The Unraveling of America
The Unraveling of America
Apocryphal has it that there is an ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.
The United States is no longer a leader among nations.
Is there something - anything - positive in this?
Apocryphal has it that there is an ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.
The United States is no longer a leader among nations.
Is there something - anything - positive in this?
Comments (261)
If everyone in the playground has the flu the bigger guy is still gonna be stronger. Again strength should be used properly however that's a discussion for another day.
:cry: :angry: :yikes:
Minnesota and Minneapolis have a good track record of economic stability and progressive policy that has stood us in good stead. On May 25, we began a high-speed unravelling which has left holes in our reindeer knit sweaters. The rioting, arson, looting, and demonstrating that happened after Mr. Floyd was killed owed a great deal to a lack of cogent policy and strong leadership.
Things turned really bad when the police abandoned the Third Precinct building. I'm sure the cops felt picked on, being the target of 3 days of demonstrations, but really: why would quite adequately armed police back off from a not particularly large demonstrating crowd? What the police demonstrated (disingenuously, actually) was a sickly unwillingness to use force to protect a $10,000,000 city asset (the cost of the building which was torched).
Their precinct abandonment was more or less accurately interpreted as, "Hey -- the police are gone; it's open season!" Within a few hours of the police withdrawal, the riot started, along with the arson, burglary, and general wrecking. It was a colossal failure of leadership within the Police Department, and within the (pretty much liberal) city government. Not only the police left, but so did the fire department--whose fire suppressing capacity was sorely needed. Hundreds of millions of dollars of damage was done in just a few hours.
COVID-19
The failure to mount an effective public health response to Covid-19 was the result - again - of the absence of a cogent plan and effective leadership. What happened in the United States is the direct result of "getting government off our backs" as the conservatives like to say. Trump certainly didn't have to lead the charge. There is an agency (CDC) well stocked with people quite capable of responding to pandemic and epidemic disease, but they have to be unimpeded in their exercise of public health measures. They were VERY MUCH impeded and interfered with.
We have been here before. When AIDS appeared under another semi-demented conservative president, something similar happened at the federal level: inept action or no action at all, and a lack of cogent policy. By the time the government came to terms with the fact of AIDS it was way too late to stop it. It took 15 years (1981 to 1996) to come up with a reasonably effective and tolerable treatment.
Same thing in 2020: Trump has (apparently) acknowledged that Covid-19 is a real problem. But with 5 million cases in the country and 162,000 deaths here, nothing that could or should have been done in the beginning will be effective now. We are in even more uncharted territory, currently pinning a lot of hope on the as yet non-existent safe and effective vaccine.
Bad leadership and stupidity is entirely sufficient to cause unravelling.
enormous step in entirely the writing direction
Lol. Sure. Just let subversives redefine everything and other people do what they want to control your whole life. See this is the cancer- no offense personally just the idea. The Constitution is simple, irrefutable. Doesn't matter if people who are diametrically opposed to the American ideal have controlled. directed or still control and direct the United States. People die, things get better. Unfortunately this pandemic is precisely what people need to realize this truth. "Accept reality" people will tell you. Yet- they will never accept that reality (what they refer to is really circumstance as a matter of fact) can change! And always has. Why would it not continue to do so? Because people tell you otherwise, usually in a threatening manner? Your choice guy. Always has been.
That proves there's nothing "elite" about someone who.. just happens to be more fortunate than you lol. It's called circumstance or- hopefully- hard work paying off. So. I realize it's human(?) nature to hate another who has more regardless of why but I mean let's watch this video and hopefully chill out some. Otherwise just follow the law and you'll be fine. Or at least not invoke the true Law. Any further.
And beyond that. Do you really want 100% of your effort to literally be worth nothing as far as improving your livelihood? You'll say that on a computer in a nice house with a doctor nearby but I doubt you'll trade what you have and the way you live now for living like cavemen did? You signed up for it dude get over it. You literally wouldn't exist without the system that lets you criticize it so. Perhaps you should appreciate it more.
So, BC, if the police move to enforce order and dispersed the protesters to protect the precinct, wouldn't that have been instantly called 'police brutality'? So - if they abandon, it's a failure on their part, if they protect it, well, that's a failure too.
Nice. A heavy hitter member posts a Rolling Stone article, and it doesn't get moved to the lounge. Quite a high quality post.
The “elite” have proven they are not equipped to govern. All they can do is talk, and as such, can only sing lullabies about this or that while they delegate the decision-making to “experts”.
The United States was, I think, the biggest PR firm in the world at one time. But PR politics are over. So It’s no surprise that those who rely most on American military power for their safety and comforts get most worried when it comes asking for compensation.
The rationale wasn't altogether mistaken. Had the on-duty contingent of police stayed and prevented the mob from entering the precinct station, almost certainly somebody would have gotten hurt -- on both sides. However, the police at the fifth precinct station faced a worse mob 24 hours later which had just torched a bank, post office, filling station, and some other buildings, and they stayed on their roof, fully armed; later (90 minutes or so) they were backed up by a contingent of national guard troops. The 3rd precinct officers could also have been backed up (by the guard, sheriffs, other police officers, or the fire department (people don't like getting wet).
It was a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't kind of situation. While certain elements within the mob led the destruction, the demonstrators as a group played a strong supporting role in the destruction. There had been 3 days worth of "fuck the cops", "cops are killers", and "destroy the police" rhetoric being spoken, graffitied, and chanted. I watched the protestors/mob/rioters, whatever they were, wind themselves up on Wednesday afternoon. By nightfall they were at a fever pitch. THAT is why the police were avoiding a confrontation. Then the burning started.
Who are you going to replace that elite with? Are you going to do away with "experts" too?
Running a wealthy, nuclear-armed nation of 320 million people is not something you want to turn over to amateurs. It's a matter of finding the right elite -- which has been done in the past, and can be done again. Most countries are run by elites; the difference among nations is "which elite is in charge?"
One of our central problems is the theology of neoliberalism which is barely able to tolerate half-hearted government, let alone effective, well-run, well-funded, competent government.
‘Let ‘em burn it down, Chief. They’re just kids, after all, AND they’re pissed!’
First sign of journalistic bullshit? Doom mongering and apocalyptic scenarios.
No difference from an old testament elite demagogue
preaching to the masses.
Zero understanding of politics and economics.
The new god is socialism.
Are there no philosophers who believe in Liberty any more? A little bit of pressure and you all rush to the state!?
Feeble.
Maybe such a social ethic is where the US lost out.
I'm guessing poor or lack of good, general education is a factor, but that's just conjecture on my part.
US elections always seem to have a disproportional focus on taxes.
I have personally interacted with your "good American Baptist soccer mom" that has the hots for Trump in public (in some cases more or less regardless of what he says and does, by their own admission), seemingly intelligent fools that cite the Constitution to justify trampling COVID-19 health protocols, ... To me, this gives off a whiff of adults that never became adults.
Quoting Banno
I guess it depends on what the replacement is or will be.
Dominance by the Chinese regime or Russia sure doesn't seem preferable.
I wouldn't count the US out yet, though.
Oh right, the USA has given the world so much. The extended war against communism demonstrates the exact opposite, the USA has been a taker, not a giver. That's why it has so many enemies in the world today. Oh sorry NOS4A2, I neglect your qualification of " the world" with "free". It appears like you believe that there is a specific, small class of people in the world, who are allowed to be "free", at the expense of the rest, who are oppressed. Oh how the USA still clings to the ideology of slavery.
You're going to let a 5 year period in American history change your mind about America? :chin:
That's like judging Wittgenstein because he beat a pupil in his class and you seem to be fond of Wittgenstein. See Haidbauer Incident
504 - Deaths per day during the Civil War
2.5 - Approximate percentage of the American population that died during the Civil War
7,000,000 - Number of Americans lost if 2.5% of the American population died in a war today
We got a ways to go yet before we reach any place that America hasn't already been, and recovered from. 150 years ago may seem like an eternity to you young folks, but a third of that time has passed just since I was your age. So, the Civil War was three life times ago, more or less.
What's happening today is that mass media is now ever present around the clock in every little corner of our lives, so the yelling that's been going on since the founding of the republic is greatly amplified.
America isn't free, or a good country, but it stood for such, it was a corrupt symbol for freedom, and sadly it was the only, and when the American era ends, another shall begin, full of totalitarianism, and Slavery.
the world's shadow would be cast on freedom, as the world itself loses its meaning, and everything around it starts to decay.
does this mean America dying is good or bad? it's both.
You can enjoy the wonderful decadence of the decline of the US then, Banno.
Yet should we remind ourselves that Oswald Spengler wrote his Decline of the West in 1918-1922, a hundred years ago?
The American era will not end until the people of the world decide they'd like to be ruled by Chinese communists.
Many of you here are quite young, and thus you don't remember that at one time the Soviet Union was seen to be the invincible force which would inevitably dominate the planet blah blah blah etc etc. Didn't happen. America held them in check until they collapsed under their own dead weight.
58,220 American casualties of the Vietnam War. Three assassinations of US leaders, including POTUS. Rioting, murders of black civil rights participants, murders of demonstrating students. The rise of cults. Then Watergate . . .
I agree. We'll get past this. At the time, in the midst of the Cold War, it seemed America was falling apart at the seams.
I don’t think expertise and “eliteness” can be measured by formal credentials. Rather, I think positions of power and influence should be open to anyone of any class, so long as they possess the abilities and competence. I believe that until now the elite have ensured a monopoly over positions of power by teaching a certain culture through the public education system (the hidden curriculum), forcing others to acquire the credentials to compete in a subordinate job market and economy. In this way, elite institutions have remained closed to members of different classes and belief systems. We need to diversify, and not just in the way people look.
Seems to be so, looking at many of the posts hereabouts.
