DocWatts

That's a reasonable concern. But the way you address that in my view is as part of a larger effort to make sure that workers are protected from arbitrary treatment by their employers.

Is a company reprimanding/firing someone for overtly racist behavior any more unreasonable than that same person getting fired for sexual harassment? Both create a toxic environment that would potentially make other people feel unwelcome / unsafe, or at the very least excluded. I'm not opposed to what you mention about reform being preferable to retributive punishment, but fines seem like an incredibly clunky way to combat cultural attitudes that are deeply tied to individual/group psychology. And from what I understand Germany's Hate Speech Laws are a tiny tip of the iceberg of a larger cultural movement to de-Nazify the country. No way that would have been effective without the accompanying deep soul searching and nationwide truth and reconciliation efforts. Not to mention a widescale international effort to address the socio-economic and security issues that the Nazis were able to exploit in order to rise to power. While I'll grant that things like Hate Speech laws might make sense in some places such as Germany, here in America we haven't successfully come to terms with our legacy of racism to anywhere close to the same extent as Germany. A guy whose political base included White Supremacists won 70 million Votes in our last election. Attempting to police racist behaviors without a much larger effort to address widescale societal attitudes is almost certain to not work.

Seems like social ostracization (including being reprimanded/fired from your job) for overtly racist behavior is a better way of handling this issue than attempting to use Law Enforcement or the Judicial System to police the speech of private citizens. Not every negative social behavior is best dealt with using the punitive arm of the State. The collective ego backlash of such an attempt should be enough to pause to consider the unintended consequences that are likely to arise. Has an attempt been made to means test Hate Speech laws to see if it's actually an effective way of curbing harm towards the people its intending to protect?

@Husseinisdoingfine For sure. It's all about how your frame the discussion around these issues. 'Radicalizing' people is always going to be context dependent; and for someone tied to the sinking ship of Late Stage Industrial Capitalism, ideas like workplace Democracy may seem 'Radical' if the person making that judgement call earns a living from running a business with highly exploitative labor practices. For most ordinary people, the idea of giving workers a say in how their business is run can come across as very reasonable, depending on how its pitched. If the person making the argument uses highly combative language and emphasizes that this is part of a larger push to change everything about society, it's likely to scare people off who might otherwise be sympathetic to your aims. On the other hand, if it's framed as an extension of values that person already believes (Democracy, fairness, autonomy, financially rewarding hard work), you'll have a much easier time of it. Ideally, for these sorts of idea to gain any traction at all in the wider population, workplace Democracy should be seen as American as Apple Pie, and an extension of the ideals of this country. If you look to previous efforts to move society forward (be it the New Deal or Civil Rights advances), that's exactly how they were able to gain enough traction to become successful. It should be easy to speak about it in non-abstract, concrete terms that your grandparents could understand. I also think it's worth emphasizing that it doesn't have to be an all or nothing affair, there are various gradients of Socialism and Social Democracy. I think of myself as someone who's highly sympathetic to the motivations and intentions behind (Libertarian) Socialism, and see it largely as an empirical question as to where things like decomodification and extensions of Democracy make sense, and what some pragmatic approaches for implementing these ideas might look like.

@Milos Uzelac Thanks. So I do think you make some very valid observations about the fact that Bad Actors have intentionally worked to make 'radicalization' a pejorative, for the purposes of discrediting a number of very reasonable and pragmatic policy platforms (including everything from the Green New Deal to a Living Wage Legislation in the US). That said, in order to get anything passed using democratic methods requires a majority (or in some systems a plurality) of people within a country to support a given piece of Legislation; or if not supporting it, at least not being strongly opposed to it. And for most ordinary people most of the time, saying that someone has become 'Radicalized' has strong negative connotations to it. For a typical person in America, mentions of 'Radicalization' may bring to mind: QAnon Conspiracists Islamic Terrorists Neo Nazis / White Supremacists Marxist Revolutionaries Domestic Terrorists In other words, not the sorts of things you probably want associated with a movement that at its heart wants to expand democracy, reduce economic exploitation, and promote sustainable development. Sure I suppose you could work very, very hard and spend a ton of time trying to reclaim that Label from these negative connotations, but why bother? Assuming the end results are what you care about, why not take the less difficult path to get there?

