DocWatts

I approach the issue from a harm reduction approach, as in I'm almost completely vegetarian / vegan (in that I may have something with cheese in it maybe once or twice week), but will make occasional exceptions for the circumstances I find myself in. For example if I'm a guest in someone's house and they're serving me a meal. Seeing that I'm the only vegetarian in my family, this is a compromise that I've decided to make to maintain social relationships. Approaching the issue from a stance of moral purity never made much sense to me. Just by existing and meeting your survival needs in an industrial society you're contributing to climate change and habitat destruction. The goal should be able to find a balance between meeting your own survival needs and being socially responsible. Being a vegetarian or vegan requires time and money, and only really became sustainable for me once I had access to both after landing a stable middle class job. Our culture subsidizes food that's terrible for both our bodies and the environment (that's aside from the ethical cost of factory farming), so breaking out of that takes extra effort and resources.

@Preety_India Yeah to be honest I was a bit surprised to see Blue ranked higher than Orange in my results, could be that I've had positive Blue role models in my life. Or could be that problematic aspects of Orange are something that have had more of an impact on my life than problematic aspects of Blue

I agree, this seems to be one of the better SD tests out there.

Not sure if this has been posted already, but I found this to be a highly informative and productive discussion on metaphysics and epistemology from two very insightful thinkers representing different ontologies. The debate is interesting in that Vervaeke posits a number of compelling challenges to the notion of objective idealism that Kastrup does a very admirable job of defending from physicalist scrutiny. Also useful for a good example of what a constructive dialogue looks like between differing (indeed conflicting) paradigms.

I think there are several avenues to one can take to get to the point that Mr. Girl was alluding to, and not all them are necessarily productive. Really it wouldn't have been that hard to make that same point in a way that was more palatable to Vaush and his Green audience, as a more full expression of values that they implicitly subscribe to. For myself, I probably came across as more combative in this thread than I intended to, as it's likely I haven't fully integrated Red (and perhaps some aspects of Blue as well). That and the problems we've been discussing are basically happening in my backyard, so to speak, so there's likely some personal bias born from my lived experiences in there as well.

For what it's worth I don't think the debate-lord efforts of Vaush is productive, and I'm completely on board with building a bridge between Green and Orange. I think your assessment of a societal ego whiplash from a rapid transition to Green is fundamentally correct. I did watch that Mr Girl / Vaush stream, and I didn't think Mr Girl made a convincing case for the Yellow values he was advocating (there are a million better ways to do so than the topic he chose). I haven't watched Mr. Girl's other content, so perhaps he articulates his points better elsewhere. Not sure if you're familiar with Dr. K from HealthyGamerGG, but he's a psychiatrist with training as a monk who does a much better job (in my view) of articulating and embodying what Mr. Girl was trying to get at in that stream.

Again I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying, so for the sake of a more productive discussion what do you see as a more productive way of addressing political polarization and radicalization?

Of course fascism is a symptom and not a cause, one that arises for sociological and developmental reasons. Anyone with literacy in these subjects should be able to tell you as much, and I wasn't trying to imply otherwise (quite the opposite in fact). Yes, fascism is a symptom of other long term systemic issues having to do with socio-economic factors, widespread polarization, and declining social solidarity. But lest we forget, symptoms still need to be attended to or they can be fatal to the patient while you're busy addressing root causes (which takes time). Also I think you have the impression that I'm approaching this from a conspiratorial angle, when my perspective is sociological and developmental. Address the systemic sociological issues, and you'll begin to address the polarization that's fueling extremism.

