitmann (talk) 13:53, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I think its back. Revolverman (talk) 00:02, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Quack cures: An easy way to make a million dollars

I can mix marijuana with vitamin c and call it a cure for AIDS. Sell it for $50 a bottle. Easy. --Trans Fem Agenda 12:04, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Until the legal situation improves, you are best off sticking with CBD.

It's much easier, of course, if you are a "known marijuana user", or at least can hire one for the appeal to celebrity factor. For example, Tommy Chong has moved on from getting jail time for selling bongs over the Internet in 2003 (because as shitty as US drug laws are now, they were worse then). Now, he (or someone who has hired him) sells CBD supplements,[19] such as one titled after one of his stoner films (Nice Dreams) that is made with CBD, melatonin, and GABA... with a Tibetan fungus that grows out of dead insects included for some odd reason as well. This is $60 per tincture bottle, so your imagined price is too low.

(Some marijuana-derivative stores, like Chong's, are "pushing the legalities" a bit by offering hemp-derived THC that is less than 0.3% of the final product as a purportedly legal "delta-9". If it was 2003, good luck with that. But I suspect in 2024, far fewer people care.) BobJohnson (talk) 13:58, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I remember when marijuana was being legalized in Canada... my older family members were clutching their pearls claiming that it would be the end of order and civilized society; some conservative folks exclaimed that Trudeau must be an anarchist who wants to corrupt the youth and some such. On the opposite side of it my coworker, who was a major stoner, touted tremendous benefits of how once legalized, hospitals and medical institutions would surely realize marijuana's limitless potential as an anesthetic and cancer cure. Neither happened. Instead a lot of marijuana stores (dispensaries) quickly opened up to meet the initial increase in demand, but later closed once all the excitement died down.

IMO most people in Canada view it as pretty much the same as alcohol now. I bought a few edibles myself to try. Dosed myself with a 10mg THC/CBD lozenge... it was interesting I guess. Later did a larger dose of 20mg THC/CBD, which was too much; got severe nausea and a wicked headache. Been just sticking with some nice Trappist ale since. Impiricism (talk) 19:05, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the UK is the Anglo outlyer here. We're still lurking around the 'gateway drug'/'just say no' zone as both major parties are courting the angry Boomer vote over everyone else who have a fit if they see a spliff but think of nothing drinking their brains to death six nights a week. Though the police are so overwhelmed now it might as well be bleeding legal... KarmaPolice (talk) 19:58, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I saw a lot of pearl clutching, fear mongering and “Oh noez!” in Denmark in the wake of the German legalisation with lots of “Now Denmark will be flooded with weed!” doom crying, and of course xenophobic political parties like the Danish People's Party used the occasion to call for increased border controls for the umpteenth time (which would, of course, be in violation of Schengen and EU rules on freedom of movement).

I don’t know what planet these hand wringers live on, because getting weed in Denmark has been neither difficult nor expensive to obtain for decades, no matter which part of the country you care to look at, despite being illegal and hence, I don’t see what difference the German legalisation means.

Depressingly, hardly any Danish politicians made the astonishing leap of imagination that when even the rather straight laced (yes, I’m pandering to stereotypes here, I know) Germans have given up in the ineffective and largely symbolic criminalisation strategy, maybe Denmark should change tack too. ScepticWombat (talk) 04:19, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, in about 25 years, I've only literally known one person who refused a joint on the basis it was illegal [I have seen a couple more say no because 'it's illegal and my work has randomised tests']. And if you could catch say, your GP 'off the record' I suspect most would tell you/admit that for health reasons alone it would be 'less worse' for you to spark up than have a pint, just like it's less worse for you to vape than smoke [I actually suspect they'd be more concerned about using tobacco as a filler for the joint than the weed itself]. The vast majority of cops would clearly tell you crime-wise weed doesn't by itself do much either, and the whole 'gateway drug' shite is mainly because it is illegal.

The 'hand wringers' in this case are often folks who think 'legalisation' means 'everywhere with no restrictions' [I mean, imagine the issue if 75% of the population started drinking vodka at 10AM...]. Most [as far as I can tell] 'legalisation' means a kind of 'restrictive sales system' sometimes along the lines of a 'state monopoly', like the ones used for alcohol. Which now I think of it, is frankly stupid from the view from Denmark - I mean, you can see the Swedish 'Systembolaget' and Norwegian 'Vinmonopolet' as a ready-make example of how such a system can be done. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:18, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Denmark is probably not going to adapt the Swedish/Norwegian/Finnish approach in legalisation of cannabis (if/when that comes), exactly because their state monopolies on high strength alcohol tend to used as examples of a “nanny state” in Danish discourse.

That said, legalisation in Denmark would definitely come with some fairly stringent controls and the largest problem would probably be whether smuggling/“unofficial” weed would be able to take advantage of such rules to prolong its staying power (similar to the massive cigarette smuggling operations from communist Poland and East Germany during the Cold War).

But I’m just surprised that so many Danish politicians are still pretending that cannabis isn’t ludicrously easy and fairly cheap to get hold of everywhere and that they therefore pretend that German legalisation will mean fuck all (besides some Danes crossing the border to light up legally). Hell, the existing domestic production is so well known that a Danish psychedelic rock band made its own tribute song to one of the rural parts where its grown.

What’s more, no one seems to ask the obvious question of those politicians: How exactly will it be easier to import weed from Germany post-legalisation than it already is to either smuggle it in or produce it domestically. And to follow up with a question of what the decades long Danish “illegalisation strategy” has actually achieved. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:41, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Billy flowers vandal

Seeing as we've had a lot of IP vandalism in relation to this, if I remember correctly we added the OG name to the edit filter to prevent said spam, but now the IPs have moved on to spamming aliases of him, would it be possible to add the aliases to an edit filter? Lavalizard101 (talk) 09:48, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

The Religious Right's Demise: How will it all end?

I've noticed folks here have said that the Religious Right is shrinking as folks learn sense or the fundamentalists fail to recruit anyone other than the gullible. As religions like Christianity continue to dwindle in favor of logic and reason, the Christian fundamentalists who regularly push stuff like creationism, Hell, uncritical thinking, and all the other stuff common to Christianity and have built their entire financial empires around fundamentalism, will without a doubt becoming more and more insane, fundamentalist, and aggressive in their tactics as well as relentlessly clasping on to their dying fortress to the bitter end. Do you think they'll go out with a whimper, or will they go out with a bang? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 09:31, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

My hope would be that the US would be come more like Western Europe. This is a comparison, though it's a few years old now.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 11:40, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

(This is an American perspective. Offer not valid in other countries with evangelical Christianity like South Korea and Brazil etc.)

The key question here is what happens to Trumpism when the Boomers die out. I would say that the heavily urbanized northern and western United States already look like Western Europe to a large degree (a few pockets of uber-religious in places like Pennsylvania excepting). This was never the territory of evangelicals as much; it was more the territory of mainline Protestant. Mainline white evangelicalism's heart is the Southern US; it has surfed on the waves of white supremacy pretty much throughout its history, which is why it aligned oh-so-well with Trumpism. It's naive to think racism is going to go away anytime soon. But, as people have noticed, even evangelical churches in the rurals often are very "grey-haired" these days.

So the question is, will the youth embrace some of the Trumpism that currently is so tied to the evangelical movement, and/or will the evangelical church change? I suspect some of the later will happen more than the former personally. Foreign evangelical churches like Hillsong concocted a slick (if insipid) pop-rock formula that de-emphasizes the culture war, and this has proven popular over here (before Hillsong declined via its own scandals, that is). Such stylish evangelicalism may still remain viable, particularly where evangelical Christianity has always had a foothold.

I also expect that really racist pockets of the United States will remain after Trumpism, and the fire-and-brimstone sort of evangelical will likewise remain with them. I doubt it will completely die out. But this side may be quite diminished, judging by polls of millennials and younger generations. We'll see. From my perspective, anyways, Trumpism *is* the evangelicals "last gasp" in its current form; that's why they have embraced authoritarianism, after all. BobJohnson (talk) 12:34, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think Religious Right members are really 'learning sense', more they're simply failing to recruit 'new blood' to counteract the Reaper [including now the RR's own kids and grandkids when the 'keystone' members die]. That this is dangerous not just from 'raw numbers' but also means their talent-pool is shrinking too - I remember reading an article about Southern Baptist pastors and I simply couldn't help but noticing how frigging old they all were in the pics. How can you find intelligent new pastors, outreach workers and 'popularisers' [think like non-shit/diabeties-inducing influencers/creatives] if your movement doesn't have that many younger folks period and you're become so anti-intellectual and dogmatic that you've driven many of the smarter ones away from you?

Anyway, if the RR is 'in decline' now, when was it's 'zenith'? I would personally peg it being the 1990s, with the election of George 'One of Us' Bush in 2000 the crowning glory and where Corp America worked pretty hard to not piss them off [which I suggests that they did represent perhaps the majority view on many social issues in this period]. I believe that part of their 'decline' since has not just been due to demographics but the simple passage of time; they [in a nutshell] wished to retreat into a 50s 'Pleasantville' - but while even 'mainline conservatives' have moved on, they have not [a good example being the schmalzy and 'safe' Hallmark films]. This means over time, the RR has fallen out with more and more folks who used to be allies [say Catholics] or steadfastly refusing to engage with folks who could be [Non-white evangelicals?].

The RR has managed to 'delay' their decline by superior organising - in short, they built their churches into a full-blown political machine within the Republicans which then allowed them to exert ever-increasing power over the party despite their shrinking raw numbers. More importantly, they're rather geographically concentrated [the South and Plains] and in most of the latter the populations are small which means they get a considerable uplift in say, Senators [and the political issues that then gives any Senate leader as the Republicans haven't had a 'nut-proof' majority there since 2007].

Unfortunately, all the signs are that the ageing fundie movement has decided to tighten their laager against the forces of the world. The Southern Baptist Covention has decided 'no reforms are the best reforms', they don't want to hear [even from fucking Trump] that pushing for legal Dominionism would be politically dangerous, their increasingly poisoned minds are even pissing off folks like Mormons [their staunchest allies] and most obviously, have shown zero desire to either confront their past failings or their hypocritical/corrupt/malign/stupid leadership. Even more importantly, they have the very toxic combination of an inability to self-question coupled with a seething persecution complex and a general belief that reality can [and must!] conform to their own beliefs and biases.

