DocWatts

Framing issues of Social Justice (such as a handful of billionaires owning more wealth than the bottom half of the country) as a matter of Consumer Choice seems like fundamentally the wrong mindset to take, and feels illustrative of how disempowered we've become as Citizens to get public policy passed to correct for this.

If you want a real example of a conscious capitalist, look to someone like Bill Gates, who's using the immense wealth he's made under Capitalism to make conditions better for some of the poorest people in the world, and is in fact planning on giving away almost all of his Wealth. John Mackey doesn't strike me as really that different from other extremely wealthy people who come up with self-serving reasons to prop up a system that they happen to be benefiting from.

Fair enough, I'll redact my previous assumption about the socio-political context I had assumed you were trying to evoke then

As a side note, I do recognize the political situation / country that you're likely alluding to in your example (the way you framed it seemed like it was meant to evoke Israeli immigration into Palestine and the displacement of the people living there, but correct me if I'm wrong here). If so, what happened there was due to fairly unique Circumstances that are a bit harder to generalize, I would argue. But that's such a complicated and loaded topic that it could probably take up a whole Thread all on its own

From the example you mention, it ends up reading as if from the perspective of how someone at an ethno-centric (or Blue) stage of development would frame the issue of Immigration, where the person in question sees the world as groups fighting against groups, and prosperity for some means deprivation for others. In fact, this is very similar to how successful minority communities have been demonized in ethno-centric Cultures across a wide range of countries, with successful Jewish communities being the most obvious example here. People at an ethno-centric stage of development become threatened when they see a community of Outsiders doing well (due to the minority group's Cultural Values and sense of Community that help them to succeed despite the obstacles placed in their way). This often gets misconstrued as Foul Play and the group in question becomes resented by the Dominant group. But as for the broader principle between Survival and sticking to one's Principles, well there's a lot to unpack there. Your answer will probably depend on how your frame the issue of Justice. For my part, I see public policy decisions through a Harm Reduction perspective, I would have to rank your proposed choices in the following order ( # 1 ) Survival of the entire society as a starting place, pretty much a non-negotiable (assuming the society in question is worth saving; not every society is, and the answer to this will vary depending on who's perspective you're taking. A slave living in the Antebellum South would not see the Confederacy as worth saving, while a white slaveholder likely would). ( # 2 ) Application of First Principles such as justice, fairness, equality of opportunity etc. Societal collapse is an ugly thing that causes a great deal of harm, and there are very few situations where that will be preferable to making the minimum level of sacrifice to one's Principles that's needed to ensure the survival of a society. At the same time though the vast majority of challenges a nation will face are not Existential Threats, and it's very tempting to frame issues that way when it's not really warranted. Things that actually cause Societies to collapse tend to be systemic in nature, where any one cause is very rarely responsible on its own. In the example you mention, perhaps the Systemic issue is that the Political and Socio-Economic Systems are vulnerable to a small Elite who are able to monopolize power and impose its will on the majority. Or it could be that the Immigration issue you mention is indicative of another country imposing its will on the nation in question, and forcing it to take in more immigrants than it can reasonably assimilate into its society. Perhaps there's a lack of a Social Safety net, so that people who end up the socio-economic Losers are driven in to desperate circumstances.

A real world example of the Thought Experiment you brought up exists through something known as 'Finlandization'. What it refers to is a smaller nation having to sacrifice some of its sovereignty to avoid being swallowed up by larger, more powerful neighbor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization Typically this takes the form of a conscious effort on the part of the disadvantaged nation to make itself indispensable in some way to the nation that's threatening it, and thereby make the loss of said benefits more costly than what would be gained if the domineering power were to take over its weaker neighbor. Typically this involves economic and/or foreign policy concessions, and can involve a curtailment of Democratic freedoms such as freedom of the press. As such, nations who go down this path tend to do so because it's the least harmful path available to it at the time, and as such I wouldn't say thay they're wrong for doing so, when you consider that the alternatives are far worse. If you're interested in the subject, Jared Diamond writes a really compelling account of the precarious situation that Finland found itself in during the Cold War in his most recent book, 'Upheavel'. The fact that they came out of it in one piece with Democracy still in tact, rather than becoming a Soviet puppet state, makes the concessions they had to make at the time worth it.

