DocWatts

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Posts posted by DocWatts

  6. Posted · Edited by DocWatts

    4 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

    Ok.

    Another Q; Are there more democrats in metropolitan areas than in rural areas?

    Very much so; the Democratic Republican demographic divide is in many ways a divide between urban and rural areas. In the US political system, rural areas have a disproportionate amount of political influence compared to thier population.

    If presidential elections were decided by popular vote rather than the Electoral College, Republicans might conceivably never win another election. Which is why they defend the E.C., as they benefit from it politically in a big way.

  8. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Shin said:

    Cautiously optimistic ?

    Biden looks like as corrupt as precedent presidents, it's just that between him and a bloodthirsty hound who could do something extremely stupid every second, the choice is made.

    Don't disagree, but four more years under a pro-fascist would be far, far, far worse than another neo-lib Democrat. Like the concept of democracy itself being in big trouble if Trump gets another four years. At least a Biden presidency would be a breather, so to speak.

  11. Posted

    9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Warning: anyone spreading factual misinformation in this thread about numbers or victory will be banned. You can state your feelings and opinions, but do not post fake victory claims. We will wait patiently until final numbers are given for every state. Nothing is settled yet. This is likely take a few days so keep your shit together.

     

    Thank you.

     

  12. Posted

    1 hour ago, louhad said:

    @DocWatts @Thewritersunion

    interesting. I am admittedly not too familiar with those leaders' specific strategies and approaches. I guess a large part of how I conceptualize red is the impulsive facet of it. I def see Putin resonating with red in many aspects, but to me, he just seems very patient and level-headed whereas the leaders you mentioned above(based on my limited understanding-- not a history buff), were primarily focused on "Fighting till the end of the world" and "Conquering for the sake of conquering" whereas Putin seems to have a very complex way of thinking and seems very genuinely patriotic (as opposed to Trump's charlatanism). 

    How would y'all distinguish between red strategy and orange strategy and how specifically does putin have a red strategic paradigm as opposed to an orange one?

    The three figures I mention are arguably three of the greatest military geniuses in world history. 

    Red is about Survival; which often translates to military conquests. Red is brutal, but as a rule it also has the capacity to be strategic and intelligent as well (though as a rule you'll find less of these individuals here than at other stages).

    While Red can be impulsive, when impulsivity is contrary to its survival strategy exceptional Red individuals can reign in that impulsivity.

    One of the main differences with Orange is that it is more likely to scheme than it is to use violence to achieve its ends. Because Orange went through Blue, it will also have at least some degree of morality that restrains the brutality of Red.

  14. Posted · Edited by DocWatts

    From what I know of him, he strikes me as a textbook Red; the reason I give for this is because he's pretty clearly a Plutocrat, and closer to a Mob boss rather than say a stage Blue religious zealot or ideologue. I think he tries to play himself off as Blue Patriot in a similar way to how Trump tries to play himself off as an Orange businessman (and also Trump admires Putin and wants to be just like him is also decent evidence for this).

    https://fortune.com/2017/07/29/vladimir-putin-russia-jeff-bezos-bill-gates-worlds-richest-man/

  16. Posted

    22 minutes ago, Rilles said:

    Haha, what if you had no choice? Would you rather starve? :P 

    Im not super into Wilber, I like this video though. Crazy how its from 2006, dudes been around. 

    I like Wilber but I feel he tends to strawman Green at times. I think he also overestimates how much influence Academia has on the culture at large; how many people in the general population know who someone like Michel Foucault is, or could articulate the arguments of Dialectic Materialism used in Marxism?

  19. Posted

    Not a waste of time at all. If nothing else, reading pivotal thinkers like Marx or Plato will give you historical context and a deeper understanding of ideas which have shaped the world we live in.

    The whole concept of Epistemology came out of philosophy; ditto for science which was at one point known as Natural Philosophy. Every political system that exists today has roots in philosophical ideas of 'the dead old white men' that were decried earlier (and yes Leo, this will eventually include you as well. ? ).

    Also realize thay you can entertain a philosophy without necessarily believing in it. No sane person would want to live in Plato's Republic, but I'd argue understanding that work is important because of how much it's shaped the last few thousand years of history in the West.