So to answer the OP's question; I think it will 'go down' with mainly whimpers. It is a fact of life that things survive as long as it has cash to sustain it; which means that due to lots of Boomer bequests and the occasional Dominionist bankroller, I suspect most churches will end up running out of active communicants before of cash to pay the pastor etc. In any 'shrinking market' situation, you will see the majors [ie megachurches] eating up more and more of the remaining congregations [and cash, 'cos that's the important bit] to stave off decline. In fact, expect folks to soothe that little 'nagging thought' about being on a sinking ship by noting that their church is bigger and richer than ever etc [it also hides the fundie brain-drain; a megachurch can survive on 2/3 pastors when the equivalent congreation would need 15 pastors for 'traditional' churches]. Alas, this will create more meddling pastors in Republican circles because, y'know I'm Rev Scummy McHypocrite with 3k active members in my Church of the Perpetual Exemption and if you don't figuratively suck me off, Mr/Mrs Town Council candidate I will diss you from my livestreamed pulput.

Which is where the 'bangs' will happen. Republican fundie-backed loons lose safe seats because the wider public rejects the lunacy. [Relatively] sane Republican candidates tell Rev McHypocrite and pals to learn how to autofellatio and they still win the primary. A TV provider drops showing a fundie channel and they lose no business. A culty 'college' shuts due to lack of business to sustain it, while McHypocrite's harrasment of a school board fails etc. I don't believe that any scandal will shake the power of the RR [though any massively cash-draining one will hasten the death of an individual megachurch/college/etc], it's when the wider community ignores them and 'survives to tell the tale'. KarmaPolice (talk) 17:49, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

The mirror image of this, in a sense, has happened with the Kennedys in Massachusetts. For many years just having that surname was enough to win, despite being just generally awful people (seriously, would you even get into a car one of them was driving?), but of late it's become possible for people (see: Ed Markey) to point out that being a spoiled brat named Kennedy doesn't actually qualify you for anything. So even the strongest-seeming vise can loosen. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:56, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

My guess is that the demise of the religious right if such a thing is even possible means new religions or just belief systems if you propose an exclusive definition of religion (like “makes truth claims about the afterlife” or “is mutually exclusive with its competitors”). The Q shit looks for all the world to me like a budding (yet failing) proto-religion, and I’ve met and encountered people on the internet who seem to genuinely hold aspects of the proposed American Civil Religion sacred. That space in people’s lives and the desire for universal accountability and justice don’t go away because faith in the extant placeholders wanes. Artificius (talk) 14:09, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Heh. Bingo on the "universal accountability" bit. I think that does explain a significant part of religion's value and popularity — the idea that one will be held accountable for one's actions (for better or for worse), with no possibility to evade appearing before the judge forever, can serve as a deterrent against antisocial behavior. Luigifan18 (talk) 15:39, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

In this case I took 'demise' to mean 'ceasing to be a major political force which garners much attention'. In the 90s they were about 20% of the total electorate, but around 20 they're about 14%. If projections are true, by the early 30s it will be around 8% and at that point they will be about as 'strong' as LGBT Americans. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:13, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Now that that's over with above, let's get this right on course again. A sock of one of those Religious Right bozos in denial and the commentary above proves my point that they'll all cling on to their sinking ship until the bitter end, growing more and more aggressive as they continue to sink. So now I wonder what kinds of last words will they say before they finally bite the dust? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 21:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I find it funny you're treating the religious right's demise as some sure thing. But my mind does go back to statistics about church attendance completely plummeting, and that's one that looks very bad for their influence going forward. Really don't put aside the possibility they could have some aces up their sleeve though. For instance they could integrate with the online world more. Chillpilled (talk) 21:41, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

If they do integrate into the online world, then what will it take to deplatform them for the copious amounts of disinformation they produce? TheEternalOutsider (talk) 21:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I would encourage seeking another method for handling that... I've seen online churches set up in video games, even proselytizing to minors actually. Not saying that should be banned as you're suggesting. But that is something happening. And a reaction I've seen is some of these kids will just go in the video game church and start trolling, disrupting the service. Which is a lot truer to how things went on the old Web — real-world institutions sloppily trying to encroach on digital terrain, then getting bitten by e-trolls. Chillpilled (talk) 21:51, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I’m of two minds. We’re due for another “Great Awakening” in about twenty years if you accept the Jesus movement as a “fourth.” These are to me just about people who don’t grow up with religion as a result of their parents not wanting them to suffer and be disillusioned as they were lacking a form of immunity to memetic plagues when some new blood turns up, so there’s a boom and a bust that happens regardless of the previous decline. But that the fourth one is debatable if it’s even appropriate to refer to it as such signals a general decline of the religion: it may not be able to take at all in the worlds of late 21st and 22nd century America. You’ll have to read between the lines very closely to find what Jesus says about germline modifications and memetic engrams ("as long as we carry these she will live forever" becomes a trial of the century after one such reconstituted personality and carrier commits a murder), and it’s probably going to be readily apparent even without all the fancy HuD upgrades through your mindjack that whoever comes up with a Jesus-centered policy for the same are pulling it out of their ass (hence waves of trolls whenever they try to engage and preach). I imagine there will be all too many conclusions reached after "praying on it." Artificius (talk) 13:27, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

If there is a 'Fifth Awakening', it will be fairly different in dogma etc than the forth/current one - let us remember, a lot of the RR's positions are on shakey theological ground and is very 'of it's time/place' re social norms etc. Chillpilled seems to be under the mistaken belief (also held by many of the RR) that if only they could 'get down with the kids' tech/style-wise everything will go just great - that it's not the shit, out of date and hypocritical message which is the problem. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:17, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Well the thing is I think they may be able to get people loyal to a Christian "identity" even if they can't instill their actual message. Nick Fuentes is a weird vector for this, essentially what he's doing: spreading Catholic "identity" while acting extremely "un-Christian" altogether. This is kind of a double-edged sword, because it can help to "pass the torch" to another generation, but it's also highly alienating. Chillpilled (talk) 00:44, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

If we're talking about simple 'cultural Christianity', then yes (at least with this generation; I think the UK is a generation ahead on this). Though I think quite a bit of the RR are already 'only here for the culture/identity' which is part of the issue - their demands for politico/cultural conformity is driving away hard those who are looking for, y'know some kind of religion. I cite a study (done by pastors a couple of years back) that it was like only 17% of ex-cultists had left due to disbelief but 50%+ due to disliking the politics/pastor/other members. KarmaPolice (talk) 09:14, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

U.S: Still best of the worst?

I had a fellow chap considering to move out of the U.S. for a better quality of life. So I looked up how does the cost of living of his top countries compare to the United States Note he does not live in texas, js using houstan as a base comparison. https://www.reddit.com/r/AmerExit/comments/137sima/is_the_cost_of_living_in_the_usa_really_that_low/
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=Houston%2C+TX&country2=France&city2=Paris
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=Houston%2C+TX&country2=Spain&city2=Madrid
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&city1=Houston%2C+TX&country2=Ireland&city2=Cork
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2024

Ye yikes. While it is more fair to compare city to city than country to country I have seen a lot of money earned by rando coders and trade workers living in the united states while paying little taxes and basic needs, especially in rural areas. And this is despite all the shitty problems the unity states have.

Laughable how to successfully move out of the united states you need a very skilled and high demand job the country wants yet you get paid much lower than in the U.S. Any thoughts to clarify my friend more? SEaffäreranalysator (talk) 23:10, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

There's just too many factors IMHO to really compare, even with those links. US pays really well for "rando coders" compared to pretty much anywhere else. Salary differences will vary depending on profession, of course. The cost of living is pretty insane for select cities (New York and San Francisco especially) though. Your example, Houston, is somewhat lower of a "cost of living" than many American metros (let alone world ones).

There is of course a "quality of life" factor -- I'm sure some are fond, but compared to a city like Paris (or NYC / SF), Houston is pretty boring culture wise IMHO (and we're talking beyond the intrusion of fundies into Texas politics). This is a "very subjective" thing, of course, it's my opinion. :) Europe also generally has better "safety nets" as well as better public transportation (a car is a requirement in Houston, it is *not* in Paris), so you have to factor in things like the health insurance being cheaper. Whether that makes up for a ~50% salary drop (a guesstimate for "rando coders", though YMMV) is "your call".

On the flip side, competitive "rando coders" can make quite a bit more with select "West Coast" firms (as well as NYC finance firms) than they can in typical Texas IT, with the trade-off of often bad work-life balance (as I've heard), but with (IMHO) much more interesting (and more expensive) cities. (Again, this is a focus on one profession in particular...)

Paris is pretty expensive for a French metro. Houston would better compare, perhaps, with a Toulouse or Montpellier. (Rinse and repeat for the other examples, you chose very large cities).

One thing that is very laughable though in the online world is all of those Internet randos calling the United States a "third world country" or similar. This is a pretty good indication that they've never visited one. The USA honestly still isn't a terrible place compared to a lot. But, this is another point of comparison: compared to a so-called "developing nation", the US really *is* expensive. But the salaries in these places are even lower than Europe, and sometimes the safety nets too (except perhaps for US's stinky health insurance system...). BobJohnson (talk) 00:05, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I've actually had this discussion [seriously] with a relative [same industry] recently; that they were pointing out that a) they could earn x2 they do in the UK what they do, b) their taxes would be lower and c) their bills would be lower. My retorts were as follows; 1) their work-week would balloon form 40/45 to 60/70+ [meaning the p/h earnings are in reality a third lower and will all but eliminate their side-hustles], 2) public transportation is shit [and they can't drive], 3) public services are 'iffy' enough that you need to be prepared to pay for a lot of things which in the UK are free-ish [though due to Austerity, are increasingly shit too] which nullifies much of that extra cash 4) their partner's earnings would be about the same as now [but less secure and more hours], 5) some of the 'cheap prices' [such as food] are for shit which is below UK/EU standards - that for example, equivalent quality meat is about the same price in the UK and USA and 6) the 'cheap housing' allure was seriously nullified if you were working out of Boston/Seattle/SF and lastly 7) working in somewhere like Houston shall equal lots of extra cash for air-con etc.

After some Google-hitting, we both came to roughly the same conclusion; that America would be fairly shit for them to raise a family, be dealing with a long-term health condition or to be old in. They didn't say it outright, but I do think they're still keeping an ear out to see if something 'very tasty' comes up [so they can slave for 3/5 years, build up a large wedge of cash and then come back and use it to buy a property etc]. But due to below, I don't think that's really gonna happen.