@LfcCharlie4 For sure, any political system should really be just a Means to an end for achieving a just and prosperous society, rather than an End in and of itself (something that ideologues tend to lose sight of).

Also it's not be overlooked that both Social Democracy and Socialism both make heavy use of Markets to produce and distribute Goods, the main difference being that workers in both cases benefit from a far more just socio-economic arrangement. There's absolutely no reason to think that something like Whole Foods couldn't exist under both systems.

@Forestluv. Agreed. Green policies can help make the Orange socio-economic systems that we have in this country more functional for ordinary people, without necessarily having to frame it as a Green revolution. The people benefiting from a more humane socio- economic arrangement don't have to be at Green or Yellow to be better off with these policies in place, a strong case just needs to be made that allowing reforms to take place will make thier lives better. A better education system and public investments in Infrastructure and STEM would be a win-win for both ordinary people and also for the business community. A publicly funded Health Care system would not only make life better for both poor and middle class people, but would also relieve businesses of the burden of having to provide outrageously expensive Health Care coverage for thier employees. Of course the tradeoff here is higher taxes, but America thrived during the fifties and sixties when the top marginal tax rate was close to %90. It's no surprise that the most exploitative businesses will bitch and moan about all of this, but it's not hard to see this as a Bad Faith argument that's not worth taking seriously, and in the end they'll adapt.

How about the more nuanced take on Orange that emerged in Star Trek : Deep Space 9, with the deeper level of characterization for the Ferengi Culture? I say nuanced because the show takes pains to show that Orange meme has both positive as well as negative aspects (whereas on previous Star Trek shows the Orange meme was shown in an almost exclusively negative light).

I think you have to put these people on a spectrum. While it's undeniable that the company he runs is far more ethical than something like Wal-Mart or McDonalds, recognize when the conscious capitalism argument is being used to distract from needed socio-economic reforms by spotlighting a handful of Good Actors in an unethical system. I could probably say the same thing about someone like Elon Musk, who deserves due credit for running a fairly ethical series of companies all things considered, but we shouldn't expect that to be the norm without enforcement mechanisms in place.

Talk about someone who not only went off the rails, but careened off the edge of a cliff. Yikes. I remember thinking several years ago that he was a halfway sane guy who wanted more of a dialogue between the Left and the Right. Now I'm not sure if he was always a closest fascist, or if that's changed over the last few years.

Since one's level of consciousness is directly tied to the Survival Strategy of whatever Cultural and Socio-Economic Context that Individual happens to be living in, something tangible we could do is improve the living conditions for ordinary people as American society transitions from Orange to Green. Investments in education will pay dividends in this regard, even recognizing that our educational system is outdated and far from ideal. The basics of Media Literacy and Epistemology should be required courses alongside History and Algebra as part of a primary education curriculum. Even a rudimentary level of College Education provides some degree of inoculation against being taken in by Conspiracy Theories and by Propaganda. Doing what we can to reform Late Stage Capitalism so there's not as many desperate, hopeless people in our Society who become vulnerable to manipulation by Bad Faith Actors will also pay Dividends. To demonstrate this with a parallel, there's a reason why Nazi ideology wasn't taken seriously in the relatively prosperous decade of the 1920s, and only caught on in mainstream German Culture with the immense suffering and deprivation of the Great Depression to serve as a Catalyst.

I'm rapidly coming to the same conclusion myself; of the numerous interactions I've had with the MAGA Crowd, not one of them has given me reason to believe that any of them are likely to be shaken from their delusional convictions. Independent fact checking sites such as Snopes or Politifact will be shrugged off as partisan shills, and even Republicans who criticize the President will be dismissed out of hand. Statements from Trump's own mouth will always said to be taken out of context, even when you patiently explain to the person how Trump's own statements conflict with whatever delusional argument they're trying to make. Might as well to try to convince a Religious Fundamentalist that God doesn't exist, for all the Luck you'll have trying to shake a MAGA Cultist from their delusional Conviction that Trump is a secret genius at war with the Deep State, whom the whole world is conspiring against.