I listened to an interview with George Friedman last night. He believes that somewhere in a garage in middle America, the new Henry Ford or Bill Gates is planning the resurgence of "merica.
His faith is touching. I suppose time will tell.
So... what makes something an ability. Competence is basic coherence. Why is it an ability of any use if everyone can do it. That makes someone elite- in a way. So you want, and I'm going to hope you're from whatever country we're talking about and not acting under the auspices of another, the most qualified and crucial positions such as medicine, defense, technology, science, education, etc... to be replaced with just anyone who knows how to get dressed in the morning? Erm... yeah that's a big no. lol
Edit: Factoring in your argument that the majority of a country (everywhere btw) represents the most successful positions with your assertion (that is common knowledge) people prefer their own, you're saying they will systematically turn down or otherwise favor people of their own color or creed over equally qualified minorities? Yeah.. see now it's a debate. Reminds me of the whole immigrant fiasco. If there's all these problems and this is such a better place... let the army go in and clean it up so it's good and then they'll leave. Cover minimum costs, just enough to break even (gotta feed the boys somehow), and that's that. But no somehow solving a humanitarian crisis would now be a humanitarian crisis in and of itself. Somehow. It's crazy man. It's either better here or better there and if you want to come here while not wanting it to be better all around or in your homeland at least it's.. kinda selfish really. That said. Dunno how bad the corruption is here. These other places could be the last bastions of freedom and we should want to be there. lol, it's a toss up really
And the British got past losing their Empire too. Yeah, London was a nice place at least few years ago.
I say everything is well as long as the dollar has it's status and Americans can create money that others will take. The most dangerous idea to America is the following idea: "Wait a minute, we don't have to have a single currency replacing the dollar, we'll use a basket of currencies with each currency (including the US dollar) noted by the volume of use of the currency in actual business transactions and have computer algorithms handle that basket for us."
That would be the death knell for the present style US government spending. And once you have to equal spending to tax income more or less, kiss your Superpower military bye bye.
Such a cute fairytale of leftists and conservatives.
Great=rich. Ah,the manifesto and value system of the authoritarian and the slave.
Do you mean for Americans...or for the rest of the world?
Yea, good point, I am concerned about that. We've been financially irresponsible for a long time, and it's reasonable to predict that's going to be a big problem sooner or later. I have a plan for that though.
I'm 68.
I'll be dead.
Typical cynical selfish boomer psychology! :-)
Well played, Banno! :wink:
I had read the article earlier...and mulled over what was being said. As in so many things these days, lots of speculation that seems true to me...and lots that seems way off base. I can only hope we have not fallen completely down the mountain...and that we can regain our footing at some point.
The fact that America is seen on the world's stage the way it is today...breaks my heart.
I knew there were people throughout the world who saw only "the ugly American." But there were many who saw that side of us that was beneficial to the world.
Now...that latter group seems to have almost disappeared.
Yes, anyone that we've saved from ruthless tyranny typically thanks us by calling us ugly. :-) I think we're pretty good sports about that, all in all.
No, that’s not what I want. I just mean that most if not all of the skills needed to perform the work of professionals within many institutions could be acquired through practical experience rather than formal education. But since many industries require the credentials, and thus the elite education, those in power tend to be of the same mind and experience. It’s called “credentialism“, and I think it has helped form the disastrous policies of elite institutions.
Yes. Boomers. :angry:
There's nothing that you did well. That includes us, the Gen X, which is one of the smallest generations ever.
Quoting Hippyhead
This myth of foreign people hating Americans is what Americans sustain themselves. Of course those people who "hate" the US are called leftists, while other called conservatives don't have much if any problem with the US. Something along the lines you are now seeing in your own country btw.
Otherwise, what's the response of for example Europeans of the American military roaming around in their country? Something like this, 5 years ago during the Obama times:
There are certainly a lot of people who confuse US social issues with a geopolitical downfall. The GDP of the US keeps increasing, which means a more powerful military, more money for aid and so on. However, this wealth is not being utilised well to deal with social issues. The US GDP is on par with the entirety of Europe, forget individual countries. They are still a geopolitical juggernaut with allies across the world and this doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. I think everyone can see that the rest of the world is catching up to the US but we're not there yet and won't be for some time.
In the context of the cold war, the US are still enjoying the rewards of "winning", NATO grows, Japan, Germany, SK are all strong allies. Really only China poses any kind of challenge but I don't think they'll ever overtake the US in its influence, only economically and militarily.
US leadership isn't based on its paragon status, it's based on economic, geopolitical and military might, which it still has.
I don't think civilization "has been brought low" by Covid 19 quite yet. After all, Wade Davis is still being published.
And I don't think the argument regarding the significance of this pandemic in the fate of our Glorious Republic is well supported by detailing all the problems experienced by it since the Second World War. By his account, the U.S. was coughing up blood, at least, by the time Covid 19 showed up.
I'm inclined to think, no doubt cynically, that the professor was already convinced of the decline of God's Favorite Country and the pandemic served as an excuse for noting that conviction. Even so, it would come as no surprise to me that we've been looking rather seedy and down-and-out, petty, ignorant and downright stupid to the rest of the world. I don't think that Covid 19's the cause, though, and hope that the End Times aren't here yet. But I confess I've been thinking about Pope's The Dunciad and these words which appear at its end:
“Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all.”
At the risk of being subjected to the wrath of unenlightened, however, I note pedantically that the Roman Empire lasted far longer than the subsequent, namby-pamby empires the highly civilized Wade Davis mentions. Rome fairly well dominated the Mediterranean world by 200 B.C.E., expanded from then into Europe and Great Britain and the Middle East. It almost slipped into fragments in the 3rd century C.E., but was revitalized under Aurelian and Diocletian. The accepted fall of the Western Empire took place in 476 C.E., and the Eastern Empire to centuries after that, even incorporating much of the old Western Empire during the reign of Justinian in the 6th century C.E. and then in diminished form until the 15th century C.E.
So hell, the American Empire may still last for centuries, if the U.S.A is supposed to be the new Rome. So, you see the relevance of the digression.
Here's the bigger picture of the role of the US in World Economy:
Here's even a longer picture, which ought to be taken with a grain of salt as obviously the statistics aren't there and the whole thing is an estimation (and of course, the US isn't that old, but anyway):
What has happened in our time is China, which after letting go of the insanity of maoism, has grown from an economy the size of the Netherlands to the second biggest economy. Another huge change has been India, which also let go of socialism. The so-called Asian Tigers grew even earlier and many of the ex-Soviet satellites have seen good economic growth. This transition has been huge and a wonderful thing as global povetry and famine has declined, yet thanks to our slow growth we (naturally just looking at our own navel) haven't noticed this. So the real story isn't about the US unraveling, but others getting their act together.
Quoting Judaka
Well, that aid isn't as with other countries a huge share of it is military assistance, which basically means assisting the military-industrial complex. So here's where that aid went few years ago. Nearly trillion to Ethiopia is quite notable:
And here's what it looks like compared to other countries, if we take out that military aid:
And on share of GDP, it's
Quoting Judaka
And the role of the dollar. Never underestimate the role of the dollar. It can be difficult to understand just how important something like earlier (and even now) buying oil with your own currency that you a can print is. Or that vasts amounts of dollars are used between foreign countries that don't involve the US. It is something that Americans dismisses quite often and just take as a given, not something that actually happened because of WW2.
Here's the unraveling, IF there is an unraveling (which is indeed not anything given or obvious:
Roughly every fifth dollar the US government spends is now debt. And your largest single debtor is the Federal Reserve, not China. Before the pandemic the Federal Reserve owned twice as much than China of the treasuries and China's pot of treasuries has stayed roughly the same for the last ten years. Some countries like Germany had prior to the Covid pandemic a fiscal surplus. Last time that happened was when Clinton changed the rules on social welfare, if I remember correctly.
Well, that's a bit of an overstatement. :-) But I would agree there is a lot we didn't do well.
I've visited that part of Chicago several times in the last few years, it must be terrible to see it being ransacked.
[quote=Yuan Peng]Over the past few centuries, changes in the international order have often been the result of a great war. Examples include the Westphalian System which followed Europe’s Thirty-Year War, the Versailles-Washington system which followed WWI, and the Yalta system which followed WWII. The basic outline of the current international order is more or less the result of WWII. But after more than 70 years, the existing order is beginning to waver as a result of multiple shocks, beginning with the end of the Cold War in 1991, and including the 9-11 incident in 2001, the financial crisis in 2008, and Trump’s election in 2016.
While its structure remains intact, the role of the United Nations is limited, the capacity of the WTO has been diminished, the resources of the IMF and the World Bank are stretched thin, the authority of the WHO is inadequate, the global arms control regime is on the verge of collapse, international standards are frequently ignored, American leadership and will have declined together, the mechanisms facilitating great power cooperation are in disorder, and the international order is hanging by a thread.
The outbreak and spread of the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the entire world into mourning, as countries locked down and borders closed, economies ground to a halt, stock markets plunged, oil prices collapsed, exchanges were broken off, insults were traded and rumors proliferated. The shock of the impact has been in no way less than a World War, which is yet another attack on the existing international order. The old order is perhaps unsustainable, but a new order has yet to be built, which is the basic feature of a once-in-a-century great change, and is also the root cause of the crisis roiling the contemporary international scene
[...]
The 2020 election will be a fight between Trump’s “keeping America great” and Biden’s “let America lead again,” but even if Biden wins, internal political handicaps and changes in the external environment suggest that America will have a hard time reassuming its role as a world leader. But just like Britain in the post-WWI period, the United States still has enough power to prevent other countries from taking her place, and America’s China policy will only get increasingly hyper-sensitive, unyielding, and arrogant as they double down on containment and suppression. Strategic competition between China and the US will become all the more fierce.