Lastly, your 'fellow chap' needs to consider the fact that the market for coders etc is currently rather 'bust'. All big tech, gaming industry etc are having big layoffs etc - the relative in question is [at the moment] basically surviving in their non-coding skills [which they find a touch ironic, as it's not the things they paid ~£75k to develop.] KarmaPolice (talk) 07:35, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I know of a somewhat parallel example of a couple that considered moving from Denmark to the UK when the husband got offered a substantial pay rise. In the end he declined, at least partly due to the “family economics”. The high cost of child care in London would mean that his wife would either have to give up her job entirely to care for the kids, or she would also have to find a job with a salary at least equivalent pay to her Danish one (which I seem to recall would be difficult) to actually increase the effective disposable income of the family as a whole.

Similarly, lower salary levels and/or high taxation might be (more than) compensated by, say, far cheaper health or education costs, or the general cost of living (food, housing, transportation etc.), not to speak of quality of life issues. The former is probably one economic reason why Denmark is still able to attract high skilled foreign labour, despite relatively (for an advanced economy with high costs of living) low wages and high taxes: There tends to be fairly low “extra” contributions in terms of insurance, co-pays etc., once you deduct those high taxes from your income. ScepticWombat (talk) 09:04, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, which is why The Economists CoL index use the yardstick of a family of an exec expecting a US level SoL - that various payments in kind (like decent free schooling, healthcare etc) are factored in while stuff you might need to pay for (such as having to basically live in guarded compounds etc if in Brazil/South Africa) are also deducted.

Other aspects also need to be taken into account, such as the current UKGov 'why don't you fuck off?' immigration policy (which is unlikely to be softened much by an incoming Labour administration). KarmaPolice (talk) 10:07, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

When people shift from left to right... a personal insight

So... I'm sure some of you have known about my personal struggles as of late. Well, as I keep working at it, going from highs and lows, some things occurred to me during all this.

(Again, this is all personal anecdotes, take it as you will)

When we've seen people make this shift, they often point to one or two things that they either disagreed upon with other leftists. Say, someone was throwing out too many Godwin violations or there were tankies being tankies. The question then becomes how does this end up causing someone to change all their other beliefs and convictions? How does one or two disputes lead someone to do a 180 on issues of economics, worker rights, struggles of marginalized people, the role of government, etc.? Well, one might say "Perhaps they were never really all that left wing to begin with." Well, I'm sure that's true in some cases. However, I'm also finding that when even a tiny crack forms, it can end up getting bigger and bigger until the whole thing breaks.

Doubt is a powerful thing. First it causes one to focus on those disagreements, and then you start to see more and more of it. Not because it's happening more and more, but because one focuses more on it. Every hyperbolic statement or comment becomes magnified. You start seeing more and more "imperfections." Again, not because they're there, but because one starts to unconsciously look for them. And the thing I found is that if you start to question one part of the whole structure, than that spreads to other parts. One starts to think "Well, if that part is erroneous, than what else is wrong?" And that's where the crack begins to widen. The doubt becomes a wedge and it gets hammered in by the rhetoric of the other side, ie: "See! See! Look how bad they are! Listen to us instead!" One begins to dwell more and more on the whole structure. Disillusionment spreads, convictions are challenged, "faith" begins to fade. And through outside influence, one begins to seek the security of the structure of the other side.

Now, I really don't want to be the kind of person that says one has to play nice and civil all the time to avoid alienating people. Part of me thinks that this can be more of a personal failing, a lack of critical thinking and an inability to separate the "bad from the good." It might be born out of various stresses and traumas one experiences, causing their mental defenses to be weakened. I can tell you that I've been having a hell of a year myself. But through all of this, I can see why it happens. Personally, I'm trying to get myself back to where I was, to regain my convictions and "faith." I'm looking for people to actually talk to face-to-face to get me through this, to "reconvince" myself. It's not an easy task, and it's worse when you didn't have much of a support network to begin with. But I'm trying and I'm hoping. However, I can't say the same for others.

Of course, I could just be totally wrong. Again, this is just my personal insights. Take it as you will. Paul S (talk) 15:40, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Well, first of all I've never really encountered a genuinely thoughtful person who was '100% orthodox' on that subject. And 'leftist' is such a huge tent that it's almost impossible to find much [or anything] that all of us 'agree on' fully - I laugh in the faces of those loudmouths online [on the main] with too much time on their hands and who are convinced they are speaking ex cathedra when talking to the wider public. And one of my own 'heresies' is that those types of people are some of the best recruiters for the 'other' side.

I suspect a lot of these 'conversions' are much more personal than folks would like to admit. That [for example] someone says something mildly 'heretical' [or even simply viewed as inconvenient] like 'trans women are not biologically female'. They catch a lot of flak from the above loudmouths of the extreme end, supported by 'bad allies', and our 'heretic' feels isolated, under stress to 'recant' and all that. But oh, some nice-seeming folks have defended them. The heretic spends more and more time with those nice folks... except they're not nice folks, they're a bunch of hardline TERFs and simple 'phobes. But they seem nice and reasonable and those 'trans activists' are nasty and unreasonable... drip drip drip and before long, the 'heretic' has been converted - because as they are radicalised, their other 'outside contacts' slowly snap off and their minds go on a 'dark adventure'. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:32, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree that love bombing can play a big role in this. Having other people seemingly support you while driving that wedge further into the cracks. Of course, none of this is logical or rational, but it can feel more comfortable to the person in question. This is something I've been trying to avoid myself... I deleted Twitter and I'm making a point to not read comments, I don't need more rhetoric floating around inside me. But like you said, some of those "loudmouths" can be recruiters for the other side.

For instance, we all know that complaint of "The left calls anyone they don't like Nazis/fascists/racists!" and then you see people throw out those terms and it starts to bother you. Someone starts to cheer on vandalism or destruction of property during a protest, and that begins to bother you. Someone makes hyperbolic blanket statements, and that bothers you. And then that powerful force of doubt begins to take its toll, pushing you towards the rabbit hole. And again, this can easily happen when you're not in the best shape mentality, when your mind is too fatigued to push things aside. And one seeks out help, looks for supportive voices... and that's when someone walks up to you with a friendly smile all while planning to shove you further into their own camp. Paul S (talk) 17:07, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

All too often "left" and "right" are as KP says. Whenever those terms are used, they require disambiguation. They are a lot like any pair of opposites or binaries: too vague to be useful beyond the rule of thumb stage. "This is too hot (spicy)!" or "That was too bland!" are meaningful subjective statements that relate nothing useful, to a third party, about the object. The facts of social conversion are occult. If you say something that is mildly heretical, as KP points out, then you are likely to be criticized and supported based upon a political binary that immediately presents itself. All too often one presents oneself in a masquerade of approval in order to disentangle oneself from a conversation.

Thought experiment: why should an average dope like myself care about the Climate Change question? First of all, my opinion would have less to do with any event effecting future climates than my vote in a national election would have on its outcome. Probably exponentially less. Secondly, I remain unaffected by the extreme consequences of CC during the course of my lifetime. I can and will be selfish unless you prove to me that I cannot afford to be selfish. If I happen to live in a very cold climate, say northern Canada, I would probably welcome warmer weather even if small Islands begin to disappear in the Pacific; and I would laugh about the rich folk in Florida getting flooded out of their seaside residences. I am theoretically a very self centered person as I get older. So, now I know nothing about CC. I am average. If you tell me about it, the above mentioned thoughts go through my mind. I am not of a mind to think I can influence such outcomes, so I scoff at activists. Indifference looks a lot like a political position. We humans can be terribly indifferent to the problems of distant peoples. UncleKrampus (talk) 17:12, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, yes! I've been going through this myself. Having those kind of thought experiments while laying in bed or going through work. And one of my fears is that indifference becoming a part of me, seeing "Fuck you, I got mine" as somehow a valid position to have. I think that's why I'm looking to find someone to talk me through all this in person. To discuss these things and help me get back to where I was. Been looking at the local Humanist chapters, for instance since I've long held similar positions before this personal crisis of mine began. That, and the mental health professionals that I've been seeing has suggested that I've been too isolated and can use some actual face-to-face discussions. Paul S (talk) 17:31, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I used to believe the rhetoric "Well, they probably had those beliefs all along anyway", but overtime, I've felt like it's become a general "No True Scotsman" cop-out to pretend someone's beliefs can't radically change under pressure, stress, and feeling disillusioned. This is especially a problem in modern day purity politics which refuses to acknowledge people often have different or even contradicting beliefs to whatever label they may fall under. This problem is worse for those who are online a lot due to the nature of online discussion since the nature of social media can often leave people with a lot of negative emotions. Anyone who dismisses such instances as, "You become X-ist because your fee-fees were hurt, lol", fail to understand how powerful others', and even their own, feelings are in guiding their personal beliefs. Radicals and extremists of any stripe are often more happy to have one less supporter than tolerating half of one by their nature.-Ryan1257 (talk) 18:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Apathy, I suspect is a human defence mechanism against 'bad stuff' we cannot realistically change. It's not like we can stop climate change, wars and epidemics, is it [well, unless you're one of the very few folks who can]. The 'fuck you, I've got mine' mentality is another; that you cannot help everyone and if you shrink your 'responsibility' down to literally your immediate family, well at least you can do something about that [but again, this is something which is poisonous when elevated to a political ideology qv: Thatcher 'there is no such thing as society'].

