Scholar

Doesn't take much to be one of the smartest progressives. The guy is still a baffoon.

A lot of people accuse progressives of being extreme without understand why they hold such extreme positions in the first place. I will keep this short, but the problem is pretty basic, if we take immigration as an example: If there is a certain group immigrating the country, conservatives will seek to stop that immigration from happening. To do so, they will use arguments that the immigrants are, for example, more likely to commit crime. Now, this could be a reality, but the problem is that the progressive cannot ever admit that (assuming that it was true that immigrants cause more crime) this is a reality because as soon as they did, they would validate the extreme position of the conservatives. The conservatives just need an excuse to ban immigraiton, and even if it was a 2% higher instance of crime, all of them would rally behind that number and feel justified to ban immigrants. So what the progressives have to do is deny reality. They cannot ever admit that the higher instance of crime exists, because they know this might convince the masses of anti-immigration policy. And this applies to everything we see. Trans issues: Conservatives will basically use anything as a boogeyman to severely restrict these issues. The risk of a false positive among a trans person to them would justify taking away all trans treatments for adolescence, therefore progressives must deny any significant risks of false positives among individuals who identify as trans. Abortion: Progressives do not admit that abortion can ever be immoral, it is always "My body my choice", even if the child is already fairly developed, because conservatives use any amount of risk to a child as reason to ban all of abortion. This leads to the extremist position that all abortion must be legal. Islamophobia: Conservatives will use any negative aspect of islam to justify severe discrimination against muslim individuals, as well as banning individuals from immigrating from war zones. This leads to progressives denying all problems with islam, staunchly opposing even feminists who criticize islam for it's patriarchal attitudes. Gender Identity: Progressives will accept any gender construct because conservatives use the same reasons that mock "Cat-Gender" as they use to mock completely valid identities like non-binary or transgender. This leads them to view any resistance to any gender construct as deep discrimination, radicalizing them in the acceptance for all sorts of genders. Consanguinamory rights: Progressives will radically accept any incestuous relationship, even between parent and child, and deny problematic dynamics, because conservatives will dishonestly deploy "power dynamics" or "social cohesion" arguments to justify their persecution of cousin and sibling relationships, even though these standards are blatantly unreasonable. This leads to progressive denying the potential risks of such relationships entirely, because any admission will give credence to the inhumane treatment such minorities experience by conservatives. Notice that the conservatives then use the extermism of the progressives to justify their staunchly conservative stances. "Well, clearly we can see where all of this is going, if we allow them an inch, they will degenerate and leave us into the end of civilization!". But this is literally a self-fullfilling prophecy. The progressives have such difficulty ever admitting problems in their object of activism because the conservatives apply completely unreasonable standards to those problems. A single terrorist attack justifies banning people coming from a war zone entirely. A single misidentified transgender person justifies going back to mocking the idea of transgenderism as degenerate. A single person who goes by "catgender" justifies dismissing the entire idea of non-traditional genders. A single immoral or unreasonable abortion justifies banning all of abortion. A single toxic relationship between two siblings justifies imprisoning and publically shaming all of them. So the progressives have it difficult here because they have to fight the urge to become extreme, which is not easy when the other side will exploit any problem with their causes to frame them as degenerate.

It's the shift, in the US, from a dominant blue to a dominat orange culture. Green is more collectivist and restrictive on freedoms, like blue was, and orange is generally for liberty. But it's a bit more complicated than that.

After Leo told you.

When do we get the Leo cult monkeys who book you appearances on JRE?

You only say this because Leo said it.

Americans are pretty much the most vile, selfish and delusional out of all developed nations.

That's because women generally are raised to be children.

This is what is most dangerous about the current political environment in the US: The presidency is no longer an expression of the will of the electors, but rather, the President has become the one who has full control over the will of the electors. This is what is so dangerous. MAGA-supporters don't have any real stance, principles, values other than following Trump. At this point it's true to an absurd, carricature level. Trump could literally do anything, and not only will his followers accept it, they will fully support it and fit what Trump is doing into the value system, that in fact they are in radical support of what he is doing. This is a cult of personality. Trump could have literally pissed into Zelenskies tea and told him during the interview, told him that he will now fully support Russia because Zelensky is a bitch, arrested Zelensky live on TV and drawn a penis on his forehead, and then send him back to Ukraine, or in fact even Russia, via boat. He could have done all of this and suddenly all his MAGA supporters would be pro-russia. He could say that he wants to make friendship with China and invite them to restructure their entire government, so that peace and prosperity can be achieved such as the CCP has achieved it, and he could easily get away with it and all his MAGA would support and love him for how amazing of a leader he is. The guy is basically one step away from becoming a US version of Xi.