@Milos Uzelac A few things: (1) Socialism is going to have an easier time operating and pushing for things like workplace Democracy and Decommodification within a Social Democracy than it would within the more Capitalist system that qe have today. Once people see that 'Leftist' policy positions work and 'Socialist' is no longer used a pejorative, people won't as afraid of experimenting with reforms that empower workers. (2) Third Parties are great in concept and something I wish that our system made room for, but until major Electoral reforms are enacted (such as Ranked Choice Voting), Third Parties unfortunately don't stand much of a chance. Changing the Two Major Parties from within has proven to be how you actually successfully advocate for Reforms our system. For the record, I'd probably vote for the Green Party if Third Parties were viable in our system; but as things stand, getting more Progressives and Social Democrats elected to the Democratic Party is the most realistic avenue for change. (3) Just my personal opinion, but I think Leftists would be better off dropping this language of 'radicalizing' people. It's on us to convince people that policies we advocate for are the more Reasonable position. Treating Health Care as a Human Right in the richest country in the world, or giving workers a voice in how thier workplaces are run, aren't far fetched utopian ideals and shouldn't be treated as such. Using the language of Radicalization only serves to make these ideas seem scary to people who might otherwise support said reforms.

Fact is that Bernie or AOC are about as far Left as you can go under a Two Party System while staying Electable. And they've proved more successful in shifting the Overton window Left towards Social Democracy than any Third Party or Socialist Advocacy group in America. Try running a Socialist candidate (not a Social Democrat like AOC or Bernie, but an actual Socialist) and see how far that gets you. Even Green Party candidates like Ralph Nader are much closer to being Social Democrats than Socialists.

Whenever I see naive Leftists criticizing the handful of successful Social Democrats who are actually advocating for thier professed Values:

The idea that poor people living in countries like the US are Materially better off than 17th Century Monarchs, while not untrue, is a rationale that's been Weaponized against poor people and used to undermine the lived experience of Poverty. And it's usually employed by people who are directly benefiting from exploitative socio-economic systems set up for thier own benefit. Yes, King George or Thomas Jefferson didn't have access to an iPhone or a Nintendo Switch, but that's an incredibly Reductionist way of looking at it. Study after study has shown that the stresses of Poverty damages people's emotional Health and psychological well being. In places like the US, the poor have a lower life expectancy (around 10 years less than middle class or wealthy people). The poor also spend much more of thier time being demeaned and dehumanized, and bear the brunt of exploitative labor practices in out socio-economic system. The poor routinely have thier political rights violated due to Voting Suppression efforts targeted at them. They are much more likely to be overpoliced, and to end up in our Prison System where a bevy of Human Rights abuses awaits them. On top of all that in places like the US there's a negative social stigma attached to be poor; namely that you're lazy and thus deserve to be poor. Which is the equivalent of a a schoolyard bully punching you in the face, and saying 'why are you hitting yourself?,

Given the choice between abandoning an unpopular Policy Platform or abandoning Democracy, in almost every instance Republicans have chosen to throw Democracy under the bus rather than modify their ideology so that they can win elections. In the long run it's a losing strategy, but they sure as Hell have the ability to harm a ton of people before they finally become irrelevant.