I think we are also ignoring the fact that a lot of people do hold opinions without really thinking about them. This means that when they encounter a 'challenge' to them [be it from others or life's events] they don't know how to cope - usually they'll double-down/counter attack but on occasion it could cause a 'crisis of faith' which leads them very vunerable position and thus, ripe for recruitment by others. At the best side, said 'questioner' will go through a journey of self-discovery and end up with perhaps different but more solid views - but there's a myriad of bad-faith actors out there who are positively searching for vunerable targets to recruit and remould in their own image - for example, cults and religious fanatics. KarmaPolice (talk) 08:02, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I have one personal friend, and I think the answer for him is something along the lines of contrarian by default. Which is fine, to get into politics like a dumb dumb baby and get burned because Sanders was your guy has to actually scar your political vision like looking directly at an eclipse. The weird thing is, I could never quite get it across to him, Republicans are BAD AS WELL, usually worse. It's this dumb 'Fool me twice' devil I know but then eventually also have to agree with to avoid contradiction kind of belief. I had one friend who said he wouldn't talk about politics because all politicians are snakes. I said 'that ain't true, there's all sorts of lizards in politics'. He was a Rogan listening (before it mattered) 2nd amendment absolutist who didn't know which side of the political spectrum he could possibly land, and sure as hell didn't want to hear a word about it. I'm a conundrum to a lot of grievance right wingers that I know. I can both think Joe Biden is an awful candidate AND believe that Donald Trump is worse. I can hate Democrat messaging AND refuse to believe Critical Race Theory is being taught in schools. Oh, that was 2 years ago and nobody is talking about it now? And it's frustrating when I then say 'Racial equity is not a real thing anyone is trying to do'. 'D.E.I. is not a real thing' and yet, I both despise Democrats and keep voting for them. Like if I think the Democratic party is vile and useless, I must be brainwashed to vote for them. And then they actively SUPPORT the GOP talking points, because they are the party fighting the 'mind virus'. Very strange. It is much easier to call yourself a 'Free thinker' when a party is telling you you can't be if you vote for the opposition. There are all sorts of lizards in politics, they can all be the bad guy, it is so frustrating to watch people be smug and parrot nonsense. If your politics are based in distrust of a party, you are doing it wrong, but it is so easy to identify that way. Torrent (talk) 12:54, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Methinks your not brainwashed, methinks that has a simple and plain name: tactical voting. Nothing wrong with it, it can get frustrating though. In France, I decided to not vote for Macron in the second round, the moment I was about to go, because he was gonna go in front of those cameras and claim his astounding victory over Le Pen (at the time, he was flirting with leftist voters by pointing out "common grounds": well, turns out two months later, when the left Nupes alliances formed, Manu and his team were rambling about "soviet anarchy", "extremes", "anti-republicanism", "populism" and "authoritarianism" in the face of the "democratic" institutions of modern France) Not that long ago, the democrats and the GOP agreed on almost everything, so it’s only natural some non-voters, despite the menace American democracy is facing this election, will keep ignoring it. Before 2016, that made sense, but now it really doesn't. And even among those who vote, the White vote is not negligible. It’s nothing special, all elections are dominated by the tactical vote. Distrust of all political parties is only natural, that doesn’t mean you need to not vote for Biden, in fact you can cast a tactical vote and hate "The establishment" at the same time. New world (talk) 16:54, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

But American voting is extremely stupid. I live in a state within the federation that will actually split its electoral college votes. Very stupid, very complicated, but honestly if the popular vote doesn't exactly matter, this is a better system. I must vote every fucking time. Withholding my vote is not a viable statement. Torrent (talk) 04:39, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Why is EOWK making troll accounts about bald people

So for some period of time Kirkeegrad has been making accounts making fun of bald people why bald people specifically Reichtangle (talk) 13:18, 7 May 2024 (UTC) ←§

It's not Kirkegaard it's Michael Coombs making the accounts Ioe bidome (talk) 13:19, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

How do they find the time? I mean, don't they have, y'know, a job or something that needs to be done? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:27, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Also why is he targeting Bald people? Why not target Jews who apparently control the world ←§ Reichtangle (talk) 13:50, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

He found out the prophet Elisha was antifa and he wants everybody to know it. Now for a timelier question, would you rather be stuck in the woods with Mike, or with one of the bears Elisha summoned? Chillpilled (talk) 14:09, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Social-democracy and socialism

Hello. I’ve been seeing a lot of people on Reddit and social media, and elsewhere, claiming that « Americans don’t know what socialism is » and what not. It’s all about social-democracy « not being socialist ». And honestly, I don’t get it. To me, American ignorance on socialism is precisely that Americans think socialism/communism is just one big thing that wants to quickly and violently overthrow the capitalist system either by direct revolution or by immediately destroying democracy after winning an election and taking power. I always thought of socialism as an ideology, equal to liberalism, conservatism, fascism etc. And not an extremist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to the capitalist « ideology ». It’s funny, because I’m European. In Europe, the only people I can imagine saying that social-democracy is definitively not socialist are « social-democrats » like Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder « third way » neo-lib style, or far-left commies (the type of commies that the left I identify with, call it radical old-school social-democracy, or whatever you want, the « populist left », takes as an exemple of what’s actually far-left, kind of like when Trump fans say « those are the real nazis » [obviously that’s just an exemple]). But what I find weird is the definition of what would be your average French trotskyst is seen as « correct » in the US of A. People just assume that Bernie supporters don’t know what socialism means because they’re American. Even though what Bernie did is precisely open up americans to socialism. With most mainstream European left-wing parties, who moved towards the center in the post-Soviet 90s, this works. But Mélenchon is a social-democrat by this definition, Lafontaine is a social-democrat, Pablo Iglesias is a social-democrat, Jeremy Corbyn etc. Most of these are social-democrats and self-proclaimed socialists. But by this definition they are not socialists. My problem with this is that these people left the traditional parties or fought them because these parties didn’t support their radical left-wing positions anymore, so saying that social-democracy has officially « moved away » from socialism is ignoring these figures. My problem with this is that it doesn’t just ignore that, it ignores most of the history of socialism in Western Europe. The split between reformists (who formed socialist parties, that’s a hint to why some people might use some words in certain ways) and revolutionaries (who formed communist parties, hey, that sounds familiar). The fathers of socialism in France, like Jean Jaurès, support de-polarizing views that might be seen as not socialist by these popular definitions. Social-democracy doesn’t exclude the possibility of socialism via, very slow, gradual reform. Some nationalizations, some social programs, a pension reform. Slowly, and I mean actually slowly, it doesn’t need to be like Venezuela, Chile or Bolivia style, and gradually that can potentially lead to a truly mixed economy or, in theory, to socialism. In Germany, SPD members call themselves « comrades ». The US and Canada both have « liberal » and « conservative » parties ruling the country, so it’s very easy to make socialism a fringe ideology which can’t work. And this restrictive definition of enabling the social ownership of the means of production immediately here and now is inevitably doing exactly this. Anyways, sorry for the rant. What do you think of this? Cheers. New world (talk) 01:37, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

You might want to consider splitting things up into paragraphs, or at least use of some sort pacing structure in your writing. Dense walls of text can easily make a reader lose their place. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the conflict in this sort of thought, is that it doesn't really distinguish capitalism and socialism as being distinct modes of production. Many a social democrat in terms of political philosophy rejects the mutual exclusion of socialism and capitalism, and are less willing to accept the existence of the Marxist conception of class conflict. I think the worry is that by "watering down" the idea of what socialism is meant to entail, you actually undermine the ethical and political aims of what socialism as a concept is set out to do. It is like expanding the definition of "healthcare" to include alternative medicine, such alt-med advocates definitely think what they are providing is healthcare, and sure, expanding the concept of medicine would definitely make it more accessible. But in doing so, you also make medicine as a whole far less effective on what it is set out to do to begin with. Why is having a more inclusive conception of what a socialist is be better than a more exclusive definition? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 03:54, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

The thing is that I agree. Though this is only the far to radical-left version of socialism. Why can't we have Jean Jaurès and other theorists next to Marx, who’s definition wasn’t the last. The problem with this is that Bernie might call himself a socialist, some might say he’s not a socialist. But the republicans can profit from that, by taking this definition, and getting at Bernie because « socialism doesn’t work ». Bernie isn’t the most moderate of social-democrats either, he fits with the old-school socialists/socdems like Mélenchon, Jeremy etc. So it’s an actually interesting debate if his economics works, and there are historical exemples for that. Take Sweden, Danemark, you know what, those countries. And besides, revolutionary or radical socialism isn’t just Marxism. What about those crazy maoists? And I bet if Bernie said « Radical Keynesian economics work, look at these countries » less people would have got to support or know him. Take France now for a sec: Jaurès founded the SFIO, which became the PS (socialist party) later on, and Mélenchon left that party to found his Party of the left, and then his Unsubmissive France (La France Insoumise). Almost every leader of this party, from Leon Blum, to Mitterrand, to Lionel Jospin, to that guy that didn’t keep his promises, to today, is not socialist. From François Hollande, or maybe Lionel Jospin, onwards that works, call them social-democrats. But Mitterrand nationalized one of the biggest banks in France. In 1981 he did a huge amount of economic reforms. If it wasn’t for an international economic crisis, he would have continued, but then he did the tournant de la rigueur (turn of the rigor), which, while usually frowned upon by the left, was supported by young Mélenchon. And Leon Blum also didn’t overthrow the capitalist system, Leon Blum and his front Populaire in the 1930s did some very useful reforms, though. And that’s the point, he did reforms, which might eventually lead to something like socialism. That’s why many, ahem, self-described socialists in the US might identify with a certain FDR (not like he really cares about that, though). In the 1940s or 50s in France the communist (Stalinist) Party was leading a government, and it surely didn’t overthrow the system, it enabled a wave of nationalizations. Reducing socialism to « radical communist revolutionaries » is ignoring all of this history. And it separates people who follow similar principles. Democratic or reformist socialism doesn’t have to be Chavez (though all respect to Chavez. And here again, Lula is a « socialist of the 21 century », and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro is a social-democrat who is spitting eco-socialism in every single one of his speeches). New world (talk) 09:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess paragraphs are capitalist and should be avoided.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 09:48, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I am sorry for not speaking a 20 year old code which screams for an update. And besides, when is RationalWiki getting that nice "answer" function like on Wikipedia?? I don’t want to need to be hacker to edit this. New world (talk) 10:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I would argue the folks who are saying 'soc-dem not socialist' in regards to Sanders etc are basically folks who have decided a variant of 'lying for jesus'; that 'socialism' is viewed as a very toxic term and thus, it's best to avoid it - even now, I suspect any American public figure who said 'I am a socialist' would then have to constantly fend off attacks from 'Very Serious People' and demands that they constantly defend Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Stalin etc. 'Social Democracy' does not have these negative connotations, which means the activist etc can actually talk about the stuff they do favour [and polling shows the Big Public also agree], like 'decent living wages for hard-working folks ', 'getting the corp welfare mammas', 'making the ultra-rich pay their whack' and so on.

We Europeans don't have the such a negative connotations for 'socialism', so we can more freely use the term - but that's because we have our own histories of 'socialism' being associated with things like the nationalisation of the 'commanding heights of the economy', a firm welfare state, worker protections etc. For example, here in the UK any screed against the 'evils of socialism' can be instantly be countered with 'oh, you hate the NHS then' which is the nearest to a secular religion in the country. Each country has their own traditions of socialism; for example the UK has a long non-Marxist tradition via the co-op movement and trade unions.