Trump is extorting Ukraines position right now to extract a robber-baron mineral theft deal from him, basically blackmailing Ukraine that if he will not sign his deal, he can "fight alone", which will mean Russia just takes over Ukraine. The US has contributed less than the EU, and especially for the size of their economic their contribution is one of the lowest overall proportionally speaking. The US has never supported Ukraine in a full way, and if it had, the situation on the ground might look different right now. Right now the goal is literal survival of the Ukrainian state and it's sovereignty. The plan is to stop holding back on the aid and actually supporting them so they can position them selves better for potential future peace offer, or wait for the Russian state to collapse in it's current form, which is inevitable given the amount of pressure on the economy. They don't have infinite reserves.

THe news sources are trash because the humans that watch news are trash, that's literally 99% of the problem.

That doesn't change that it's an illusion. It only makes sense in relation to the construct that you are, which in the end just relates, as you know, to survival.

You don't have a position, because you have not explained how the death penalty is in any meaningful way necessary for order. It's just a intuitive stance you assume without feeling the need to justify it. The correct stance is that the death penalty leads to more disorder.

@Emerald Connor is a good example of ones fear defining one, in relation to ones reaction to those fears. Connor Murphy's desire to be unashamed, to be able to be as crazy as he wants without feeling any peer pressure, to be free, is a direct result of his social anxiety. What is interesting is that, in essence, he has not freed himself from his peer pressure, but rather, he has transmuted it, he has inversed it and therefore is still defined by it. The fact that he is so obsessed with being weird, coming across as strange and unhinged, because he doesn't care about what people think of him, is still a form of existence which has been shaped by his fear. It's not centered, rather it is just a reaction. The egoic structure in question has not dissolved, but has inversed itself. This is why all spiritual pursuits, and their results, are inherently and necessarily a result of ones nature. There is no such thing as an existence which can free itself completely from this, because any form of existence must define itself through such an illusion of duality. This is why the obsession with "higher consciousness", the dismissal of "ego" and "duality", in and of itself necessarily is defined by the very thing it seeks to reject or dismiss. If higher consciousness were not a reaction to lower consciousness, you could not even refer to such a thing as higher consciousness. This means higher consciousness is an illusion. Another good example of this is a human taking psychedelics, and then exclaiming "I am God!". That exclamation is evidence of the humanity still present (in terms of the illusion) of the individuals making that statement. It's a profoundly human reaction to the dissolution of certain egoic structures.

The internet is becoming like a leech filled pond in which parasitic leeches feed on each other to survive. Turkey Tom is a leech, Connor is a leech, AI is leeching, Crypto is leeching, most content that is produces is in some way leeching, I mean just look at reaction content. It truly demonstrates why most animals in nature are self-serving thieves who steal the calories others have put hard work into to produce.

I have no emotional attachment to the death penalty, again, what I get flabbergasted by is your way of reasoning.

The death penalty isn't the "dogmas of liberalism". You have such a reactionary stance. You have to have actual, good reasons for why any given "liberal" thing is actually negative. If I am for trans acceptance, you can't just say "Liberalism has gone too far, strict gender are necessary for the function of society". And basically, that's the first thing you'd have to say if you wanted to talk about the dogmas of liberalism. The response here is not going back a century to appease the bigots. The response is to find a new, more sophisticated manner of steering individuals.

If you think you can out-define yourself out of green by saying the death penalty is appropriate, I don't knwo what to tell you. You are defining yourself by your reaction to pigs, and now dressing yourself as a pig so the pigs don't think you're a chicken. You bathe in their shit just so you stink as much as they and can proclaim yourself as not as clean as all those pesky, pathetic chickens. This isn't how you save the US. There are far deeper problems here, and the real reason why stage green is perceived as giant pussies is because they are giant pussies. They need to learn how to face adversity, not saying things that sound mean because it will make others think they are cool.

Yes I know, you don't respect us intellectually, fundamentally. Leo we don't need you to trick us into questioning our liberal assumptions by making senseless, provocative statements about the nature of the death penalty. Most people will just ape what you say and not think about anything, and adjust their worldview to your opinion, which is why saying such things can be detrimental. The death penalty is not where the "limits of liberalism" are. Good conservatism is found in social values, that are not coerced but maintained through celebration and encouragement. Abandoning the police is liberalism going too far. Elon Musk disintegrating the US bureaucracy is liberalism gone too far. The death penalty ain't it.