@Scholar I actually agree with many of the points in you bring up, and broadly speaking we may agree more than we disagree. It's absolutely true that the public is poorly educated about fascism (not to mention socialism, marxism, and many other ideologies), something that fascist ideologies exploit by attempting to make thier arguments sound far more reasonable than they actually are (ie sanitizing white supremacist ideology as the far more benign sounding 'race realism'). In the minds of a majority of the public thier understanding of fascism doesn't go any farther than obvious and surface level associations with Nazi Germany. So of course there aren't fascists so much as people who were manipulated and deceived by egoicly gratifying lies. And I also fully recognize that by thier own internalized values, people enacting the egoic power fantasy of fascism are (by thier own definition) righting the wrongs of the world: 'Garbage in, garbage out.' To add to that, an SS guard working at a concentration camp also believed that what they were doing was for the good of the world. That doesn't change the fact that just because that's what makes sense to people at a particular level of development, that the rest of the society should indulge thier delusional fantasies. Social harmony is valuable insofar as it's to the benefit of everyone in the society, and allowing these narratives to go unchallenged and achieve a degree of tacit mainstream acceptance harms everyone in society. I also agree that there are likely very few explicit fascists among Trump's Cult. The fascism among the far right is largely implicit and invisible, because it takes a degree of sociological understanding to see these things. Trying to convince people who have an egoic attachment to fascist narratives is a waste of time IMHO. Not that it can't be done, just that it's not an efficient use of time, energy, and resources. Hell, it took Germany losing a world war and a multi-generational process of introspection to begin to deal with the trauma of fascist narratives. On a pragmatic interpersonal level, I think the best we can hope for is to make what's implicit explicit. And to work to ensure that fascist narratives aren't tolerated inside of whatever communities we happen to inhabit, be they physical or in the online space. That and to work towards greater social solidarity towards people who oppose these narratives, as part of a broader effort of democratization.

Political scientists and historians haven't had any trouble defining and identifying fascism. Are experts on this subject just flat out wrong when they identify a number or early warning signs of fascism in a place like the United States? I have to wonder if in your view enforcing social norms against harmful and destructive behavior has any utility at all, if you see identifying and calling out fascism as counter productive. I do agree that we shouldn't treat fascists as 'The Other', but at the same time we also have a basic social responsibility to make sure that fascism isn't something that becomes socially acceptable.

The benefit of calling out fascism is to push back against a violent fringe ideology becoming normalized in our culture. Subscribing to fascist ideology should remain as socially unacceptable as openly declaring that you're okay with pedophilia. Fascists have been working to make this ideology more palatable for mainstream acceptance, and it's something that needs to be called out and pushed back against. You can do that without dehumanizing people who've been manipulated and exploited by fascist ideology.

1) Marx is one of the most influential political philosphers in all of world history, and his critiques of exploitation under capitalism are worth understanding regardless of whether one considers themselves a 'Marxist'. If you consider BLM a Marxist organization, it sure sounds like you don't have any understanding of the things your criticizing. You're basically sock puppeting recycled McCarthy era propaganda that was directed at the Civil Rights movement, which tried to discredit any and all social reform movements as 'Marxist' (and also claimed that Marth Luther King was the most dangerous person in America). 2) Sure sounds like you're equating vandalism and looting with terrorist violence, murder, and organized attempts to end democracy.

While it's true that the crowd largely consisted of gullible idiots taken in by a charismatic con man, that doesn't change the fact that it was it was an organized attempt to prevent a democratic election from being certified with tacit approval from several high ranking Republican politicians. And that elected representatives narrowly avoided being murdered by some of these folks. Alexandria Occasio Cortez narrowly avoided being abducted and possibly murdered by men who broke in to her office, and some men were also planning to abduct and possibly murder vice president Mike Pence. While it was less a serious attempt to overthrow the government than it was a show of force and a dress rehearsal for future coup attempts, it's a bad portent of things to come. Most of the people who were charged got off with relatively light sentences (less than a few years), and the Republican Party has actively been trying to obstruct investigations in to the affair (such as why the Capital Hill Police were completely unprepared that day), because Trump and several others were complicit. Hitler also launched a botched coup attempt in the 1920s, but just because it was farcical failure didn't prevent him from successfully ending democracy a decade later.