But the truth is; 'socalism' is a very broad church, in which the only real things we agree on is a) 'change is required' and b) ''unfettered capitalism is the enemy of the people'. In my time here I've had a fair view arguments with other socialists, which perhaps highlights the 'divisions' between us but masking the fact that 80%+ of the time we are in fair agreement. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:39, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Aren't most European socialist parties also socdem too though? I wouldn't say that the French Socialist Party or the Spanish PSOE support what I'd call "socialism". In fact, I'd say that the very Socialist International is pretty much center-left nowadays IMHO. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:51, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I see "socialism" as a system where the means or production are either public or collective. This is not by any means a perfect definition (for instance, cooperatives can exist within capitalism, as they actually do, so I'm not very sure about how to classify them), but scialism IMO doesn't have a lot to do with a robust welfare state, and I wouldn't call folks like Clement Attlee or Tage Erlander socialists (or at least their governments, maybe their ideas were more radical, but I'm not very familiar with their intellectual formation). GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:58, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

But you see, only marxists and really radical commies would argue for that in Europe. Reformist socialism means social welfare, waves of nationalizations etc. which might eventually lead to something which actually works. It can also go quicker, like with Chavez, which went badly, with Bolivia, which I suspect could potentially go badly, and with Allende in Chile, which went great before the US backed coup. When talking about this Americans often mix third way bullocks with radical social-democracy. Essentially there are two wings in Europe, one wing for radical old-school social-democracy, which wants a way towards socialism through natural development, and a wing which is now mainstream, sadly for us radicals, which is for I don’t what it’s for it claims to be "socialist" that’s all I know. Now saying social-democracy has finally moved away from its semi-socialist goal since the psot-soviet 90s is ignoring the radicals, who either left or are trying to knock the right-wings of the socdem parties out. And sometimes they are successful. Mélenchon replaced the socialist party in France, Jeremy was in power once upon a time, Oskar, now crazy conservative (Look up BSW by his wife Wagenknecht… a sad turn of events in Germany), at least managed to found his Die Linke. And as to the definition of socialism, Marxism is one courant of socialism, it isn’t the socialism. Look up Jean Jaurès, the father of French socialism, heck Lionel Jospin, a rather « liberal » fellow (but not Blair style), defined « modern socialism ». So he doesn’t have the right to define it ?(I mean the line is a crossed when Tony does it, but this guy did the 35 hour work week). The nature of moderate reformist socialism not chavez or allende style, respecting the electoral system to the very end, means that a socialist government is just that, a socialist government. And right-wing governments also occasionally do social programms, but ideologically it’s more aligned with the État providence (the welfare state), republicanism, conservative style. What’s bothering me is that in Europe US-americans we’re laughed at by the left because, you know, François Mitterrand, undeniably a socialist, wins the election in 81: Oh no, the Soviet tanks are marching to Paris! New world (talk) 13:48, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

From what I can tell, almost all advanced-nation 'left-wing' parties have been co-opted by Third Way, which often contains a fair smell of 'technocracy' about them ['populist' being a commmon snarl-word, as though they'd prefer have an inert Big Public while they pull the levers in the centre]. Thus, it is difficult to see, for example Tony Blair as 'socialist' because he showed almost nil desire to decrease economic inequality, reign in big business or even to rock the damn boat [actions, not words].

A 'robust Welfare State' is a vital piece of 'socialism in action' because it not only 'pulls the teeth of capitalists' [example, you cannot frighten workers with the sack so much if a decent unemployment system exists] but also helps to lesson economic inequalities in health, education, housing etc which helps with 'cracking open' class privilege [which isn't even really liked by classical liberals, let alone socialists].

But with Attlee... you are talking out of arse here, Gee. He headed the most 'socialistic' government in UK history - founding the National Heath Service, overhauling the education system, hugely expanding pension provision, nationalising 20% of the UK economy [mainly it's 'commanding heights'], limiting the power of landowners, putting in regulations to protect the public from businesses, starting with slum clearances and so on. However, he was a 'socialist' in the reformist 'Fabian' tradition, not a revolutionary 'Marxist' one. KarmaPolice (talk) 13:56, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

If anything, can’t we just agree that Tony isn’t a socialist or a social-democrat, but a social traitor? New world (talk) 14:00, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ (EC) I'm in a bit of a hurry right now, so I can't answer everything, but I'd say Mitterrand made a soft-neoliberal government after 1983 with his "tournant de la rigueur", adopting austerity and privatizing most of the French SOEs. So, again, in my opinion most of the European "socialists" are also socdems. I do trust Karma more than myself when it comes to British history, so if you say that Attlee was a socialist I won't dispute. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 14:04, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I am aware of that. Us mitterandists stand by the fact that it was an international crisis, and that Mitterrand had to do that. And as I said, Mélenchon supported that. With Jospin I have mixed feelings, he privatized more than any government before or after him… But Mitterrand, nooo. Say what you want about his « secret » past and nazis and what not, but he was a socialist. He never publicly supported the bullocks his later ministers said. (And Rocard hated him. Rocard, the French Tony Blair). He wanted to save his image. And according to Mélenchon, he was a sincere socialist. No matter Iraq, tournant de la rigueur and all that. It was a crisis, stalinist communists switched sides back then. Mitterrand didn’t, and don’t forget that the right got into power in all that chaos. What about Leon Blum, or the communist stalinist, Maurice Thorez? They didn’t overthrow the capitalist system. And again, Bernie is more the radical type, the « populist », like Méluche, like Jeremy, like Al those Latin Americans. New world (talk) 14:15, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

The wider socialist 'family' shall always have debates on what should/not be in private hands, why that is so and if so, how that is done. It is quite possible that a socialist government can easily 'sell off' a load of SOEs on the basis 'we have no decent reason to be in this business' [UKGov owning a travel agency or breweries anyone?] or that there was better ways of achieving your goal [say, having a Govt 'golden share' to block foreign takeovers, or even selling some of the shares to the relevant trade union]. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:21, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes. But let’s not mix Mitterrand, and maybe even Jospin, with the Third Way guys (as a reminder, the socialist party never had a third way program, that asshole Hollande didn’t follow up on his program, that’s what happened). That’s the important thing. Observing and explaining this unsettled situation from and to the US isn’t an easy task.. Especially since the right is using the situation to its benefit (in Germany, they accuse the greens of extremism, the modern "greens" of Germany…). Seriously, I’m tempted to deny both labels to these bourgeois traitors, and to just call them social-liberals (but that’s not correct usage, at all, I admit..). New world (talk) 15:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Just found this, if it helps. You might also be interested in the disputes between Rosa Luxembourg and the Jauresian socialists. I remember reading about it, and a quick google search in French shows results. Cheers. New world (talk) 20:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

@GeeJayK I think the definition only needs a slight adjustment to the system having a predominate collective or public ownership over the means of production.

So sure, an market economy where only worker co-op’s existed could be classed as “socialist” — but a system where the majority of firms are still traditional firms, with the class distinction between private employer and hired employee still in tact. The presence or absence of some cooperatives, or even many could still be classed as capitalist, right?

Having some state-owned enterprises would still be distinct from a system where the majority of enterprise is state owned. Your definition is the most part fine. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:58, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I have one last question. Are there any cases of communism, as I’m going to insistingly call this, and it’s definition of a socialist, ahem, utopia, actually working? Because if not, you are reducing socialism, the ideology of the entire left-wing, with Spartakists, Jauresians, Maoists, Marxists, (Willy) Brandtists, Mélenchonists, Stalinists, Trotskyists, and co. to its impossible far-left component. And may I even make the suggestion that you are either american/canadian, or at the very least, either a radical communist, a marxist, or "a" "capitalist" (don’t know what that means, economic liberal? Conservative? You gotta have ideals man, convictions). Tell me I’m wrong, please. New world (talk) 22:36, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the issue with that sort of question is that is that it comes from a bit of conceptual misunderstanding. Communism as an ideology versus communism as an economic system are two different things. Ideological communists think that a certain kind of "communism of scale" is possible, inevitable, and (arguably) desirable. Communism as an economic system is essentially "living communally" and is not at all unusual throughout human history, especially for small rural communities. Marx himself makes explicit reference to this when he speaks of "primitive communism". Communistic living is kind of the default for hunter-gatherer tribes. When speaking of "communism" we are speaking of classless, stateless, moneyless societies. They have always existed, some are more successful or more sustainable than others. "Working" here isn't a well-defined notion. For the small egalitarian communities that live sustainably among their community of about 100 or so people...are they working? Arguably, yes, as it is doing what it is intended to do. Did the "Jonestown" commune work? Arguably, not depending on what we take the "purpose" of such a project to be. The real economic controversy surrounds whether communism is something that can work as intended on scale, that's already a controversy for socialism of which communism is just a subset. When we speak about "working" it is a pretty contextual notion, and even then some communists (like, Trots for example) are not even willing to grant the current feasibility of "global" communism without the advent of certain technological innovations. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:24, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Even for that matter, "socialism" from my and Gee's working definition is pretty inclusive of many different kinds of economic systems -- all with various problems. I would define myself as pro-socialist, but he wouldn't. This boils down to a difference in attitude about what the failures of 20th-century projects actually entail (noting that we do not disagree about them being failures). But from that angle alone, a lot of Marxists and other leftist ideologues would have issues with us both because of the whole "scientific" vs. "utopian" socialism distinction, and the belief that only a very specific conception of socialism based in historical materialism is the de facto correct conception of socialism. In that case, many Marxists and even Leninists wouldn't even necessarily grant that socialism has ever been established as they envisioned it. Keep in mind too that Lenin was the one to make the distinction between socialism and communism, Marx used the terms interchangeably. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

This is like the touching point where a lot of "leftist-infighting" comes from. With the claims that "mutualists are just capitalists", "Market socialism is just capitalism", "anarchists are just liberals", or relevantly "social democrats are anti-socialists". The other side being "the Soviet Union was state capitalist", etc. So given that history, it would be weird if figures like Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn weren't accused of being "not real socialists" because that is just sort of part of the territory. I blame the corrosive power of Marxist hegemony. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

So you are the classic exemple of far-left in Europe (and most of Latin America)? Again, Jauresian socialism, the Fabian school, German social-democracy etc. Etc. Here is a funny anecdote: France, La France Insoumise (Unsubmissive France, founded by JLMélenchon). The « frondeurs » faction of the party is currently raising its voice against the lack of internal democracy in the party. They were just knocked out of the party council. Mélenchon, officially « en retrait » (in retreat) but not « en retraite » (in retirement) is not giving away power, according to the right and these « frondeurs » [BTW, the marxists and trotskysts are crying bc of their forced "useful vote" for Mélenchon in the last elections]. The « frondeurs » usually have unusual positions, from those who want to change the « le bruit et la fureur » (the sound and the fury) populist strategy, to those who want to focus on workers’ rights and put progressive politics after those. François Ruffin is the latter type. He is the deputy of a regionalist party. He’s rather moderate compared to Mélenchon. The « frondeurs » are known for going to media outlets and saying things like « I disagree with Mélenchon. Do I have the right to? » which make amazing titles. And so, one big French media outlet has a title on its front page « François Ruffin: " I am a social-democrat " ». When he was asked about it later, he answered that 1. he said he was a "social" "democrat" (in French, social-democracy isn’t translated, it’s literally democracy social..) not a "social-democrat" and 2. that he is « a revolutionary-reformist socialist, like Jaurès, like Mélenchon ».

