Elliott

I find it useful for empathizing with other people. I can see the different expressions in my life, by thinking of how I probably was as a baby and small child I can even see the primal ones. I'm skeptical of categorizing by stage or thinking of this as a developmental process. By seeing the prominence of certain behaviors in people you have a better chance to understand their perspective, but to me it seems everyone has all of the traits throughout the spectrum just in different proportions. I don't think the different traits indicate development, I think it's more a result of circumstance and catalyst emphasizing and subduing traits.

To take over the world, for sure. Not for improving the lives of the people though, where would you want to live?

I think you're looking at history through rose colored glasses, just look at the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, westward expansion of the U.S.. There's really nothing new going on, Democracy is messy, society is messy, look at the anti-communist propaganda and laws in the U.S. back in the 50s, the Kent State massacre. It's like when teenagers do stupid things because they're struggling to understand the world. Democracy doesn't compensate for the lack of ethics in the society, obviously, but just like letting a teenager experiment and have freedom society will make mistakes in the process of learning. This angst I'm reading from you all seems to come down to believing an embellished version of recent history, and possibly some naivety toward Republican sincerity with their beliefs. The U.S. has for the most part been a bit wild with just short periods of calm like we in our generations have experienced, something I attribute in part to Democracy, I mean look back just before Democracy, you have the Dark Ages. Democracy seems to have worked so well that many people now dissociate with their culture's not too distant past of savagery.

Ahhh, no way, it will all be okay. I think this could really re-energize coming generations of Liberals, something that is needed. We needed a bit of a recalibration as well, in my opinion, I hope this catastrophe will expose the risks of over-centralization to the people that lean socialist. National Republicans just have support for cutting funding, something pretty popular after seeing the current Progressivism with immigration assistance, tuition forgiveness, and limiting drug prices. Democracy is messy, but most Americans are good and many are intelligent. Trump barely even won against record inflation and arguably the largest conflict with Russia we've ever had, pair all that with the current male identity crisis being pumped by influencers right now. Liberals have just gotten too comfortable, a bit caught off guard.