At the end of the pandemic, the existing order of “one superpower and many great powers” will change. America may remain “the superpower” but will have a hard time maintaining its hegemonic domination. China is rising fast, but faces obstacles in its drive to surpass the US. Europe’s star is fading, its future development course unclear. Russia plots its future moves in the chaos, and its position has perhaps risen somewhat. India’s weaknesses and shortcomings have been exposed, blunting the momentum of its rise. After having to postpone the Tokyo Olympics, Japan seems lost.
[...]
Since the 18th National Congress of the CCP [in November 2012], China has chosen cooperation and a win-win posture as its ideological foundation, and peaceful development as its strategic priority. It has adopted One Belt-One Road as its primary policy stance, and the construction of a new type of international relations as its immediate objective. Its ultimate goal is the creation of a community of mankind’s shared destiny, through the “five in one” general framework[10] and the “close links between peoples of the world ????,” forming a set of new international strategic frameworks that both respect the past and innovate for the future, so that the relationship between China and the world enters a new historical phase.
Yet just as China increases its participation in the world, just as China assumes world leadership, America chooses “strategic contraction” and “America first,” and the trend in Sino-American relations, which is going against the trend of development in relations throughout the world, will earn the contempt of history. The result is that the United States is not looking at China’s relations with the world from a progressive historical perspective, but instead is scrutinizing Chinese intentions through a lens of strategic caution, and using high-pressure tactics to carry out blockage and containment.
[...]
The coronavirus pandemic has not changed the fact that the world is experiencing a once-in-a-century change, but has simply made that change a bit quicker and a bit more abrupt. It has not changed the basic shape of China’s relations with the world, but instead has made these relations more complex and multi-faceted. Nor has it changed the basic judgment that China is currently in a period of strategic opportunities, a posture that will continue. After all, China led the way out of the most difficult moment of the pandemic, and began planning to return to work and production; marked by the convening of the "Two Sessions,"[12] the strategic deployment China established is still proceeding in an orderly manner.
However, it will become increasingly difficult for China to seize the opportunity, and the risk challenge will surely multiply. In this extraordinary moment when countries face the disaster of the pandemic and the entire world fights the virus, the crux of the issue is whether China be able manage its own affairs well at the same time that it assumes it role as a great power and does its utmost to supply public health goods to the world. This is both a prerequisite for restarting China’s relationship with the world as well as the foundation for the great revival of the Chinese nation.
To ensure that the restart will proceed smoothly and extend into the future, we must begin by looking back on the path we have travelled, and must unwaveringly push forward the new age of reform and opening. On this front, we must bravely advance, and cannot be satisfied with half-measures. Next, we must settle our minds and proceed calmly with the task at hand. As the goal of the “first one hundred years” approaches conclusion, we should pause for a moment, sum up our experiences and lessons learned, and look for laws and patterns that will create the conditions as we take up the sprint toward the “second hundred years.”
[/quote]
I can't tell (no background knoweldge) if the 'first [ & second] hundred years' way of framing is better read as a somewhat-scary expression of authentic Long Term, Big Picture Planning or as a rhetorical way of evoking (for self & others) the power that comes with having Long Term, Big Picture Planning.
1) The US created the post-WW2 world order - the global free trade system - as a bulwark against communism. It was left the only superpower standing and did the smart self-interested thing of preventing communist takeover of a war broken world.
But then Eastern Bloc cracked and crumbled with surprising suddenness in 1991. The US had won the Cold War but then failed to figure out how to cope with the peace. It was again the hegemon by default. Much more so even than after WW2 where it still had to dismantle Britain and other still colonial empires.
A succession of weak presidents meant the US was a world leader without any particular world vision. The situation became divided into a "Davos elite" hoping to continue onwards with the "globalisation project" towards some kind of planetary governance based on the kind of techocracy that is at the heart of all actually successful modern democracies, and then the US blundering on with an increasingly domestic focus on its interests.
It didn't actually want to lead the free world. It just wanted to be free to do its own thing. Burn oil, eat junk food, gamble on markets. Party it up.
(Of course, the technocratic part of US society wanted the opposite. But their moment had passed with the Cold War challenge too).
2) The world has moved on towards some kind of next step. But China can be discounted as a major player. It is a bubble enterprise tied to the free market world order that the US created and continued to underwrite even after it had lost its main security purpose. China matters as part of the much more important story of a technocratic/democratic Asia. South East Asia’s 2.5b people beats China for population and its GDP should match China by the end of the decade.
The logic of the situation is that the US is going to turn inwards on itself finally. It has so many geopolitical advantages, it simply doesn't need the hassle of trying to run the world.
The US has the world’s best chunk of geography. It has the best chunk of food growing land and an ideal range of growing climates. It has an isolated position that means it never has to fear rowdy neighbours or physical invasion.
It has demographic power too in a population of 330 million that isn’t greying dramatically like all its rivals. It has energy abundance with its shale oil and gas, plus the easiest transition to a practical renewables infrastructure.
It has - as @ssu underlines - the dollar embedded as the world reserve currency. That is an incredible economic advantage that will be tough to unwind. It also has now tied in Canada and Mexico as its North American alliance - Mexico as the replacement China manufacturing hub, and Canada as yet more resources and growing land.
So nothing stops the US curling up within the comfort of its own North American empire and saying the world can go f*** itself. The inbuilt advantages are so many that even really bad political leaders can't actually sink the ship.
In this scenario, the US is no longer the world leader - except in the various ways it might still want to get involved in running other people's affairs.
The desirable outcome is a world that continues to globalise - but only via a more intense phase of regionalisation (the view being pushed by Parag Khanna for instance).
So Khanna talks of an age where we move on from hegemonic states - single nations running their respective empires - to regional power networks. You already have Europe as a reasonably integrated system - organised in its own "typically European" way.
Likewise Asia will emerge as a geographically organised community of interest. Belt and Road could be an important part of that integration, but China will not then "own" the region as a result. It becomes a large component of a more general workable identity - depending on which way the CCP go.
Then the US as North America is another regional bloc with its own political flavour.
Out of this rationalisation of world geopolitics might come a regionalisation that makes a better foundation for globalisation. Instead of the rather Western model that the US sought to impose on the world - for security reasons - there would be the opportunity for something more inclusive of the way the world actually is.
Of course, the problems of the world may fast overtake the political opportunity to grow that world-level of governance. But there you go.
Mine, too.
Cheers.
Doubtful! Trump with his 'Me First' campaign, doesn't know the meaning of partnership, and tells everyone tp go f*** yourself..
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53683569
The article embraces Anti-americanism, formed, as it was, from afar, from an insulated view, and through the lens of a hostile media. Sweeping generalizations and lies by omission without any actual study. And this from a reputable anthropologist.
Well, the generation of Greta Thunberg is already bitching at us so, we don't think we are anything special either.
I am surprised that the UK and Germany are as close as they are in aid contribution, I wouldn't have guessed that. Thanks for displaying these graphs, as you said the US decline of US dominance is a good thing because it is caused by other countries developing economically. It is not something the US can avoid nor has been trying to avoid. The dollar is important, it's also hard to measure the soft power of the US either. Their culture is exported globally and they have a very important presence in the culture of many other countries. There's just a lot of advantages for the US and the power imbalance at the height of the West is not something anyone is striving to maintain. It is shouldn't be a concern for the US to lose some of its relative power.
And it's not like the US hasn't been through major wars, civil unrest and economic downturns before. 1918 was a worse pandemic at the end of WW1, then followed up by a major world depression the 30s and the second world war.
But if the US does get replaced as the major power in the world, it will be China, which is not a better option for most countries.
Ha ha, it's payback time, eh? :-) Give'em hell Greta! :-)
China and India both have larger militaries.
Until the UK started getting back into the game, only the US had a fleet of Nimitz and Ford class super-carriers. And the US has its global network of bases to match.
China and India are an order of magnitude behind in these terms.
The US could downsize drastically and still be a huge regional power. The real question is why would it even care about being the world policeman these days?
And the problem is also that power has shifted in ways that no-one could take its place. The thought of stepping into America’s shoes as the global cop also makes no sense if you are a China or an India.
The US experience shows that bases and carriers topple regimes but don’t build stable allies, or even reliable dictatorships. Warfare has adapted to the times and become asymmetric. Most of the world has also moved from developing to developed. Old school colonial empires can’t function anymore.
So the US certainly has the big stick military power. The flip side of this is that no one is going to rule the world - turn it into its well run colonial empire again - just by owning a big stick.
So the measures of might have changed along with the state of the world. Military power still counts. Yet forging regional communities of interest is what matters for successful statesmanship in a post-colonial, post-cold war, setting.
Why assume an ethical dimension?
It's a practical political question for many nations when the US and China are demanding you pick a side and yet you depend on a healthy economic/security relation with both.
Is it Huawei or the highway? Is it the Uyghurs or BLM? :wink:
Ethics only comes into it as a backfill of decisions taken for other reasons - unfortunately perhaps.
I agree with you, but my comment, "Plus the US military remains the largest in the world" only went to the question of "largest militaries"...not the most mighty.
I might also point out that the aircraft carriers (which essentially won World War II...are almost useless in a war with nuclear weapons. Most aircraft carriers will be totally destroyed during the first hours of any major new confrontation. Planes will be only marginally involved...until we get to the point where missiles have set us back in history.
Full on nuclear war is different issue. The question here is about the global projection of power to run a world system.
And the US wouldn’t have continued to invest in supercarriers if they were as vulnerable as all that.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2019/05/21/ten-reasons-a-u-s-navy-aircraft-carrier-is-one-of-the-safest-places-to-be-in-a-war/#61fe60d82f7a
War is about logistics. And that is what the US has in place on a global basis. A network of bases and carriers that put firepower a short distance from any potential trouble spot.
There many reasons this network doesn’t function so well in the modern context. The US military is hardly a spartan operation in the field. It is still largely equiped to fight the Cold War. Etc.