There are three types of people who argue for this definition: Americans/Canadians, « far-left » fellows, revolutionary or just very radical, and "capitalists". Some social scientists, but not a majority, argue for this as well. I mean, it’s not just European socialist parties (and again, do not mix this debate with Third Way traitors, please), Morena in Mexico, Pacto Historico in Colombia, PT in Brazil, the Chilean dude who’s not sure what he is (think his name was Boric). At least we can agree that this debate is far from finished. I bet Lenin didn’t like Jaurès, yet Jaurès is a socialist. You can’t take Lenin’s essays and say « those aren’t socialists », or Marx and Engles, or anyone else. Jaurès founded French Socialism, and its ideological goals. So French reformist Socialism isn’t socialism? Because it’s too soft on when and how the natural transition between one system to another will happen? Really? Let’s agree to disagree, comrades. [As to communism, the term communalism sort of fits that function when it gets controversial, like, for exemple, with the Inca Empire in Peru, or other indigenous groups] New world (talk) 00:58, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

'[Socialism] is the system having a predominate collective or public ownership over the means of production' is a wonky definition, Dumb. First, how do you judge 'predominate'? Numbers of orgs? GDP output? Number of employees? Then how to you measure these critera? What counts as 'working in the socialist sector' - is a freelancer [for example] for a SOE self-employed or a state employee? How does one rate the economic output of a teacher, police officer or social worker? What about the tons of unpaid work performed within the economy - does the parent feeding their baby have 'value'? What about partly state-owned companies, or [as you note] the myriad of what is often called 'the third sector' [coops, charities and so on]. An economically advanced nation can still be solidly 'socialist' even if the vast majority of businesses are privately owned because they are mainly small and predominate in sectors of no real interest to economic planners - such as hair salons, bars, jobbing gardeners, freelance artists and similar - because modern forms of capitalism has a huge % of economic output in the hands of a very few large companies.

The question of 'how much', 'why' and 'how' in regards to private ownership is also strongly dependent on the economic situation of the individual country. You cannot judge a country with an agricultral sector dominated by a few large landowners operating plantations exactly the same as another where the setup is owner-occupier farmers. I will also argue that the issue of 'state capitalism' is a false one. A nation may decide to nationalise a particular sector or company not because they felt the products needed to be supplied 'below market cost' to the population, but to stop monopoly exploitation, foreign capital-extraction, was deemed 'too big to fail' or that the production/distribution was 'too important' to be left to the private sector.

From my experience, most communists currently argue that communism is impossible due to consumerism. Ernest Mandel, for example pointed out [back in the 1980s] that to bring the whole world to an 'Western' SoL immediately would be either a physical impossibility or an ecological catastrophe, while I've seen it argued that the USSR partly collaped because they went from trying to improve folks QoL [ie working on Maslow's hierarchy of needs] to chasing SoL [more material stuff] which was a race against the USA they could never win. This could be said to be the crux of eco-socialism; that this chase will end up killing the entire planet and to quote WarGames; 'The only winning move is not to play'. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:35, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Just to muddle this even further, there are anarchists who would balk at the label of socialist, and I'm not talking about ancaps either. Anarcho-nihilists, post-leftists, some egoists, some green anarchists.... A common refrain among these types is not "seize the means of production," but "cease the means of production," that's assuming they buy into the notion that a concept as vague and amorphous as "society" holds any meaning or relevance. Carthage (talk) 13:35, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

May I add that Only sort of dumbs’ definition of communism isn’t the one I was using. I was talking about revolutionary socialists, as this term is often, and legitimately so, used following Lenin’s revolution and the split between reformists (who already held pretty "social-democratic" positions) and revolutionaries. We have communist regimes, communist parties etc. Of course most of these believe communism, on a certain scale, is possible, but most importantly they are revolutionary far-leftist socialists. I’m used to economic liberals calling me extremist and a "tankie", but getting contradicted because of a- somewhat -moderate definition of socialism? I don’t know if I’m angry or stunned at this development, it’s just not what I’m used to. Sort of refreshing. New world (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice definition of predominate: "be the strongest or main element; be greater in number or amount" - Oxford Languages. Predominate social ownership of the means of production would mean that the majority of the means of production are owned socially - as in owned collectively or owned by the state. I don't see the logic in reading that in terms of per "GDP output" or "number of employees". Suggestions like that seem deliberate to read the definition with as little charitability as possible, as instead of taking the default, most obvious, most literal meaning, you decided to construct wonky measures and interpretations on the fly. You can literally measure this by the number of firms, factories, and other commercial resources that are cooperatives or state-owned enterprises in ratio to traditionally privately owned firms. Everything else following that "objection" isn't relevant to whether a definition of socialism is accurate or not. The definition I am using would capture pretty much every preferred economic model among Marxists, Libertarian socialists, and market socialists without including any examples that would more often be classed as capitalist. Most if not all of GeeJayK's common suggestions about examples of socialism would fit my definition. When the object of relevance (that being the means of production) is built into the definition, then that obviously the most relevant factor to measure things on. Notice how I do not use wonky ass terms like "socialist sector" nor do I endorse that the use of such a term as meaningful, so to ask me what "counts" as part it, is a malformed question. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 09:11, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

This revolutionary socialist definition isn’t the only "common" definition (As to "libertarian socialists", most people I know who would identify with that describe themselves as anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists or syndicalists, unionists. Libertaire in French, contrary to libertarien, is used as a synonym of anarchist). And besides, owning the means of production is also a goal of reformists, not of Third Wayers though. It’s about a slow, gradual move towards something that actually works, maybe with the help of truly protectionist economics and a break from NATO, at least in France, and a rewriting of the European treaties. Because right now, I am not convinced that Lutte Ouvrière (LO) or the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA), following the principles of father Trotsky, will be successful in their revolution against the ruling classes, when it eventually inevitably happens. Nationalizations of some industries already assure you that if socialist governments continue to govern a country democratically most of the means of production will be in the hands of the country. The only statesman that I’ve heard supporting this definition is Colombia’s Petro to fight off allegations of communism from our favorite Argentinian president. He also announced that a revolution against capitalism will come because of the ecological crisis and the impossibility of a green capitalism. I mean beyond the economic theories and all that, (theoretically I could identify with ordo-liberalism or social-liberalism, or euro-communism, and the list goes on) we are talking about the revolutionary socialists who are at maximum 5 percent in a stable country of Europe? And Sweden now, because it’s important. The "third way" of Sweden meant no direct diplomatic allegiance to either US capitalism or Soviet Communism. The Scandinavian countries might not have been fully socialist, but up until the neo-liberal turn in the 80s and 90s, let’s say at the death of Olof Palme, they were among the biggest welfare states of the world (they still are), and one of the most equal. This idea of excluding anyone except for the far-left from socialism as one united ideology split between communists (revolutionary socialists) and reformists is completely off putting. Again, it’s not not democratic socialism just because it didn’t do it as fast as Chavez did, and that went horribly with Maduro, or Bolivia, and that has a high potential to become a complete disaster too, or Chile, because the CIA couldn’t have a democratic socialist in their backyard. This completely ignores the history of Western Europe, which is important because this thing started in Western Europe, and eastern Europe was a part of the soviet unions backyard. New world (talk) 12:38, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

this is something I've said for years, decades now, and I stand by it. In the face of any Randian Goober, I, like Washington, cannot tell a lie. There are three things you shouldn't privatize. Hospitals, prisons, and schools. That is what your tax money should be going to. Political campaigns should be going toe to toe on public works. Extra capital is so easily spent on fixing potholes, the fuck we need it to buy a commercial? Nobody likes ads. Torrent (talk) 08:16, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I would also add; 'militaries', 'law enforcement/courts', 'central banks', 'basic infrastructure' and government itself. However, when you say 'privatise', do you mean zero for-profit provision? Again, one of those things where socialists and and do argue about; for example whether private education should exist in principle. And yes, the arbitary definitions of 'socialism' and similar is stupid, very 'The Judean People's Front' about it and not helpful one bit. We may argue about the exact how and when, but we are all roughly on the same page on who/what the enemy is.

Dumb; it's perfectly clear to all you don't understand my previous point. No, my question is relevant. By your 'default, most obvious, most literal meaning' rules that Wal-Mart has the same weight as 'Bob's Window Cleaning Co' who's total assets comprise of an old van and three ladders. This is patently stupid to a point where I wonder if you even throught this through. And no, I am speaking of quite a bit of study on this topic; including [but not limited to] my reading of Soviet economic history - see, for example the NEP [pointing out that if you went on simple numbers, the USSR in the 20s was 'not socialist' (by your definition) because during this the majority of 'businesses' operating were in private hands ie peasant farms].

There is also the simple question of what constitutes 'one'; for example in the UK the NHS [socialised] currently owns 930 hospitals or major standalone clinics [well, good as]. Is this 'one' entity? Or 930? This is important because often when things are brought out of the private sector major amalgamations occour; for example in 1947 when the nationalised 'National Coal Board' came to be, it took over the assets of some 800 former private coal companies, comprising of 980 colleries and a workforce of around 780k. Yet, using your 'default, most obvious, most literal meaning' the UK would have become 'more capitalist' if 900 people had set up corner shops on the day of coal nationalisation [-800 private coal companies, +1 socialist NCB, +900 private corner shops = 'more capitalist by 99 firms'.]

This is the whole point of the Marxist term 'commanding heights of the economy'. That you need to only really worry about the sectors of the economy which effect the general structure of the economy, provide vital goods/services and/or are the biggest employers. That you don't [as some early regional Bolsheviks did, to Lenin's chagrin] run around 'nationalising' windmills, artisan workshops or small stores simply to boast of the numbers of nationalisations. I mean, what's going to be 'more socialist' in the USA in 2024; nationalising 2,000 corner shops or nationalising the 20 largest private firms, which between them directly employ 10 million Americans [6.2% the entire working age population], doubtless have millions more indirectly dependent on them and have perhaps trillions in capital assets?