If he said that he is even more naive than I thought. You can't just kill someone instantly because this would obviously make error in the system absurdly high. There have to be lengthy legal processes, you can't just be like "Judge said you day, so you die tomorrow.". You have appeals, it drags on for years before a final decision is made, which is why it has such a high cost. And even then innocent people get executed, despite all of this "assurance" and lengthy process. You can't shorten the process and not expect more innocent individuals to get killed, especially if they can just get killed instantly.

If you were some dude on reddit, I'd have more sympathy. The fact that you are making these arguments while being so educated and "conscious" means something is seriously wrong. Again, the death penalty is a severe form of psychological torment, it takes years before the death occurs. It is more expensive than a life-sentence. It causes torment to family members, it encourages revenge thinking and discourages compassion. It does kill innocent people because the justice system is flawed and always will be (stop avoiding the costs that will be certain). There is no evidence it has a discouraging effect on any crime. Life sentences are already significantly severe, some argue they are in fact more severe than the death penalty. And your argument is "We do it because, when you kill someone you gotta die!". That's the argument? I really hope this is not how you usually engage in moral reasoning. You gave no benefit to the death penalty, you just says "it has to be done cause it's fair!", while I provide you with a tremendous amount of downsides. Look, I don't care this much about the death penalty, what disturbs me is the way you reason about this.

Firstly, eventually, of course we will have to evolve to showing kindness towards especially mass murderers. Not in some sort of naive way, as you here suggest as a dunk of stage green naivety, but a genuine, structured compassion that maintains society while also allowing us to grow. Many mass murderers were traumatized, mentally ill, abused. If you do not have compassion, you will never get rid of this phenomena, because if you cannot recognize their humanity you will never even attempt to find a way to prevent them from becoming what they became. What even is the point of the killing? Again, the death penality has not shown to have any effect on criminality, nor on mass-murders. Mass murders happen in a context that will be completely removed from any impact the death penalty could have. Most of these people do it with the expectation of suicide or death anyways. And of course it's cruel, the death penalty is a severe form of psychological torture. Just read up on the torment it inflicts on individuals. And again, you completely avoid the necessary cost that will come with such laws, which is innocent people getting killed by the state. If you think that is avoidable, you don't understand the justice system. And again, to what end? What is the point of the death penality. To discourage mass murderers? How naive of a world view can you have if you think a mass murderer would think to themselves "Oh no, I better not kill a bunch of people because they have the death penalty on this". That's just an absurd picture, if you are committing such a crime there won't be any thoughts of the consequences. Yes, it does contradict kindness and love, it obviously does.

Then why do more evolved societies move away from the death penalty? Understand that. Just because the US is filled with a much of lead-brained Christians does not mean that the "liberals have gone too far" by abandoning the death penalty. This is what I mean when I say this makes you deeply unserious. "Both are workable systems", as if you had no idea or sense of the gravity of what it means for the state to kill people who are no longer a threat. People who are sons and daughters, wifes and husbands. People who might regret what they did, who might grow in consciousness. What does it mean that you so trivially condemn individuals to death, as if it meant nothing? These are simply beings like you and me. And what about the innocent individuals who get killed? Is that workable too? How can this be acceptable, when there is no benefit to such punishments? I know exactly what your actual point is, but that is precisely what I think is so unsophisticated about it. You want to signal that "Reality is harsh, and sometimes society will need to structure itself in certain ways to have things run smoothly, that's just how it is", but nothing about this is insightful fundamentally, because it is removed from an actual analysis of the thing at question. It's like saying "Well I am not against putting people in prison for infidelity within a marriage. People need to learn that marriage is a serious thing, we have way too many people taking the institution of the family for granted..." And then that's it, no further substance, no actual contending with the different perspectives on the matter other than "The liberals are too soft". Okay, you are beyond the liberals, but where are the arguments?

While you are not a utilitarian, the tendencies we observe here are utilitarian. In the end your stance simply is "for the greater good", but that notion will be deeply subjective. The problem is that you think your notion of the greater good is not subjective. That the "higher consciousness" thing to do is to believe that "seriousness and strictness" is the proper response. This is perverse in two ways: You are deluding yourself that your own, personal perception (which as far as I can see is significantly informed by your personality, not merely your level of consciousness) is an objective perception, while equally maintaining that in fact, you don't believe there is an objective perception. Most of what you do is an attempted expression of your sense of higher consciousness. Something like the death penality is a serious thing, and trivially asserting it to be a good thing, and that it has no negative impact on the world, and somehow contributes to the "seriousness" of society, is a deeply unserious thing if one has not seriously thought about it. It's basically using politics and morality as an expression of a spiritual ego.