But with everyone talking up China, the truth is it hardly has a navy yet. China is only now about matching Japan. China naturally wants to build up, but exists in a rather constrained environment.
The US has a base within spitting distance of every possible enemy. And none of its enemies can claim the reverse applies. That is what empire looks like.
The US through dumb leadership can misuse that investment. But it doesn’t face a serious rival for its dominance on that score.
China will be lucky to gain control over its own coastal shipping lanes. And it is the one that depends most on international trade. The US patrols all the world’s shipping lanes and needs international trade the least.
So the US starts off doubly advantaged in that particular situation. Even the gross incompetence of a Trump administration will struggle to make much of a dent in terms of US hard power.
You mean the US would not do anything stupid like leave all its battleships vulnerable to attack at Pearl Harbor???
A multi-polar world certainly seems to be an inevitability. Whether that state of affairs carries ethical consequences/connotations... that seems less clear to me.
I realized what you meant, Marchesk. And I was not being a wise-ass. It is worthwhile to mention what many people do not realize, that in pure numbers, we are not #1.
We are strong as steel when it comes to overall ability...and, as you noted, we are huge in terms of funding and global reach.
I'm puzzled that you might think it doesn't. It is, after all, about what we ought do.
The stable existence or the decline of any society should not be measured just by its material resources. The decisive factor is social capital. It can be defined as the system of a particular set of informal values, norms, and beliefs shared among members of a society that permits cooperation.In the US, there has been the deepening corrosion of trust in political and social institutions. The lack of belief in what constitutes America can undermine its social capital. Similar processes had led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I'm a pragmatist rather than an idealist so ethics becomes just another way of talking about an optimisation function.
Nature isn't about right and wrong. It's about systems with the balances to achieve purposes. And the ethical consequence of that is that we have our futures entirely in our own hands. We have to figure out what we actually want ... and thus who this "we" actually is. :razz:
I completely agree in a just world with evenly distributed material resources, then social capital becomes the determining factor. The winning nations would just be those who rank high on the Human Development Index chart. All the countries that are "Scandinavian" social democracies with technocratic "evidence based" policies.
My point here is the perhaps counter-intuitive one that the US just happens to have a ridiculously unfair set of basic material advantages. Even a complete joke like Trump, and all those he surrounds himself with, can't really fuck it up. Only a Trump with actual competence might be able to achieve that.
Quoting Number2018
Others would say that the US has never been famous for its social capital. There was just that brief moment with Roosevelt's New Deal where the 1950s became a golden age for the average working Joe. Top tax rates were approaching 90%. Unions were powerful. Social security was a thing.
And even all that was based on the US coming out of a war with a wartime manufacturing base and no war damage, an abundance of cheap domestic oil, the only big navy, Bretton Woods to make the dollar the official world currency, and a world order controlled by the US's new proxies of the UN, IMF and World Bank.
But could the US now crumble because of a few riots, a bit of woke activism, a lot of redneck moronicism? The US has always been characterised by its freely vitriolic approach to social discourse. That can indeed be a competitive national strength as much as a flaw.
Society ought to be a contest of interest groups. That is how differences eventually get settled and a society stays well adapted to the challenges and goals as it understands them. So is the current level of discord an actual problem or evidence of stuff being sorted?
The fact that it all so ugly and in your face might be a sign of something historical if it were Denmark or Singapore. But it feels more like business as usual for the US.
I don't think Trump can be explained as evidence for some real system collapse. My argument is that the system can tolerate a Trump because it is basically uncollapsable.
The US can do many dumb things. Bush and his Middle East crusades. Bush/Clinton and the various financial asset bubbles. Obama and his abject failure to achieve any sensible reforms. But it rolls on due to its inherent deep material advantages.
Most other nations actually have to make their countries work. There is an immediate cost attached to being dumb.
Quoting Number2018
Communism collapsed because it is brittle. It isn't a system in which interest groups can contest and sort out their differences to arrive at a mutual accomodation. It lacked a marketplace of ideas.
What actually happened was Gorbachev - in a moment of desperation - made a fateful decision to allow free speech. His hope and expectation was that this would allow some kind of graceful transition. The people would be so grateful that the Communist Party would win in open elections. The voters would ignore the economic stagnation.
But unmuzzled, the population took its opportunity. Every republic wanted to assert its own identity. The grip on the entire Eastern Bloc was lost. Gorbachev disappeared in a coup. Wall St arrived to pick at the carcass.
So the situations aren't comparable. The US is at the other end of the spectrum in terms of being plastic rather than brittle. It is designed to fly on even despite its excessive amount of in-your-face, free speech attitude. It can afford to crush jobs and lives in an economic crisis because it has all the material advantages needed to rebuild and kick on.
I am very much not an admirer of the US as a social system. But the question here is about hegemonic status. Is the US still our "leader" or has it been dethroned?
The answer is more complex in that it can't really be dethroned, but it does look like it will become far more isolationist. That leaves space for Europe and Asia to continue to evolve their regional identities along Scandinavian and Singaporean lines.
There is opportunity in that as we will have moved beyond the Cold War geopolitical contest, and even the current hegemonic debate of "If not the US, then well who?".
It is the US that frames it as us or China, which would you rather have? But that is transparent self-serving propaganda. That isn't what is really happening. It is a Trump re-election tactic built of out-of-date, failed Neocon, political thinking.
The US and China got locked into each other as two sides of the same neoliberal/dollarised system. It was a paradoxical phase of geopolitics that was a solution for a time. But the world is moving on.
The US has already forced through CUSMA as its replacement of NAFTA. The ground is laid to bring the supply chains home and become isolationist and regionally focused. The question only is about whether the US establishment can actually let go of the levers of international power. If the US has an old fossil like Biden in charge, you can see that the psychological break won't be clean.
The bigger existential challenge is whether the world has the gumption to do something about the dollar. The IMF could come out with a replacement bitcoin as the world currency. The dollar might then go into freefall, reflecting the mountain of debt the US has run up on the tab.
But the US has veto on anything the IMF does. That threat isn't credible quite yet. And even if it does happen, that just makes a fall back on an isolationist North American economy all the more sane.
If you listen to Fox and CNN, it is truly the end times for the US. But from my comfortable distance, it is an engaging soap opera.
A big shift in geopolitics has to happen. Neoliberal globalism has run its 30 year cycle. Covid rather puts a fullstop on the old. Climate change and renewables demand a proper response. Technology is on an exponential curve that will rewrite various economic fundamentals.
So a bunfight between woke activists and posturing rednecks is not the hinge-point of modern history - not anywhere near some kind of actual leadership question - even if for those involved it might feel that way.
Quoting Banno
"Is" statement
Quoting Banno
"Ought" statement
Seems the conversation jumped an awfully large chasm in just two lines. Not saying you aren't allowed, merely asking for the underpinnings of the thought.
I (mostly) find myself in that same camp, but interestingly:
Quoting apokrisis
I tend to agree.
Quoting apokrisis
I tend to disagree.
Anyway, whether America is unraveling or not, evolution is always chaotic. Natural or Political. Whether it's good... maybe one day a historian will tell us.
I take a different route. In fact a Hegelian one.
Nature is driven by an optimisation function - a thermodynamic imperative. Life and mind are then entrained to that function. Evolution isn’t chaotic at all but purposeful in its pursuit of the generic “good” of entropy production.
Human social systems arise within the same natural “ethical” economy. Life is arranged to maximise long run entropy production. Populations increase freely until reaching the Malthusian carrying capacity of their environments. Social mores then reflect what has been learnt about maintaining a stable long run balance.
Of course this natural philosophy perspective cuts across the usual favourite tropes of ethical philosophy. It doesn’t fit nicely into the is-ought distinction for a start. It doesn’t even oppose ethical idealism with ethical realism - “pragmatism” understood as just saying anything goes if it “works for you”.
So my lens here is about uncovering the secret aim at the heart of modern geopolitics and economics. In particular, the great shift that occurred with the collision of the scientific revolution and the discovery of fossil fuels.
If you track human energy consumption and its connection to political history, what you see is not chaos but a smoothly maintained exponential curve - that same story of population increase heading towards the Malthusian limits that the environment may eventually have to impose.
What becomes socially coded as ethical becomes dependent on which bit of that curve is your cultural focus. In the US, for instance, it is mostly a case of “burn baby burn”.
Shale oil is a prime example of something zero people predicted even a decade ago. It was unimaginable how the US could use its reserve currency status to suck overseas cash into its fracking adventure. Every barrel drilled is losing foreign investors money. The world is upside down.
But anyway, I am applying a very different lens here. And the point is that good and bad are social constructs used to encode thermodynamic outcomes. In the short term, growth is what is fetishised in this fossil fuel driven era of history. The US led in the sense of wiring in that exponential growth habit as a cultural fact of life. Anything standing in the way was obviously “bad”.
The long term outcomes of exponential entropy production have now come into view. What is now “good” will be whatever counts as a shift to a long-run sustainable balance within environmental limits.
The US ain’t really a leader there. But neither is any other nation.
One of the arguments for US exceptionalism is that also has all the natural advantages - unlimited capital, technology leadership, business flexibility, even the prime wind and solar resources - to most easily make the required energy transition.
It’s a bit depressing. US wins on basic advantage. Yet this means it can afford to be culturally fixated on short-termism. And in the end, it will have the most capacity to readjust to the problems it has created.
That may sound a confusing thing. But once you delve into the dynamics, it’s not chaotic. It’s a simple structural story familiar to any ecologist.
You don’t need a big brain when life is easy. You don’t need to pay attention to what can be left as a matter of general indifference.
Quoting apokrisis
There appears to be inconsistency between these two. If life is supposed to, or ought to, maximize entropy production, then how is establishing a "long-run sustainable balance" consistent with this? If the end goal is entropy, then the quicker we get there the better. Adding "long run" to this goal, as if we ought to delay achieving the goal for as long as possible, is saying that the real goal is to slow entropy, and that contradicts the originally stated goal which is to maximize entropy..