But I fully expect you shall view this as more 'malformed questions' or simply 'not relevant'. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:59, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

The man speaks on behalf of "all". I think you are getting bogged down in the metaphysics of economics asking about the mereological character of socialist vs. capitalist entities when the discussion is more so about the dominant mode of production in a political economy. A single collective or cooperative is not what makes a socialist economic system, adding more co-ops into a capitalist economy does not make it "more socialist" if the conception of socialism is meant to be exclusive from the presence of capitalism. Yes, many Leninists and Trotskyists would say that the dominant economy of the soviet union was not socialist during the 1920s and in the decades following. Lenin actually openly admitted he didn't think socialism was achieved in Russia during his lifetime. He saw the Soviet Union as being in the process of building the material foundations to transition into a system of socialism, but not yet achieving it. The DoTP is not meant to be a synonym for socialism. Lenin was using socialism the way that Marx may use the term "lower phase communism", and in that, he specified that socialism would be characterized by the absence of class distinctions. Something he didn't think the SU achieved because he thought there was a present class conflict between the industrial workers and the peasant class. Mind you, they are going with a more strict conception of socialism than what I offered, but the idea that calling the Soviet Union "not socialist" at the time of the 1920's isn't the obvious falsehood you think it is. Also, I don't the term "commanding heights of the economy" originates from Marx, I think that term comes from Lenin specifically in his defence of the NEP in the strategic value of what they were doing. I think the idea you are going for is not that far off from the parody of "socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does the more socialister it is". If your interest is in the defense of the presence of private property under a system describable as socialist, you have to recognize that you are departing from the vast majority of socialist thinkers Post-Marx within the realm of political philosophy. If we're going to wave reasons for epistemic credibility around, I studied political philosophy at a masters level, whoop-dee-fucking do. Do my "studies" account for shit? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 06:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Also, this aspect about "class distinctions" is sort of integral to the socialist conception of private property, and would address your distinction between walmart and "Bob's Window Cleaning Co" with the total assets of 3 ladders and a van, which I am not even sure fits the criteria of a "traditional firm" nor am I certain that "3 ladders and a van" (with suspiciously absent window cleaner) constitutes a genuine "means of production." What is Bob producing besides utter confusion at his lack of cleaning supplies? Also who is the capitalist and who is wage-labourer in the context of Bob the incompetent self-employed window cleaner? Mind you, Mutualists, a type of market socialism, is totally down for the presence of self-employed 1 person operations like Bob. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 06:52, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh god damnit. You could write for révolution permanente. In university, at least in France, you can verrry often meet people, who, well, study, while waiting for the revolution to come, one day or another, while preaching Das Kapital and the Communist manifesto, and Trotsky’s essays, and more. The problem is that I, sadly, similar to how many economic liberals categorically refuse to accept us old-school radical reformist "populist" left-wingers not being "far-left", cannot accept your opinion, because 1. Your thing, and the things your revolutionary ideology has tried, have not worked, so I am not convinced we can try again, (and the Soviet Union could have certainly become something if the West didn’t abandon Gorbi) and 2. you are a far-leftist, an actual far-leftist. I certainly don’t disagree with you on a lot of issues, but if you start excluding people from socialism because you, a far-leftist of the textbook, wants to dominante the left-wing, which you’ll never do, then the line is crossed. New world (talk) 11:07, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

As to theorists not defending private property, il have to agree. If we count politicians as theorists, (some of them are, basically), then the picture is different. However, it doesn’t need to be revolutionary socialism. Chantal Mouffe, one of the biggest influences on Mélenchon, is one exemple I could cite. And Mélenchon himself, based on her and others ideas (and strategies), has developed his ideas in the form of his various party programs, and sometimes essays, on the "presidential monarchy" that is the 5th republic, and so on. And Tony Blair also gave his spin at it, and I bet Bernie did too. On what exactly do we disagree, actually? Well, I don’t believe that a reformist socialist needs to have "overthrowing capitalism" in his program, with expropriations and all, to be a reformist, and to want a gradual move towards socialism. New world (talk) 11:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

'Bob's Window Cleaning Co' is a company because it is registered as such. You did not make distinctions on 'what was a company' and what was not - and as you deride my points as 'metaphysics', I assme you are going to do some pin-dancing to 'show' how 100% correct you are and how I am totally wrong. Which you do with your total ignoring of my points, drifting off into polysyllabic waffle and showing a general ignorance of economics in general - that questioning how things are to be measured [and why] is in fact a fairly common topic and one which normally needs to be sorted first.

If you have not noticed, I have been ignoring you for some time, Dumb, because I find your points in the Bar generally turgid, windy and at times borderline incomprehensible. However, I have let you be because they've generally been on topics I either didn't know a lot about or care about. Not this time. I will firstly point out that political philosophy is not economics. Or economic history. So no, this is not your bailiwick. Oh, but it is mine [I can actually understand you somewhat for starters] and yes, 'three ladders and a van' does count as a 'traditional firm' if Bob has an employed assistant. It's not 'a parody of socialism' to make a defence of some private property; most respect private ownership of personal possessions, their own homes [within limits, obs] and many will extend this to small-scale 'owner-operated' concerns [qv, Titoism]. Even more simply, even socialists who don't like the latter often shall come to a conclusion that our current technological level means 'state management' of very single economic unit in the country would be somewhere between 'terribly inefficient' and 'utterly impossible'.

I agree with New World on this; you cannot simply draw an arbitary line of 'this is socialist' which only fits you and [I am sure of this] a very small crowd. This completely reeks of 'The People's Front of Judea' posturing which really puts my back up as a socialist becuase it's utterly counter-productive, divisive and ineffective in doing those little pesky things like building a mass movement. Which is why, for example I am willing to give assurances to the 'petty bourgeois' that their little shops, farms, workshops and houses will remain theirs - that the only people who really have much to fear are going to be the top 5% and their hangers-on. If capitalism is animals fighting over bits of meat, there's no point on taking away their meagre scraps [and making them your enemy] on 'ideological' reasons alone. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The SPD also collaborated with the Nazis to "own le commies", sooooooooo... Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 18:01, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't know where you get this information, but I believe it is factually incorrect. The SPD was the only party to vote against the Enabling Act in 1933 and was outlawed after that. If anything, the refusal of the KPD to work with the SPD (they hated them more than they hated them Nazis) was a major cause of the rise of Hitler. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:33, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I wonder why the KPD didn't want to work with the guys who used the Freikorps to kill Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, real mystery that is. Also Stalin being an idiot didn't help. A somebody. (talk) 18:59, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the parliament ended up with a 'negative majority'; ie that between the Communists and Nazis they had enough votes to bring down governments, but quite obviously not form one. Thalmann [the head of the KPD] was ordered by Stalin to not cooperate with the SPD in any way, mainly in the mistaken belief that if/when the latter 'failed', their voters would turn 'leftwards'. It was partly this failure which led to the resumption of the 'Popular Front' philosophy; that if confronted with a clear fascist/militarist menace, it's the duty of Communists to block their route to victory, even if this means collaborating with Marxist revisionists, social democrats or even stodgy liberals. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:55, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Fun fact: Because of Jaurès dying assassinated by a nationalist in 1914, a lot of Querfront activity was happening in Vichy France, in all the parties of the former Front populaire, out of "pacifism" (although fear also played a role). What’s funny about this is that the former socialist PM, Leon Blum, was Jewish, and had so see with his own eyes that "more centrists, Christians and conservatives had resisted and voted against the Laval project" which gave Pétain full powers. New world (talk) 19:17, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@KarmaPolice Well it’s saying the quiet part out loud at least, when you openly admit to desiring to make assurances to the petit bourgeoisie. But if the goal is simply to “build a mass movement” then just be a populist. Assuming you have differing goals beyond that, then what exactly is the term “socialism” doing for you? What it the end goal? If it is just wealth distribution, or nationalizing certain key industries? If that is the case there is nothing per se incompatible with those aims and being a post-60’s modern liberal then identifying as a socialist. Might be easier to get people on board that way.

The issue that lib socs, mutualists, marxists, etc. have with yours and New World’s conception is that it is *overly* inclusive — and undermines the aim of abolishing the systems of exploitation of the working class. When people complain of “defanging socialism” this is exactly what folks are talking about. Marx included an entire section of the communist manifesto going at length about French and German socialist projects inclusive to the petit bourgeois as being failures. If you are so frightened by the placement of “arbitrary” (can’t be arbitrary if there is a reason for it) lines, then what exactly is your response to the claim that “National Socialists” were genuine socialists?

My aims are particular to the opposition to class distinctions and class domination. Domination as understood in the Rousseauan sense of a social relationship between a social group that regularly appreciates the role of being obeyed against a group who regularly perform the role of doing the obeying. With a republican conception liberty, as freedom as non-domination, I believe the maximization of human liberty and means of self determination requires the abolition of certain social dominance hierarchies/ social inequality.

We can have fundamentally different interests and that’s okay, but your politics is bordering on something akin to respectability politics, and that has inevitable tendency to throw certain minority groups under the bus to maintain an idea of mass appeal to the majority.