@vizual Was it BLM and Marxists that staged an attempted coup a year ago? Or was it right wing terrorists? Far right terrorists are responsible for more deaths due to terrorist violence than literally any other group or ideology in the United States (according to the FBI). This is literally a recycled Nazi conspiracy theory; namely that social justice organizations are the work of a degenerate cabal of Jews and Marxists to destabilize society and subvert Western culture. Not accusing you of being a Nazi, but it might help to be aware of the origins of the argument that you're making. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory

There are legitimate critiques to be made of Marxism, but painting a false equivalency between the two (especially in a contemporary context where fascist terrorists are murdering people and actively working to destroy democracy in the United States) is hugely unproductive. Plus, Marxism has basically zero political representation in the United States whilst fascist sympathizers have been making inroads towards actual positions of power; both in the Republican Party and also in law enforcement (the latter is something the FBI has been warning about).

Fascism relies on conspiracy theories and on unjustifiable claims of persecution for members of the dominant ethno-cultural group to fuel its egoicly gratifying delusions. Which is where ludicrous ideas that Christians or white men are a persecuted minority ultimately come from, or that mask requirements during a pandemic are equivalent to anti-Semitism in 1930s Germany. Because once you rip away these delusions the entire ideology falls apart, hence why you can't engage a fascist sympathizers in good faith. And why we should be calling out Bad Faith arguments so that ourselves and others don't get drawn in to debates with people who employ them. That doesn't mean we can't be compassionate towards people who fall in to toxic ideologies (no one joins a white supremacist gang because thier life is going awesome), but we'd be better off manuevering around them and doing what we can to make sure they can't amass political power rather than spending time and energy arguing and debating.

It seems highly likely that the United States will backslide to a hybrid (meaning a mixed democratic / authoritarian) regime within the next ten or so years. Democracy will probably continue to function at the level of States and Cities, but on a federal level the substance of democracy will be eroded to the point that the US could no longer be considered to be a full democracy by most metrics. Following the template laid down by other hybrid regimes, the facade of democracy will be maintained for purposes of plausible deniability (ie people in Russia still vote), but structural and legal barriers will be erected to prevent challenging parties from having any realistic chance of winning future elections. To analogize a bit, while it's possible for someone to walk on a tightrope for a few hours without plummeting to thier doom, it's not reasonable to expect that to happen every day for ten years without incident. Even if it's not in 2022 and 2024, at some point Republicans are going to have the Legislative majorities needed to facilitate the slow moving coup they've been working towards. The unfortunate truth is that anti-democratic structural elements within US institutions (such as the filibuster, and the undemocratic make up of the Supreme Court and Senate) are preventing the very reforms that could safeguard democracy long enough for democratization efforts to begin to address larger systemic reforms. Of course a regime marked by the kind of corruption, incompetence, and cronyism of Trump and his contemporaries is ultimately unsustainable in a country like the US, and will burn itself out given enough time. Of course this will entail harm to millions of people in the course of this, and further delay any tangible action on existential threats such as Climate Change. Of course this isn't inevitable so those of us opposed to this course of events should keep fighting, but we shouldn't downplay the gravity of what's at stake going forward. Also it's not as if a hybrid regime can't transition back to democracy as well.