  22. Posted · Edited by DocWatts

    @Forestluv Thanks for the explanation. I was thinking specifically of how many swing states/districts Trump and the GOP could overturn where the races are close enough to give them enough of an excuse to do so.

    From what I've seen on fivethirtyeight, I get the impression that the election will likely turn on Pennsylvania (every prospective outcome there has the winner of the election go to the candidate who wins Pennsylvania).

    I know that fortunately Pennsylvania is not a deep red state, but how safe is it from tampering if Biden squeaks out a win by only a point or two?

    I also wonder what the results will end up looking like on election night, vs a week or two later when all of the votes are counted (not that they all will be, due to intentional tampering).

    When will as close to a consensus we are going to get start to emerge (realizing that at best maybe two thirds or three quarters of the country will see it as legitimate)?

  23. Posted

    So here's a question; how much of an electoral lead does Biden need for the results to survive intentional tampering by Republicans, whose strategy is to throw out as many votes as possible and declare the election over before the mail in ballots have been counted? We know that they will almost certainly be leveraging GOP friendly courts to overturn and invalidate unfavorable results wherever they can.

  24. Posted

    2 hours ago, Forestluv said:

    100% freedom of speech reduces overall free speech and in some cases increases societal harm. A flat-earthier that no one takes seriously is different than a neo-Nazi group recruiting, expanding and causing harm. 

    If one person disagrees and doesn’t listen, it doesn’t mean that other people will disagree and won’t listen. If someone has a platform of 10 million viewers and invites a neo-Nazi holocaust denier on the show and has a “discussion” in which neo-Nazism is just “another opinion” - the Overton window will shift,  giving legitimacy to the views and persuade a portion of the population. “Most people” not taking things like extreme hate speech seriously is insufficient. There is a certain percentage of the population that will take it seriously, get sucked in and cause harm. There is plenty of evidence that hate speech On large platforms increases the incidents of hate crimes. Marginalizing extreme hate groups to underground fringes reduces their capacity to organize, expand and have influence. 

    Those that want to maximize the amount of free speech and minimize harm understand that targeted limits of free speech is necessary. 

    ^ ^ ^ This ^ ^ ^   

    The 'Marketplace of Ideas' that people like to argue for is a vast oversimplification of how ideas spread and propagate through a society; (ie that the Better Ideas or Arguments will always end up winning out in the end). The idea that most people in a Society come to their beliefs through  a careful, deliberative process of weighing the pros and the cons of the arguments that they hear is largely a myth; most people will simply accept the view that emotionally resonates with them (for a host of psychological and developmental reasons) most of the time.

    And we all know how vulnerable people are to being emotionally manipulated, and how susceptible the average person is to a host of cognitive biases that they have little awareness of. And that's without even delving in to group-think and mob mentality.

    In addition to the point made above, I'll also add that even if the vast majority of people don't take hate speech seriously, it only takes one person who's become radicalized to hurt or kill dozens or hundreds of people (the majority of terrorist violence in America is done by white supremacist Hate Groups). I would hope it would be obvious how shifting the Overton window so that ideologies like White Supremacy or Fascism go from being fringe ideologies that are socially ostracized, to gaining some degree of tacit acceptance in mainstream society, is extremely harmful and dangerous. 

  25. Posted

    This is just based off from my own experience, but maybe start off by trying to get them to consider that Materialism is in fact a paradigm. 

    Understand what triggers Orange (supernatural beliefs and superstition, New Age woo-woo), and use the tools that Orange is comfortable with (science, logic, rationality) to get them to take a meta-perspective to thier worldview. Couch your discussion in language they can understand, basically.

    If they're heavily science oriented, you could perhaps make a clear distinction between Materialist Reductionism and a broader view of Science. Quantum mechanics, relativity theory, or the cognitive science of consciousness could be used as jumping off points to explore the idea that there are other aspects that of reality that fall outside of Materialism.  If you're going to go this route, I'd recommend that you choose a discipline that you have a fairly solid grasp of, at least conceptually.

    If they're in to philosophy, I'd highly recommend the works of Thomas Nagel, who goes in to some depth about deconstructing the Materialist paradigm in a way that's difficult to misconstrue as religious or woo-woo (Nagel himself is an atheist).