Here's an analogy. We could say that life is arranged so as to maximize death. Billions of creatures come into existence only to die. So we say the goal of life is to die (maximize entropy). Then we notice that some cultures of living things, or particular species, trend toward long term sustenance, and this requires a sort of balance within their environment. So to maintain consistency with evolutionary theory we might claim long term "survival" is the goal. But now we have a clear contradiction between the originally stated goal, to die, and the later stated goal to live as long as possible (long-run sustainable balance).
The inconsistency, or contradiction, between the two, life is arranged to die (maximize entropy), and, the "good" is to create a balance so as to delay death (delay entropy production) for as long as possible, creates the need to assess the validity of each. One, or the other, must be wrong. I suggest that both are wrong, because to describe the "good" in such dichotomous terms is a mistake. The two are the defining extremes of life, death and survival, but living is the real activity occurring in between. The virtuous activity of living, is to seek neither of the two extremes, death nor survival, as the good, but something completely different. So you appear to be misguided, barking up the wrong tree.
It is the main point! If we answer this, it could help us to understand where is the US right now. Is there a contest of interest groups? What are the group's goals? What are the current riots about? One could say that what is on stake is not a set of particular policies reflecting different groups' interests. There are different visions of America, and this existential conflict cannot get settled in a 'regular' way.
To exist, 'system in which interest groups can contest and sort out their differences to arrive at a mutual accommodation' requires the set of fundamental and non-reflexive believes in the system's reality.
Quoting apokrisis
What about China? This communist country has not collapsed so far.:smile:
Quoting apokrisis
Alexei Yurchak in his book “Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More” offers a different account. He argues that during the late socialism “The reproduction of the forms of authoritative discourse became powerfully constitutive of Soviet reality but no longer necessarily described that reality; it created the possibilities and constraints for being a Soviet person but no longer described what a Soviet person was. As a result, through its ritualized reproduction and circulation, authoritative discourse enabled many new ways of life, meanings, interests, relations, pursuits, and communities to spring up everywhere within late socialism, without being able to fully describe or determine them.” Gorbachev did not merely allow free speech. Mainly, he initiated the fundamental change of the soviet discursive regime, the critical part of which was the system of beliefs in Soviet reality. When the population stopped to rely on a set of existential social presuppositions, the Soviet Union collapsed.
Quoting apokrisis
Your argument could be understood as a piece of evidence that there is indeed a deep fundamental belief in America as an a-historical, eternal entity. What can happen if the waste majority of the population would challenge this existential value?
Even thermodynamic outcomes are probabilistic, which gives rise to the possibility of chaos. And indeed, in our journey toward higher entropy, the human race has experienced its fair share of chaos. Of course, we know that entropy rises in the long term, but it's important to remember the reason for this is an atomistic probability (a probability which allows for temporary decreases in entropy as well), and not a Hegelian Zeitgeist leading us by the hand.
On a side note, I wonder whether a multi-polar or uni-polar world is a higher entropy state of affairs? Could this be calculated?
You are right. But the reason is that life evolved as a long run answer because life lives within the means of the daily solar flux. Once photosynthesis had evolved, and bacteria had “poisoned” the atmosphere with sufficient oxygen, and so long as the climate generally favoured liquid water, then the conditions for life were very steady state. Ecosystems would be established that could persist within these bounds.
But fossil fuels are an entirely new game. Coal and oil are the concentrated hydrocarbons of millennia of dead swamps and ocean plankton trapped, cooked and concentrate in geological strata. There is a one time bonanza of energy to drill and burn.
So the sun rises every morning. It is a long run cycle. Hydrocarbons are a once in 100 million years single shot. The rate of usage then becomes a human choice. And we are making no choice but blindly burning them at the maximum possible rate - an exponential increase.
Of course, we have burnt about half of the readily available now. That is putting the world political system under strain. Not to mention we are stuck with the trapped waste in terms of CO2.
So the story is that life will entropify as fast as it can. Populations will grow exponentially until they hit their limits. After that, the limits force a long-run ecological way of life.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, no. Life is indeed about living. It is the living organism that captures high frequency sunlight and recycles it to low frequency waste heat. Dead organisms don’t do that.
I agree that what is truly at stake has become hard to discern. What we are presented with in the media are two caricature extremes - woke cancel culture against meathead rednecks. And yet we know that if we met these folk in everyday real life, they would mostly be good community people. The vast gulf would suddenly seem much less real.
Many feel it is just that kind of moment in history - an interregnum - where the old order is on the way out and the new order has yet to come into focus. Globalisation, neoliberalism, US hegemony, climate denial, and the other aspects of the dominant political consensus feel like old hat. Yet a new general formula is still to be articulated. We can see its elements, but you need - in the US, on the world stage - a unifying leader and movement to crystallise things.
Quoting Number2018
The CCP didn’t loosen its grip on public speech. And it did turn its attention to delivering economic performance under authoritarian rule. It took advantage of Western free trade as a statist enterprise.
So Russia let it all go. It got picked apart by Wall St. Putin eventually emerged to salvage what remained.
China never let go. It pivoted to the new opportunity that the end of the Cold War created. It manufactured dirt cheap goods and the US held its nose and vaguely hoped that China would become transformed into another friendly liberal democracy like Taiwan or Japan.
China is brittle. But the CCP is competent. It has had to be.
Quoting Number2018
That is another way of saying what I said. Communism was bound by its belief in an internationalist proletariat revolution. The USSR and Eastern Bloc were constructs imposed on a whole variety of interest groups - ethnic minorities, religious groups, nation states, etc. Lifting the constraints releases all those suppressed forces. People could look around and aspire to something different.
Quoting Number2018
Boiled down, my argument is that North America is eternally exceptional as a geography. It is a bonus that the US then was forged as a nation based on an advanced political theory.
The constitution is showing its age. There are all kinds of out of date beliefs like US gun laws which have been made part of US identity. The place is way too religious for a properly modern society. One could go on.
But how much scope is there for a real change in the fundamental mindset? The geographic advantage is one major thing that - even subconsciously - breeds a certain shared attitude. The shared political history likewise is simply a fact of life.
Could real change be imagined? Maybe if there is world climate collapse and the US tuned into a Mad Max survivalist situation. What kind of society would result once it is well armed gangs against federal internment camps and military rule?
But folk suddenly voting for a kinder, greener, society? The US suddenly discovering leaders under the age of 70? The US halving its military spending and investing that instead on green tech and social needs?
The chances are remote, but within the realm of possiblity. :grin:
For some observers, there is a clash of incompatible sets of values and ideas, the situation of
culture war that can involve into a real civil war. Andrew Sullivan defines woke cancel culture as " It sees America as in its essence not about freedom but oppression. It argues, in fact, that all the ideals about individual liberty, religious freedom, limited government, and the equality of all human beings were always a falsehood to cover for and justify and entrench the enslavement of human beings under the fiction of race. It wasn’t that these values competed with the poison of slavery, and eventually overcame it, in an epic, bloody civil war whose casualties were overwhelmingly white. It’s that the liberal system is itself a form of white supremacy — which is why racial inequality endures and why liberalism’s core values and institutions cannot be reformed and can only be dismantled."
Andrew Sullivan "Is There Still Room for Debate?"
Sure. But probabilty itself is a measure of the predictable. Chaos has an equilibrium structure and isn’t actually “chaotic”. It is only our description of an equilibrium system with the least possible structure.
Quoting Voyeur
Entropy can only rise if there is a dissipative process to pave the way. So while you can imagine entropification as a merely atomistic and local process - the spreading of an escaped gas - in reality, the world is organised into dissipative flows. Collective phenomena like the climate, plate tectonics, ocean currents.
Life and mind arose as systems with purpose. They can actually construct entropy gradients. They can harness the available flows to extract work. So we are now a long way from any simplistic atomistic notion of entropification.
That is why I speak of it as a Hegelian project. History is driven by the entropic imperative to build the order, build the structure, that maximises dissipation.
Cosmology says this imperative rules the physical universe. Biology says it rules life. So why not expect it to continue as nature’s fundamental driver when it comes to human history?
Quoting Voyeur
Good point. The key measure of a dissipative system in “full flow” is that it has a scalefree or fractal structure. It’s equilbrium balance is expanding at a log/log or powerlaw rate.
So complexity science does offer an exact yardstick here. Human society ought to be scalefree in its political and economic organisation if it is indeed maximising its energy throughput and hence entropy production.
If we judge the world on economic inequality for example, the system seems to be doing pretty well. The distribution of wealth is looking powerlaw. The top 1% have almost half the total. A dozen billionaires then own most of that.
So in the current unconstrained phase of human growth - the one based on fossil fuel and engineering - we are seeing the kind of powerlaw distributions that are associated with “chaotic” systems. That tells us globalisation and neoliberalism have indeed removed any internal constraints on maximising the burn rate and sharing the proceeds around with maximal unevenness.
So it is chaotic in achieving the most with the least internal restraint. But then that is why history reduces to the Hegelian imperative of burn baby burn. The human system is nakedly defined by its most global and simple goal of entropifying a glut of hydrocarbons.
The wise long run behaviour would be to price in the cost of the environmental sink needed to dispose of the resulting waste. Plus the issue of what replaces the coal and oil as the supply peaks.
So clearly, the current political/economic system is half-arsed. The inputs are free, but the outputs have an unrecognised cost.
Getting back to your question, a unipolar world is not such a surprise given a powerlaw extreme. The world could be in a balanced equilibrium state even as it expands and grows wildly. Inequality of outcome is not a bug but a feature of “chaotic” free growth.