Couldn't agree more; while his deconstruction of Christian morality is insightful in some aspects, these are unfortunately wrapped up in the self-aggrandizing Power Fantasy of a weak man who was a sycophant for Elites, and had nothing but disdain for %99 of humanity.

Not sure if Bertrand Russel has been mentioned on this thread or not, but here he offers a Yellow perspective on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (whose philosophy is a Red/Orange deconstruction of Blue). Near the end of the clip, he uses a thought experiment of an imagined conversation between Nietzsche and the Budda as a framework for exploring the ethical ramifications of Nietzsche's philosophy.

This matches an intuition I've had for a long time now; because fact of the matter is that Conservatives aren't going away our lifetime, but there's no reason why healthy Conservatism shouldn't be within the bounds of a functional pluralistic Democracy (unlike the proto-fascism of Trump). Having reasonable and sane people on both sides of the political isle does nothing but benefit the system as a whole, and progressives lump the halfway reasonable conservatives with the batshit crazy ones to thier own detriment. I also feel bad that people of integrity who happen to be Conservative have no representation on a National Level. I never understood why some elements on the Left demonized people like John McCain, who from all accounts was a decent and honorable person. I guess hindsight is 2020 when all the reasonable people have been driven out of the Republican Party until all that's left are proto-fascist bottom feeders.

Same! I've been replaying Subnautica recently, and the video / audio design is masterful in the way it evokes feelings of both wonder and dread.

Conservative Intellectuals with thoughtful points of view do in fact exist. The idea that Trump is one of them though is laughable. If we look deeper at Trump we can see a deeply damaged individual who was unfortunately brought up by parents who wanted to raise a sociopath and succeeded, rather than a deep and nuanced thinker.

If you happen to enjoy exploration and/or survival games, I'd highly recommend Subnautica. Simply put, it's almost certainly the best Survival/Exploration game I've ever played. The game drops you on an alien Ocean world and asks you to survive without any weapons by exploring your environment and understanding its ecology.

Late to the party here, but a genuine question : how different is someone who idolizes Lenin/Trotsky that different from an American who idolizes 18th Century Aristocrats, many of which owned Slaves, and happen to share at least some culpability for a genocide that killed millions of indigenous people? Understand that I'm not setting up a false equivalency between the American Founding Fathers and the founders of the Soviet Union, but I often see a lot of black and white thinking on this topic, with people either praising or condemning without taking into account the full historical context. The reason I bring this up is I'll often hear Vaush or someone else on the socialist end of the online Left casually drop a reference to the writings of Lenin/Mao, and knowing the crimes those people have committed, kind of recoil in the same way I would as if someone dropped a casual Mein Kampf reference to support a point, and I'm a bit conflicted as to whether that's a justified reaction or not.

Spiral Dynamics also tells us that people tend to think of themselves as two stages higher than they really are; ie alot of Orange Libertarian types would probably think of themselves as Systems Thinkers, when in actuality they're more likely to be in a less advanced paradigm (logical positivism, or material reductionism). Red can have a conception of what Orange is without fully embodying it, just like Blue can have a conception of what a New Age hippie is, without a deeper understanding of the nuances of that worldview. And I'm not arguing that Trump has no Orange in him at all, just that his center of Gravity is at Red.

Compare Trump to someone like Jeff Bazos if you want a good comparison of between Red and Orange. If the concept of a fascist Cult of Personality forming around Jeff Bazos sounds ridiculous, that's because there's a tangible difference between an individual who's actually at stage Orange, and Trump who's only masquerading from Red.

Trump has been sued time and time again, and is something like a billion dollars in debt last I checked. He has a long history of refusing to pay contractors, and generally just screwing over people he's gone into business with. The only reason it may seem that he's not completely Red is because he lives in an Orange/Green society, that puts serious Constraints on what he's able to get away with.