Also New World keeps classifying my conception as the “revolutionary definition” falsely framing it as incompatible with gradualist approaches. Many mutualists adopt my definition and many do not believe in the aim of violent revolution. They also keep listing “politicians” as genuine authorities to the contents of political philosophy, and that is a whole can of worms if we are going go down that route because we have a lot of politicians who use the label “socialism” with completely contradictory aims. What grounds do you have to say self-identified National Socialists before and after Hitler are not genuine socialists? I can genuinely provide an answer to that. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:43, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@OnlySortaDumb I cited Chantal Mouffe, a defender of the populist strategy for the left, not just politicians. The problème with this is that it is a completely revisionist take on things, almost a denial of the historical and theoretical reality. There is an entire history to the moderate, not radical, gradualist approach. Jaurès taught philosophy, and he’s the founder of French socialism, so he’s a theorist, right? As to the national-socialists, as far as I know, the broader picture is that the far-right always uses a "social" element to lure the popular classes into their camp. As to liberalism, that’s a wider question. But yes, the left-wing is essentially entirely socialist, and that’s a good thing. In theory. In practice, the "mainstream" parties are neither socialist nor "social-democratic" and are rather bordering on neo-liberalism. Again, we mostly agree. If you have got nothing fundamental against gradualist approaches, then why is Bernie not socialist to you, exactly? Because he doesn’t have expropriations and co. in his program? That would make him effectively far-left. You see, I grew up in a socialist family, I’m studying the lefts and their history, socialism is something I believe in, it is my ideology. I feel socialist, as Mitterrand said in that interview I linked. Reformist literature exists, to your great detriment. But above all, I’m left-wing. I believe in the republican principles of the enlightenment and the reformist socialist tradition in accordance with it. I feel like far-leftists like you are using the situation with Bernie in the US to your benefit, and, you see, that’s to the detriment of socialism. Many marxists won’t see that it’s the same ideology with a complementary history, and the useful vote for Sanders or the future demsocs will die out. New world (talk) 00:52, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

And as to the part about goals, I do think we need to develop something akin to a socialist model. You say I might as well identify as populist, or liberal. The problem is that in practice there are only 4/3 political courants, "communism", "socialism", classical liberalism, which always includes economic liberalism, so no, we are not liberals, conservatism, and fascism. I am not a Biden supporter. The "center" and the conventional right wing, while they sometimes might have similar positions, just aren’t the left. The left-wing and the far-left agree a lot, that’s a fact, but is the far-left an instance to cite, can the far-left decide over wether the left is socialist? Even though the left has its reasons and intellectual traditions for and claiming socialism? New world (talk) 01:19, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

You are talking about historical reality while citing a contemporary political philosopher, who defines herself as "post-Marxist", so there is already a concession of breaking from certain traditions here. Also, you are reading a bunch of stuff about Bernie Sanders into what I said, expressing your "feelings" about what I am doing here -- but that has fuck all to do with the actual content of what I am saying. I didn't say one way or another if Sanders was socialist or not. If you think that my definition of socialism is socialism's detriment" then I don't care, because whatever fuck you are referring to as "socialism" isn't the thing I am interested in. I do not give two shits about validating your identity or your particular political aims. I do not care, it does not matter to me, it has nothing to do with my politics evidently. I care a lot more about ethical principles than I do about labels. If one is okay with tolerating various forms of socioeconomic oppression that I don't support, then I am not a political ally with that person. If that makes me "not a good socialist" I do not care. If socialism has nothing to do with anti-capitalism and establishing worker's control over the means of production then socialism is meaningless to me, and I don't give two shits about it. - 06:10, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@OnlySortaDumb Oh oh oh. Is someone who fundamentally believes in something a little undemocratic getting angry? See. Various forms of oppression etc. I’m sorry. But you seem to be a far-leftist. And I do not give two shits about validating your identity, or your impossible war on capitalism. What I was telling you is that there are certain socialist traditions, histories and milieux which just don’t fit your definition. I’m telling you that my historically and intellectually already validated wider definition is the common one in many places. You are what is commonly called a communist. You say I cited a post-Marxist, which is true, a post-Marxist who greatly praises the left-wing "social-democratic" governments of the glorious thirties in Europe and the government of Mitterrand (while accusing the traditional movements of having allied with the neolibs later). Yes, that’s a fact, unless we live in an alternate dimension. You see, this is the sort logic which makes me, and a lot of other people, not far-left. If you had to make your words actions, would that be a disaster? Absolutely. It would. Are you wrong in your assertion that the entire PS or PSOE are not socialist? Yes, you are. At least for the PS, which has a left-faction, to say the least. Scholars and history have already "watered down" socialism. Only a far-leftist cannot understand that, citing Marx on previous socialists pre-1848. Socialism has developed towards this ideology, not model, with extremely gradualist approaches. These are just facts. Do you have a problem with that? If yes, one more reason not to become a far-leftist or anarchist, really. Especially not a sectarian one. You have the word communism at your disposal, though reformists might also sometimes use it. Your sectarianism is ultimately hurting the wider ideology (or maybe it’s just stoping social-democrats from manipulating the masses into supporting capitalism, huh?). New world (talk) 07:35, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

"Is someone who fundamentally believes in something a little undemocratic getting angry?" How can you know fundamentally that I am undemocratic? You have no idea what my political philosophy is. I am not a communist. You have no idea what the fuck I am. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 08:58, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@OnlySortaDumb: Of course. And Trump isn’t far-right. I know your an American (?) far-left communist. Not more. New world (talk) 09:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

More so, a Canadian Degrowth Social Ecologist. I been described as a left-wing version of minarchist by student cohorts. I also concede the evidence for the necessity of markets for efficient resource allocation. That is definitely not compatible with the aim of a stateless, classless society without currency or markets. So, not really communist. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@OnlySortaDumb: Ok. While you seem to be rather radical (no problem with that, just an observation), I re-read your comments, and it seems I mixed your posts with those of Gee. Sorry for the malentendu. You’ve made general comments about the wider and restrictive definitions. The subject of this post, however, concerns specifically social-democracy, and Bernie Sanders. I admit I am not competent enough to know the validity or invalidity of your economics, Karma seems to be well fit for that. First, on populism, Chantal Mouffe argues that left-wing populism is needed to counter the resurgence of the right-wing and far-right, by "federating the people", from the agriculturalist to the factory worker to minority politics to urban youth, fighting the 1 percent, the oligarchy, the common enemy to rally the people against. This is very much in line with "building a mass movement". My point is that social-democracy isn’t inherently capitalist, or "not-socialist", but can be, and often is, a part of the socialist movement. The unity of the left comes first, in order to have a chance at fighting economic liberalism, and creating a mixed economy, first, out of pragramatism, instead of making the petite bourgeoisie your enemy because of ideological reasons. The "populist" element is in asserting the sovereignty of the people as theorised by Rousseau.

Second, communism in this sense means the revolutionary courant of socialism that split from the reformists and founded on the Leninist interpretation of Marx. New world (talk) 23:16, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't have the time/energy to answer all this (as a worker I have to well, work) but I do wonder why the hell you think 'populism' is inherently a bad thing, Dumb? KarmaPolice (talk) 13:53, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Where did I say I do? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:38, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

nowhere, I guess, but you could answer. Y'all are so mean to each other. If every idea I ever had deserved a 'fuck you forever' I dunno what I'd even have to say for myself. Torrent (talk) 07:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

'But if the goal is simply to “build a mass movement” then just be a populist.'

Could hear the sneer even via text. I'm not sure what you dislike; having a mass movement or having popular policies. I don't want popular policies simply because they are popular, but because by picking a clutch of 'socialism in action' programmes can help build up a grassroots mass movement which can then lead to other things - I found this article on political machines compelling and believe that any socialist movement should build our own machines too. We traditionally relied on the trade union movement and would be well-served to work within them again, but other methods are needed too.

On the other hand, most far-left politics I've personally observed is complete wankery. A tiny group of people who I wouldn't trust to run a corner shop talking about overthrowing capitalism and/or the state with almost nil idea of how the hell they'd do it, if they [by fluke] actually ended up in power how they would achieve their revolutionary programme or even why this would actually be good for me personally. Also, absolutely terrible in communication, larded with Marxist jargonese and dialectic in which anything could mean anything - I think most communists/socialists would be well-served by taking a lesson or three in public speaking and advertising.

Anyway, I stand on 'socialist realpolitik' more than anything else. Almost nobody will vote for a communist party in Britain unless capitalism completely implodes [and then I suspect fascist/reactionary military regime is more likely then than communism], nobody believes the British state has the technical capacity to run the entire economy and lastly, any attempt of building socialism must work out how to do so without causing a coup attempt from our own capitalist class [assisted by the USA] and to continue operating within a capitalist world. In short; I have no faith a communist revolution can be successful unless under very particular circumstances are met and even then it would involve a hugely damaging civil war which would destroy much of the 'capital' which is required to build communism. KarmaPolice (talk) 19:29, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

So essentially, I didn’t say it, and it was not logically entailed by the content of what was said — you just read it in tone. I am not even sure why it would be anyone’s stance to oppose “popular policies” in concept. Does it not depend on the content of the policy itself? Surely, you wouldn’t support a policy merely because it was popular right? Some sort of ethical limitation needs to be at play here. Out of curiosity, have you ever been to lefty volunteer run bookstore? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:20, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

It’s not just about following popular policies, it’s about federating the people yourself, as a movement, as a camp, as a faction trying to convince the people. And if you were successful in federating and convincing the people, the majority, and your adversaries were unsuccessful, then you have supported your popular policies. These policies help the people, they are for the people, by the people, if the people are seeing that they help, that they work, then you have successfully passed popular policies. You need to convince the people of socialist policies (you, as a camp, believe socialism is for the people, if you convince the people of that, that is make the people support socialist policies, or more largely left-wing policies, you are the majority, thanks to your federating the people, creating movements, not parties, mass movements, introducing conflict, protest, for the people to finally have a voice, for their interests to be represented. Only your success, representing popular interests, will determine if you can propose popular policies, only your success in federating and convincing the people). New world (talk) 09:42, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

This was exhausting. New world (talk) 14:18, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

But, just to be sure, I'm sure your tired, you know the rhetoric was 'this race of people holds the wealth, and in order redistribute this wealth, every member of this race must be exterminated, so that the wealth can be better consolidated by us, the buddies, the good guys. The Nazis.". So what is the different push for socialism in America? Socialism didn't cause the Michael Brown riots, socialism didn't cause the George Floyd riots. Democratic socialism has been stamped down by a Powerful two party system in the US, that you seemed earlier to call explicitly right wing. And I kinda agree, I would rather see progress, but what do you actually mean when you say federation is the only respectable term of civil law? And please don't pretend it wasn't said. Torrent (talk) 06:25, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

@Torrent: That’s an actually good observation. It’s complex. Essentially, it’s based on the theories of Chantal Mouffe, who influenced many strategies of the current populist left (Perhaps Bernie too). And yes, Mouffe based her analysis (which excludes the rationalist possibility of a consensus at the end of the day) on the nazi philosopher Schmitt (yes…) who talked about « friends » and « ennemies ». The difference is that in a democratic and free society, there aren’t « ennemies » but respectable adversaries who respect liberty and equality, while debating over their meaning. The antagonism of Schmitt needs to be made an agonism. According to this, conflit is inherent to democracy (between camps, like the left/right). There are all these different movements, not parties, since the 60s which replaced the classical class struggle, and which can be united, federated. It’s about creating a people, against the common adversary, the 1 percent, the oligarchy. The party of the class is now the movement of the people. New world (talk) 21:47, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess this has cleared itself. New world (talk) 01:29, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. New world (talk) 20:39, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

indeed nothin. Sorry, I appreciate your view, whether I fully understand it or agree with it. You can sometimes have the last word. Torrent (talk) 04:18, 8 May 2024 (UTC)