But a multipolar world would also seem a tamer kind of equilibrium balance - more what we would expect from a steady state dissipative system that is not growing but now globally constrained in the fashion of a mature rain forest or other long run ecosystem operating under a solar budget.
An actual civil war needs a geography. A north-south divide that also reflects different economies - slavers vs farmers perhaps - is a good starting point.
But if the current US split is read as inner city woke vs rural redneck, then how do they actually collectivise geographically to stage their big fight to the death? The urban and the rural have less of a clear division in the US than most other places on earth.
Maybe that explains why it is largely a social media world thing. That offers a virtual stage for the battle. Cancel culture vs dumb as a rock Fox News. Irresistible force against immovable object.
It looks like something spectacular and furious is going on. Meanwhile, in real life, America trundles on.
Is anything going to come out of the work wars? Ten years ago, the complaint was how tame the youth of today seem to be. The millennials weren’t rebelling but pushing optimistic social entrepreneurship as their tech-powered neoliberal alternative. As a generation, they seemed surprisingly mild.
Now we are back to the kind of frothing hysteria of the hippies, the punks, the counter cultures. Kids have rediscovered how to annoy and scare the heck out of their elders.
But neither the quiet periods, nor the noisy periods, are the story. They are just the oscillations created by the underlying driving flow. A river snakes in wide loops across the country. But it was always tracking the same entropic gradient.
Modern history has been about removing the internal constraints on entropification. So the youth of every generation jump aboard that bandwagon of calling for ever greater freedom. And the lives that get invented as a result oddly have become only increasingly entrained to a world focused on GDP productivity.
Woke culture reflects the needs of globalisation - the project meant to continue the powerlaw expansion of fossil fuel entropification until it includes every last citizen on earth.
So work culture is no kind of long run answer - unless it’s underpinning of techno optimism is right.
Meanwhile the rural rednecks are either dumb or playing dumb. If reckless capitalism does destroy civilisation, a rural community with conservative closed ranks becomes the sensible long term bet. You can see a quiet calculation going on there.
So mostly what is going on is a social media civil war. A reaction to a moment of pending system change rather than a driver of it. You can see it is essentially meaningless as neither side presents an economic and political solution - alternatives spelt out as a rewrite of the underlying entropic imperative.
It becomes another fashion statement, like punk or hippy, if it doesn’t actually interrupt consumption as the deep locked in imperative.
For an interesting perspective, check Roger Hallam and his extinction rebellion approach to achieving actual social revolution.
One of the great secrets of politics is that the establishment is in fact far more scared and anxious about popular opinion shifting than anyone realises. It can spot real trouble.
And so woke culture is the kind of civil war that the establishment will be reassured by. It ain’t getting in the way of business. It becomes a useful distraction to avoid the difficult job of actual reform.
Poisoned the atmosphere? I'm sure you must realize that oxygen as an interceptor of harmful UV, was necessary for the development of "higher" life forms. Why would you call this act which prepared the atmosphere for evolution to proceed, an act of poisoning the atmosphere?
Quoting apokrisis
A moment ago you said oxygen in the atmosphere is poison, now it's CO2 which is "waste"? What is waste, or poison, and what is a necessary condition for living, is just a matter of perspective, depending on what type of life form we're talking about.
Quoting apokrisis
But entropy is just an arbitrary designation, dependent entirely on one's perspective. Is O2 more entropified than CO2? What about O3? "Entropy" is completely perspective dependent.
Isn't it interesting how religion is a racket? In European history, it was a state-owned racket and even a state-owing racket. And in the US - which aimed to be modern in its separation of state and church - it became instead a free market capitalist racket. Churches literally went into business as that is what the new system wound up endorsing.
The woke vs the conservative dynamic reflects the two forms of power - the power to constrain and the power to act freely. This is a completely functional dynamic if it results in democratic self-organisation - the interest groups story of society. But not so much if one or other side of the dynamic starts to dominate.
A less religious society would be good in the sense that organised religions tend to be scriptural rather than evidence-based on their positions. But then in Europe, the state religions have become so liberal that this is hardly a thing anymore. African anglicans can't believe the wokeness of the Church of England. And in the US, any irrationalist cult can set itself up in business, even a free love one. It is actually an open market for customers. So religion is not such a factor - an imbalance to address - in that its variety is a fair reflection of society anyway.
And on the very notion of society as a democratic plurality of interest groups, that goes back to Arthur Bentley’s The Process of Government: A Study of Social Pressures, 1908.
Bentley was an interesting chap, not least because he was influenced by Dewey and hence Peircean pragmatism. He had a belated heyday in the 1950s when the US was going through its New Deal social democracy phase. And was just as quickly buried by the capitalist rebound which followed.
And on the social media dynamics of woke vs redneck culture wars, I would note the scalefree story that social media as a platform for discourse enables.
The signature of what is happening is the endless possibility for micro-grievances as the "right" response to the matchingly endless capacity for micro-aggressions.
Quick! On the internet, someone said something that was wrong! Pile on! :lol:
Social media is the new attention economy. It pays its influencers surprisingly well in hard cash, especially if there is product to be sold. And if not that, then there is at least the comforting illusion of power - the informational capacity to redirect the world's entropic flows. Which, after all, is the kind of power that money - as a store of capital - is supposed to bestow anyway.
So social media is a game. But also one evolving into an actual platform for political/economic life. It matters to the extent it becomes the place where capital - in its purest sense of the ability to co-ordinate human choice - starts to regulate the physical entropic flows upon which the anthropocene is being constructed on.
The old real world was rather linear and clunky. Social connections were deep (thus conservative) and short-ranged. The information flow coordinating a nation or a culture was restricted to a choice of a few broadcasters and the paper of whichever city you lived in.
The internet is designed instead to be exponentially scalable. And that puts it in a different equilibrium class.
The old social dynamic - the one that had to balance the complementary organising forces of competition and co-operation, differentiation and integration - could be reborn as a fractal story. Society could develop more of the macro and more of the micro.
The old middle ground - the Gaussian norm with a mean - became replaced (or "disintermediated") by the new thing of a "chaotic" distribution. That is, a powerlaw or fractal or scalefree distribution, which is defined by the fact it is a system that no longer actually has a mean, some average scale of its fluctuations or exceptions that centres everything around it.
So the point here is that thermodynamics provides us with our fundamental metaphysics - a grounding that views reality in terms of probabilistic processes. And then the modern maths of such systems - which itself is theory only about 30 years old - gives us x-ray vision to see inside nature as a Hegelian system.
We have a mathematical strength account of the two possible states of an equlibrium system - the closed or steady-state story of a Gaussian distribution versus the openly growing and scalefree story of a Powerlaw distribution.
What seems right and ethical in terms of human social structure then reflects directly which kind of statistics is more in play. Steady-state entropification or scalefree growth.
Putting this lens on history is a way of measuring what ought to be happening and not just describing what seems to be happening. It does ground the ethics that must be part of the collective social discussion as the "ethics" are granted this natural logic - the choices appropriate to two different states of being.
Again, the big question to be answered right now is what next? The human system really took off in a new direction with the Scientific Revolution and fossil fuel. There was the intellectual capital to unlock the new source of "labour". But fossil fuel is peaking. The failure to cost in an environmental sink has become a dangerous problem.
Is it game over? Or is the game about to kick on because we are in the middle of creating a society actually equipped to think in scalefree terms?
That is the spin here on woke culture (and its "other" of redneck truculence).
The current perceived problem is the micro-grievance industry being born of the new social media capacity for the unlimited recording of micro-aggressions. To anyone used to normalised social discourse - the old middle ground that built consensus - the online bickering and othering is pointless if not disastrous.
On the other hand, reflecting intellectual capital going scalefree, the online dynamic could be the new order testing its wings. The uninformed din could settle down into more structured flows. We could get back to what millennials were promoting 10 years ago - individual social entrepreneurship as the way to change the world one TED-x talk or B-corp at a time.
There is good reason this OP is about the US. With Trump and CNN, BLM and the NRA, you can easily paint it as a society in its end times. Schadenfreude is the warm fuzzy feeling that will give a lot of us too - especially having had to live so long with the US's rude noises about social democracy and the necessity of joining its neoliberal conceit.
But - to continue the story of the US's embedded advantages - it owns the tech/social media industry too. It already has its foot in that future.
And if there is a next step in terms of an end to fossil fuel entropification, a shift to greentech or even fusion power that can sustain the current thermodynamic "burn rate" with the cost of environmental sinks included, then things can move on maybe quite happily.
The promise there is that we spent 150 years getting into powerlaw entropification mode as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Now we are catching up in terms of scalefree social organisation. And that more effective organisation of the human capital side of the equation will be what releases a greentech future. The upward soaring curve of the anthropocene doesn't need to be cut short in 2050 after all.
So growing pains or death rattles. It could be either being heard stateside. But the brutal geopolitical truth is that we may be at a true planetary cross-roads, yet the US has so much accumulated advantage that it can afford to head into crisis with any old fool in charge.
The US becomes neither here nor there as a "leader" until it is again feeling the hot breath of crisis on its neck. The sleeper has to awake. Then we get to see what it is made of.
Meanwhile the real story in play is the peaking of the fossil fuel economic formula, the question of whether galloping tech is coming over the horizon to the rescue. Can we make micro-decisions about micro-energy generation and resource consumption that become the collective, emergent, macro-scale solution?
Just listen to any social entrepreneur and their search for individual solutions that can scale to be world solutions. Silicon Valley types understand non-linear dynamics. They get the scalefree equilibrium growth story. It just hasn't really reached the popular imagination I guess.
Erm. That's why I put poison in quotes. What was poison - a toxic byproduct - for primitive anaerobic life then became the basis of a photosynthetic world with a supercharged entropy production based on oxidative respiration.
Natural evolution must keep moving to greater rates of entropification if it can. And photosynthesis proved it indeed could.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah. That is waste for us in the current era.