Because the socio-economic strata that a person ends up at is largely due to a compounding series of advantages and disadvantages that begin accumulating from birth. And because hard work is not enough to better your circumstances without also having access to Social Capitol, which is in large part determined by the circumstances you were born in to. In a country like the US, only %30 of people born into poverty succeed in making it to the middle class.

https://theconversation.com/many-qanon-followers-report-having-mental-health-diagnoses-157299 Some necessary Context: this is based upon the people so far who have been arrested for their role in the Jan. 6th Insurrection, rather than a nationwide Survey of people who would identify as QAnon supporters. The results are striking : %68 of those in custody have reported being diagnosed with a Mental Illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, paranoid schizophrenia and Munchausen syndrome. For contrast, that number is %19 for all Americans. This isn't something that's really that surprising based upon my own face to face interactions with the handful of people who were sucked down the QAnon conspiracy rabbit hole, with every QAnon'er I've personally known being emotionally unbalanced and displaying symptoms of mental illness (such as schizophrenia), or were having trouble coping with awful circumstances that were making their lives very difficult. While this isn't surprising, I do wonder why we don't see this talked about more. While it doesn't excuse their actions, many of them are very clearly damaged people. And this is yet another good illustration of why we need to cultivate more compassion with society, and develop better support structures for people Otherwise the legions of embittered, alienated people that will find other, malignant avenues to cope with their mental and emotional trauma.

If the question is an actual attempt to understand why different parts of the world developed differently (rather than a masked attempt to sneak in ethnocentric rhetoric), you'll find a pretty comprehensive answer to that question in Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Just to be clear, I wasn't implying that happiness is something exclusive to middle class people living in Developed Countries. I would be confident in asserting that someone from an indigenous tribal culture in a place like Papua New Guinea is generally going to be happier than someone who's spent the last ten years of thier life working at Wal-Mart (even if they are in some ways Materially better off than the person from Papua New Guinea). Clearly societal expectations are going to play a big role here, with Tribal societies offering cradle to grave security as well the much deeper interpersonal relationships that come from being part of a community. Unfortunately people living in Poverty in more developed places like the US kind of have the worst of both worlds. Which is to say that they are subjected to the stressful and dehumanizing aspects of trying to meet thier survival needs in a society that doesn't care about or value them, without the same kind of communal support structures to provide them with a sense of meaning and belonging. Hence why we're seeing so many alienated, bitter, and lonely people in places like the US. In Industrialized Societies, ascending the socio-economic Totem Pole means becoming less vulnerable to being exploited, and spending less time and energy on having to meet Survival Needs in demeaning ways that are disconnected from what that person cares about.

If you find yourself basically agreeing with almost every point that Leo makes in his videos, that more or less means you're not engaging with the ideas being presented in a Critical and Engaged way. If there's a general through line for most of the content from Leo's channel is that it's meant to challenge your perspective and worldview in rather fundamental ways. You probably shouldn't be agreeing with everything that's presented to you. It's that's not the case, you might want to take a break from actualized.org content, read a few books, get some other Perspectives. If one person is your fulcrum for your Perspective on Reality, that's a precarious position to be in, even if that individual is highly Knowledgeable and has benign intentions.

Saying that money doesn't buy happiness is just patently false when people's basic Survival needs in an Industrial or Post Industrial society are secured almost exclusively with money. Money is Freedom in our Society. Almost any problem that a person may run in to in this life will be made worse without access to financial resources. Here's just a few examples that cover a wide range of life scenarios: Physical, mental, or emotional Health problems are much harder to manage when you're poor Interpersonal relationships become harder to maintain when one or both parties are consistently dealing with stress that comes from financial instability. Employment at lowers levels of income tends to be less intellectually and emotionally fulfilling Poverty damages people psychologically in empirically verifiable ways, leading to insecure attachments throughout one's life, and difficulty with long term planning and decision making. Just look to the number of Lottery Winners who end up broke after a few years for an illustration of this. Personal Time to pursue one's Self Actualization goals, and live their life in an Authentic Way, is secured almost exclusively with money While it's true that there are eventual diminishing returns once an Individual earns a set amount of Income over and above what they need to meet their needs (I've seen studies which show this to be anywhere from around $90k a year to $120k year), in general you don't see people who've had actual experience with Poverty repeating the silly notion that "money doesn't buy happiness".