Just because the Republican Party is packed with amoral grifters and fascist sympathizers doesn't mean that they're dumb. Trying to institute a military coup would be bad strategy because it would make what they're doing incredibly obvious (more so than it is now), and it's not at all clear that the military would support them. Rather, the more likely scenario is that they're going to use legal and legislative mechanisms to end democracy, ala Russia, Poland, and Hungary. Really all that would have to happen is to place Trump sycophants in key positions when it comes to certifying the 2024 elections, and to have future GOP lead federal and state legislatures enact structural barriers that make it impossible for other political parties to win elections. When democracies collapse, it tends to be the culmination of a lengthy period of societal decline where democracy isn't meeting the needs of the society, opening a space for Bad Faith demagogues to use societal feelings of alienation and resentment for the purposes of amassing political Power. Thank forty years of neoliberal austerity politics under both political parties, and a well oiled Right Wing propaganda machine which benefits by exacerbating cultural divisions, for bringing us to this point. With the incentive structures of Democracy and Capitalism being at cross purposes, political institutions being captured by oligarchs sets the stage for the decline of democracy under Late Stage Capitalism. Add to that easily exploitable cultural divisions during a paradigm shift from Blue/Orange to Green, and this gives Bad Actors who wish to end democracy plenty of opportunities to do so. Without addressing the systemic failures that brought us to this point, the best we can do is try to forestall the collapse of democracy. Addressing these systemic failures would require a broad coalition focused on democratization politics, something that unfortunately our current institutions are inadequate for (the fact that Democratic majorities can't pass something as basic as Voting Rights legislation is a good indicator of this).

Hard to give the basic gist of a philosopher as complex as Hegel, but here's my best shot: The basic gist of Hegel is that he's a process philosopher, concerned with questions of becoming. Central to Hegel's philosophy is the notion of dialectics, in which ideas shape and are shaped by a dynamic interplay of shifting equilibriums. This can be metaphorically thought of in some ways as physical forces interacting and pressing upon each other generating tension, and that these tensions must get resolved in one way or another. The notion that all ideas contain within them thier own negation, and out of this negation new ideas are synthesized, is what for Hegel gives thought its character as evolving and self correcting. Hegel sees thought as an expression of an embodied universal consciousness that's the ontological substrate underlying all of Reality, and is in the process of discovering it's own nature through the dialectical process he describes. Important to note that objective Reality does exist for Hegel, just that it's fundamentally Mental rather than Material. His philosophy can be thought of as a systematic way of explaining how the dynamic interplay between paradigms makes development possible, and in that aspect Hegel can be said to be somewhat of a precursor to thinkers like Ken Wilber and dialectical models such as Spiral Dynamics. Of course, people who are only familiar with Hegel on a very surface level tend to reduce this philosophy down to a simple Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis model, which is a caricature of Hegel rather than an accurate distillation of his philosophy.

To anyone interested in Hegel, I'd suggest that instead of trying to work your way through his dense and impenetrable prose (Hegel being a famously terrible writer), you'd be far better off picking up The Accessible Hegel as a starting point. Like it's name suggests, it makes Hegel's work accessible without dumbing it down. Or trying to reduce it to a Materialist philosophy (ala Marx and Zizek).

Sad that basic maintenance of the country's infrastructure is considered an 'achievement' in some sense, but considering the dysfunctional nature of our declining democracy here in the 'States I guess we have to take what small wins we can.

From the title of this thread I'd thought Leo had done another game related vlog post

The only way to transcend Capitalism short of a global catastrophe that forces humanity's hand (and also narrows the scope of responses we have available), is to outcompete Capitalism on its own terms. Outcompeting Capitalism on its own terms would mean showing people the possibility that other systems can deliver 'the goods' of material prosperity (or at the very least a life of relative comfort and security), without the destructive and exploitative elements of Capitalism. This of course will have to take in to account that Capitalist mechanisms will work to destroy any other competing system, something that will have to be accounted for and guarded against. Global capitalism basically needs the modern equivalent of a Gorbachev; someone who understands the rules of the system well enough to work within the system to change things. In this context, that would also entail understanding how political system capture works under Capitalism, and what a process to untangle that would be.

David Foster Wallace (an early metamodern writer in the 90s and 200s) put it quite nicely. To paraphrase: Postmodern deconstruction has been incredibly useful and important for pointing out what's hypocritical, stupid, and cruel. Once that's done, however, postmodernism generally lacks better, positive values it can inculcate in the vacuum of what's been deconstructed. The result is a dearth of sincerity, and in the absence of positive values is a pervasive (and tiresome) postmodern irony, one which scoffs : "How dare you have the audacity to ask me what it is I really mean?"