Higher CO2 is in fact good as plant fertiliser. Growth rates are increased in times of higher concentrations. But as you know, global temperature is another factor to worry about. Disrupt rainfall, kill ecosystems, and you are back to bare dirt as the Earth's primary entropification system. And bare dirt does a poor job of scattering bright sunlight into cool infrared radiation. There can be a 30 degree K difference between the same bit of ground as exposed earth vs mature ecology.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You are making shit up because you don't even seem to have even a schoolboy grounding in molecular chemistry.
The first thing they teach you is why atoms form molecular arrangements that minimise their collective entropy budget. It literally explains everything.
Well, no; that's a question, not a statement.
Thanks for pointing this out. It strikes me as problematic in interesting ways.
The thought seems to be that we can rid ourselves of ethical considerations, since these will reduce to thermodynamics.
Now that runs against the is/ought barrier, obviously. The customary philosophical reply will be that since and ought cannot be got form an is, The is of thermodynamics will be unable to tell us what we ought do.
From what has been said, a reply that is open to @apokrisis is to agree that this is so, but to repeat that Quoting apokrisis
...and hence while it might not tell us what we ought do, it will tell us what we in fact will do, and hence that ethics is rendered irrelevant.
Which is in itself an interesting argument.
We can take the argument a step further by noticing that the theory of thermodynamics is not, at least as it stands, up to the job of telling us what we will do. No thermodynamic analysis is gong to answer the question of whether you will vote for Trump or no.
But that does not mean it could not, in principle, tell us who will win the vote.
Suppose there was a thermodynamic analysis that was able to tell us what we will in fact do. Suppose we do the calculations, and they show that we will indeed vote for Trump.
Now that we have this analysis, what is it that rules out our going against it? Can't we take that into consideration, and then vote for against Trump anyway?
One supposes that the calculation will have taken this into account, and included in its permutations the temptation for us to say that we will vote otherwise than the calculation suggests, just to spite the calculation and assert our independence.
And it will include in its permutations, that we are aware it will include this in its permutations. And so on.
Remember the supposition is that the calculation will tell us what we will indeed do, regardless of what we ought do. We find ourselves in a strange loop indeed, not unlike Popper's critique of historicism; our knowledge of the historicist principles puts us in the position of being able to supplant them
All of this to say, it is not at all clear that we could replace ethical considerations with thermodynamic calculations.
Yeah, nah. The whole is-ought issue is what I seek to bypass.
Thermodynamics enshrines a probabilistic approach to ontology. So all one can say about reality is that there are constraints on the freedom to act. It is not a prescriptive approach where outcomes are either determined or - as the alternative - fundamentally free. Neither necessity nor chance apply in some absolute fashion.
Hence that tension between is and ought is bypassed for a more constructive view. We get to make choices insofar the possibilities haven’t been constrained.
Quoting Banno
Yes of course. To the degree the universe is indifferent about what we do, we are free to choose otherwise. If we are unconstrained. We could toss a coin if we like.
What I have argued is that humanity is in fact entrained to thermodynamics as an imperative. And blindly entrained. If we don’t make different choices, it is because we haven’t realised how much we have become caught up in nature’s own entropic flow.
The calculation only arises to the degree that one might think to resist that historically embedded imperative.
Should one suddenly decide to return oneself - and why not one’s whole community - to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle? “Hah! Take that, Second Law, you ugly meaningless bastard!”
So the ethics derivable here are rather permissive. All I am saying is that certain collective flows emerge naturally to organise reality. That is the character of nature. It is what it is. And also what ought to be in the sense blind nature has no other choice.
Then humans emerged as fully natural phenomena. We reflect the embedded flow principles. Human history is explained as steps of increasingly more powerful entropy production.
Constraint did its work. Our response has been to blindly go along with the flow. And why not? Was there ever a good reason to resist?
The burden of argument is thus flipped. We don’t need to give a positive reason to support every action. Our behaviour only has to be on average aligned with the entropic flow - so that we can continue to exist as part of nature. And if we choose otherwise, then we suffer the full indifference of nature.
I think my main issue with this line of reasoning is that "purpose" is a construct of rational minds, whereas it's perfectly reasonable to imagine the universe without any rational minds, and therefore with no "purpose". Not that things wouldn't be happening, but that there would be no verbal or metaphysical baggage.
Quoting apokrisis
It seems to me that the nature of all life is to be a consumer. Certainly, some (if not all) life produces some byproducts that could perhaps be consumed again, but eventually, the entropy you're talking about will lead us to equilibrium where the energy of the universe is no longer in any consumable or usable form (at least that's one theory based on our current understandings). In the short term, we can monitor our effects on the environment, and perhaps maximize conservation of energy for later days, but I tend to agree with the Keynesian thesis: "In the long run we're all dead."
Sure. Doesn't change the point. What makes you think an ethical dimension applies to the possible unraveling of nations?
Quoting Banno
I don't think the question is about replacement, to me it seems that thermodynamics gives us further context and insight into understanding what ethics truly is. To the true nature of ethics. I could form an ethical judgement even about Laplace's demon, I could find it beautiful or ugly. But what it would mean to find something "beautiful" or "ugly" in the context of Laplace's demon, would change exactly what was referred to when I uttered those words.
Even if every action is fully deterministic, that doesn't mean ethics no longer has meaning, it would just change the meaning from what is typically assumed under the assumption of a non-deterministic framework. Of course, if the universe (and everything in it) is deterministic then this has likely always been true, and we simply haven't realized it. Every murder in the history of humanity has been inevitable under this model, but from a pragmatic perspective, we can still view murders as undesirable, and work to prevent them. It's just more of a futile gesture at that point... a futile gesture which we are destined to continue... and so forth along the lines of your argument. The same concept applies to the rising and falling of nations, or to individual votes, murder is just usually a clearer example when talking about traditional ethics because traditional ethics (pretty much across the board, but not universally) finds murder unpalatable.
This is where I tend to agree with apokrisis's pragmatism. That what happens need not be thought of as "oughts" at all, but merely as necessary effects of pragmatic, necessary truths. If the universe is deterministic, then perhaps those truths are ultimately thermodynamic after all, and if the universe is not (wholly) deterministic, then perhaps those truths are ultimately personal (and therefore ethics as we currently describe it re-enters the fray). Or perhaps it's somewhere in between. Either way, it seems to me that there's probably no way to know for sure at the present moment.
That’s fine. The natural philosophy view does seek to include all four Aristotlean causes including finality. But it also isn’t claiming anything mystical. It is usual to recognise ascending grades of finality.
So we would have the three steps of {teleomaty {teleonomy {teleology}}} to cover the physical, the biological, and themindful. Or in more everyday language, {propensity {function {purpose}}}.
See: http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/189/284
I guess the issue would be with the idea of "intent" being the watchword for "purpose". But I'm content with the idea of decoupling purpose from any semantic baggage and using in a categorical and observational sense. Probably closer to the original Aristotelian intent in the first place! Although, now I'm back to intent and at perilous risk of going in circles!
Thank you for the link, I enjoyed it.
Yeah. I'm nonplussed. What makes you think it doesn't?
Quoting Voyeur
That'd be aesthetics, not ethics.
Just to be sure - should this be understood as "Our behaviour will be on average aligned with the entropic flow" or "Our behaviour ought be on average aligned with the entropic flow?
If you can point out a flaw in my constraints-based argument, get back to me. :yawn:
Who said I think it doesn't?
Quoting Banno
Distinction without a difference. But, to avoid a needlessly semantic discussion, use good or bad if you like, it changes nothing about the point I'm making.
Which is...?
What is the topic here? 'cause I'm lost.
I wasn't making shit up, I asked you a couple simple questions which you did not answer. Do you consider one type of molecule to be more entropific than another? If so, why?
I took chemistry in high school and they never taught us anything about a "collective entropy budget". It really seems like it's you who is making shit up.
Quoting Banno
That's right. Some people, when you tell them what they will do, will automatically do the opposite just to spite you. So if it happens to be the case that you come to know what a person will do, then you had better not tell that person, or they might go and do the opposite. What kind of predictive capacity is that, when you happen to know what will happen, but you cannot say it out loud because that might, or might not, cause the opposite to occur? To speak your knowledge out loud would negate its status as knowledge.
Well, tentativley yes. I had hoped to make the further point, found in The Poverty of Historicism, and implicit in the discussion of causality elsewhere, that this shows an unaddressed problem in the logic of knowing what we will do. But Apo will not entertain such a discussion.
Perhaps it could only tells us what we will do if it doesn't tell us what we will do? :wink:
:smile:
Something like that. A sort of Heisenberg uncertainty in which the more we predict what we will do the less certain we can be that we will do it.
The cat is both inside the box and outside.
Quoting apokrisis
The question about that distinction seems to be a fair one to me. Despite whatever may be thought to ultimately constrain us, we are certainly capable of thinking about whether we ought to be so constrained; I mean that kind of ethical thinking is a great, if not the greatest, part of human life.
Clearly.
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
To which I'll reply again:
Quoting Voyeur
But you seem to think that what you said here contrasts with what I said. Indeed, you appeared to agree with Apo, who I had understood to be in direct disagreement with what you said here.
Are you now agreeing with me that thermodynamics does not tell us what we ought do?
I am now and was then in agreement. However, that's not a point I was arguing.
I focus on the following premise:
Quoting Banno
I disagree with the thought that a thermodynamically determined world precludes the relevancy of ethics.
Quoting Banno
Bold is mine. That's what doesn't follow.
You say:
Quoting Banno
I say: It doesn't matter, because we don't need to in the first place.
Yes, and it certainly seems as though the asking of that question itself determines much of human behavior. For me the question as to whether we are "really" determined by thermodyanmics is more the open question (and is perhaps not even coherent when it comes to behavior as opposed to physiology).