In addition to the Libertarian roots of the country, something also to consider is that America is a much more socially fragmented country than somewhere like the UK, where an emotional regime of fear and mistrust is still very much prevalent here. The modern root of this comes from Social Conditions within the US, where massive levels of inequality and a declining standard of living have imprinted a scarcity mindset on to much of the population. You could see this at play when the pandemic first broke out here, where the supermarket shelves were empty because frightened people were hoarding things like toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Add to this that Bad Actors in government and the media have exacerbated social divisions within the country, with low levels of solidarity and social trust as a result. Gun Manufacturers have contributed to this in intentional ways, as they are in a position to capitalize upon societal trends of paranoia and mistrust.

If we were designing the system from the ground up, something like what you're describing would be a workable and sane system. Problem is that things have gotten so bad in the US that there's more guns than there are people. Recalling literally hundreds of millions of guns isn't something that's even remotely feasible; and that's leaving aside that tens of millions of people here equate to thier "right" to own a small arsenal with freedom of speech or freedom of religion, and cling to Gun Culture every bit as much as religious folks cling to their Holy Texts. The intractability of this problem will take Generations to solve, because of how inextricably it's intertwined with a host of other systemic problems within the US.

I live just outside of Detroit, which is something approaching the City equivalent of a Failed State. I wouldn't be surprised if Material living conditions were better for many middle class people in Beijing than they are for some of the worst neighborhoods in Detroit. That said, you're not going to be have your life destroyed for Publicly questioning the government over here. Of course that's to deny that people don't have thier lives destroyed by arbitrary applications of Power in a flawed Democracy, but most people most of the time are going to enjoy a far greater degree of personal autonomy under a flawed but still Democratic system.

I'm always going to feel more qualified talking about the shitty aspects of American culture, but that doesn't mean other Societies aren't also shitty in thier own idiosyncratic ways. For America, I'd sum it up by saying that the living conditions for many, many people are far worse than you'd expect for what's supposedly the richest country in the world.

First off, I'm glad that you managed to make it out of there safely. As to untangling this problem, it's very common to see Reductive approaches that attempt to undermine how difficult of a problem this is. The problem isn't just that there are more Guns than there are people in America, it's that there's one gun per every person in an environment of where basic support structures for psychological Health are completely inadequate, and where extreme levels of inequality (including a declining standard of living) are a driving force behind widespread feelings of alienation and despair.

Looks like more bad news on the Horizon.... https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/10/25/21532853/amy-coney-barrett-senate-vote-end-debate Really hope Democrats do everything they can to obstruct this, and considering that it's likely that they'll have control of the Presidency, House, and Senate by January, perhaps some actual reforms to the Judicial System and the Supreme Court might be on the table.

That's actually a great way of putting it. That's accurate, but at the same time my intuitive sense is that finding the shortcomings of Reductionist paradigms (from Above, rather than from Below) requires a much greater conceptual Leap than the one that's required for Religious people to come to the realization that the events chronicled in Holy Texts are allegorical stories meant to help them live thier lives, rather than a literal account of the past. Or maybe not, as I'll fully grant that it's possible I lack the imagination to grasp how difficult of a conceptual leap that understanding Biblical stories as didactic fables may be for some people.

I've found it can be helpful to think of Materialist Reductionism as occupying a similar space within Atheism as Scriptural Literalism does in the Religious Communities. While I would never claim a false equivalency between the two (Scriptural Literalism being far more maladaptive in the modern context), it can be useful for demonstrating that there are more or less nuanced perspectives within each paradigm. Just as religious belief doesn't necessarily have to conflict with Darwinian Evolution, Atheistic beliefs don't necessarily have to hinge upon crude Materialist or Reductionist metaphysics.

I've been transitioning to a plant based diet myself, and agree with the aims of Vegetarianism, even if I'm not %100 Vegetarian yet at this point in my life. Being overly moralistic about it is counter productive; the aim should be to shift people's thinking towards more sustainable and more ethical diets, rather than an all or nothing affair. I kind of look at Atheism the same way; the aim should be to help nudge people towards healthier forms of belief, and away from problematic manifestations that are maladapted to coexisting within a secular, pluralistic society. The idea that everyone in the world should be an Atheist is so counter productive and unrealistic that I have to laugh at the naivety of even attempting such a concept.