One reply might be that the asking of the question as to what we ought to do, and any possible answer to it, is itself determined by thermodynamics, but I can't see any conceivable way in which the two could fit together. This is just another example of Sellar's conundrum of attempting to marry the "scientific" and "manifest" images; the space of causes and the space of reasons. I see the two as inherently incommensurable ways of looking at two different dimensions of human life; like Spinoza's attributes of God (that he denied were different substances, but were rather akin to modes): res cogitans and res extensa. Questions in the former context are answered in terms of reasons, and the latter in terms of causes.
But we might agree that what is needed, if not already apparent, is some sort of stereoscopic vision. What we ought do seems less informed by science than ever in living memory; and just at a time when it is most needed.
In regard to managing our impacts on the environment, yes, certainly. Science doesn't tell us what to do, but it informs us about the effects of what we do, although perhaps less so when it comes to people; that we may learn by careful and concernful observation and experience.
Regarding the idea of stereoscopic vision; I think that is a good idea that tells us that science should, wherever possible, inform our behavior, and that ethics should inform what is done with science; what our limited resources are to be most valuably expended upon.
But I don't think science is going to help you much with deciding how to treat your friends. And the idea that science is only dealing with the world "as it is for us", is not going to be relevant to scientific inquiry except perhaps in special cases (QM).
Rather than complaining, make your case. What are you waiting for?
Your requests for clarification are a familiar tactic. I gave you an answer. Why should I have to repeat it?
And so how do you define “ethics”? How does Banno define “ethics”?
If one is troubled by the old is-ought chestnut, this must be because one is already caught up in a certain binary presumption.
As I say, as a pragmatist - of the Peircean systems thinking kind - I start with a different model of causality. And so is-ought is a use of words with a metaphysical emptiness. It sounds like a question but becomes a form of nonsense.
You sound like you want to adopt an idealist metaphysics which treats the human mind as something special in the sense that its central drama is “what is the right thing to do?”. That existential dilemma is everything.
That romantic metaphysics then finds its sharpest opposition in the “science” view that existence is essentially meaningless. You can act anyway you want. Morality is relative and godless.
Well, to me, that’s two complementary brands of bullshit. I wouldn’t bother starting any serious discussion from that Cartesian foundation.
You continue to misrepresent. Thermodynamics constrains what we can do. The ethical question then becomes, is there some good reason to resist the general tug of its flow? What kind of reason would that be?
There is no “telling” here. No ought about it. But we are embedded in the historical flow of nature. We are what we are as natural entities. And so either we find that good enough or there must be some positive reason we can provide for wanting things to be other.
Again, to circle back to the actual argument I made at considerable length, humanity has rather unthinkingly gone with the flow in its political and economic history. And humanity has also made a dangerous step change in shifting from a life lived within the means of the solar flux to a new world based on burning fossil fuel.
It just happened. And ethically-speaking, what of it? Who is judging our behaviour as good or bad? Some big daddy in the sky? Some Platonic notion of the Good? Alternatively, is our behaviour just meaningless. It is what it is because there is no “ought”?
Well pragmatism provides a whole different ballgame. The question becomes is it functional? Is it working for us? Does it meet some goal that we want to define for ourselves, in contrast to whatever goal nature seems to have had in channeling us towards such a path?
Ethical discussions treat life as some great permanent drama. Your OP tried to crank up exactly that. And yet you won’t be explicit in what way US as a winner or loser has some kind of “ethical” point.
From my point of view, pointing at Trump or the US and demanding a judgement - good thing/bad thing - is certainly entertaining, but hardly deep.
My analysis focuses on the pragmatic realities of the current moment. If we want to make choices, we need to understand how the “unseen” forces of thermodynamic order have got us to where we are.
We are in one kind of thermodynamic regime - powerlaw - and not in another - Gaussian. As an example that makes one of the things we view as a big problem - gaping inequality - just a natural part of what is going on. Therefore eliminating that inequality is going to be hard as it is basically swimming against the tide.
So contra your pigheadedness, my point is that understanding the actual thermodynamical flow that entrains humanity is the only thing that actually could create a “choice” - ethical or pragmatic.
If we want to resist the “is”, and construct out own “ought”, one needs an understanding of history a lot more sophisticated than thinking it is one damn thing after another.
History has a Hegelian structure. It is a dissipative flow. We now have a science of all that. Time to leave your metaphysical nonsense questions in the past where they belong.
The question is, which of us is the child, which the emperor.
I would not presume to speak for Banno, but for me ethics is the inquiry into how best to live.
Quoting apokrisis
It has nothing to do with metaphysical idealism. It is simply true that, for reflective individuals at least, the question of how to live, i.e. ethics, is paramount.
I'm curious... after reading the earlier posts...
Given all we know about the current pandemic...
Do you think the American government ought to do everything in it's power in order to prevent as much harm to Americans(by extension non-Americans alike), as is actually possible?
So pragmatics or what?
Give your best example of an ethical precept you feel is fundamental. We can then see how it stacks up against the logic of the thermodynamic imperative.
Quoting apokrisis
Perhaps, but I have no such concern. For me it is a matter of what is important because I care about it, that's the "is", and how those concerns would be best served, that's the "ought"; and there's no conflict or binary opposition for me to be worried about.
Quoting Janus
Well, one might think it should at least give a nod and a wink in that direction. Quoting apokrisis
Is it that for Apo, one must have to have a complete answer, or one has no answer? I don't trust systems that explain everything. They are too easy.
Tough question because maybe there just aren’t no right answers and any view would be context-dependent.
To pick up on the points I raised, if we asked what nature wanted, well nature doesn’t care that much. The thermodynamic argument is merely probabilistic. Nature ensures that if there are ways to maximise entropy production, then those outcomes become so likely as to be inevitable. But if humans upped and did something else less entropic as a conscious choice, what are the consequences? The only ones that could suffer as such are humans trying to live off a lower entropy budget.
But let’s say that the US is being blindly entrained by the entropic imperative. It is not even thinking differently. Then does the Covid response reflect this?
I would argue that the US system is the most engaged in entropification as its project. It has the greatest per capita footprint. (Well Canada just beats it. But Canada has cold winters.) So if the US political-economic is shaped by the imperative, then we would expect it to put GDP maintenance ahead of lives.
In fact it is more complex. Economists put a high price on premature death. Too many deaths could hit public morale and confidence in “the system”. There might be a revolt that beings down the high revving economic engine the US built up. A short and effective lockdown might be the better strategy - from the entropy point of view - if it gets the pain over and the economy can get back to full on growth.
On the other hand, is there a reason to make the priority life at any cost? Well flu kills a fair number of people all the time. Junk processed food shortens the lives of a vast number more. Presidents regularly decide it is vital to the US national interest to invade countries that are major oil producers or have key oil pipelines.
It seems the US has made its ethical choices about where to draw its line. It’s culture certainly reflects some habit of thought. And was this framed in terms of entropy good, defying entropy bad? Of course not. The imperative is invisible to anyone who doesn’t have the imagination to see it. The US just went with the flow and made a trade off between some balance of annual GDP growth and the “friction” of social degradation that might derail that project over the longer run.
So folk may talk about this as the ethical vs the unethical. But back in the real world, the decisions are always pragmatic - and also fiendishly complex as calculations, only probabilistic in their outcomes.
Politicians of course have to sell their actions so they will offer the simple justification, Either it is the economy that is primary - hey more people will suffer if they can’t earn or can’t get an education. Or it is life that is primary - no question. Given an actual free choice about what matters, humans may vote to sacrifice and save their communities.
Well, even if nature’s entropic flow is disrupted by an economic shut down, I would agree that my community matters more to me in the end.
So to the degree we are unthinking, we can expect to be entrained to nature’s entropic flow. We will be shaped as its clever local agents digging ancient hydrocarbon reserves out of the ground and setting them alight inside various kinds of metal machines.
But we can be also thinking. We can accept the choice nature has already made for us. Or chose to do something different - at least within nature’s limits.
So there is nothing you would name as a fundamental good or basic precept?
That’s convenient.
I never got the impression you found science easy. And yet it does a pretty good job at moving towards an ever more unified model of nature.
There could be several explanations for this fact; a society that approved these things within their community would not thrive or even be likely to survive long. Or you could say that most people are empathetic enough to motivate their condemnation of such acts.
I can't see how thermodynamics comes into it though, except in the very most general sense I which it comes into everything.
And that is what I have said. It is foundational. It is the ground of the natural world. So whatever else follows, there is already an “ethics” - as in a finality - in play. The choice becomes about whether to go with the flow or - for some reason - oppose it.
And as I’ve also said ‘til I’m blue in the face is that life and mind exist because they can add intelligence to the deal. A selfhood is constructed from building systems of dissipation. Negentropy is the “other” that is also part of the deal as the simple evolves into the complex.
Quoting Janus
Well which one seems more basic? That we do in fact survive and thrive as a collective or that we are empathetic?
Oh wait. Empathy is part of that survive and thrive deal. Indeed human neurobiology is evolved to switch sharply between an empathetic response and a its opposite. In every social setting, some kind of choice is being made as to whether we are in a social cooperative mode, or instead doing the opposite of facing off against the competition.
We love our tribe. We demonise our enemy. Our brains are designed to switch between these too equally valuable social behaviours.
Is one more “ethical” than the other? That would seem strange in that every culture finds ways to reward the right choice in the right setting. Soldiers must hate their foe. Parents must love their kids.
So it is not hard to see how “ethics” arises as levels of complexity. At a basic level, as social animals, we have to work together in ways that keep us collectively warm, fed and housed. As a species, we have to do that better than other rival species. He who best masters entropy production produces more population.
Then society kicks things up another level by creating a stark instinctive contrast between the cooperative and competitive mindset. It becomes “a choice”, but one that gets made in habitual directions that generally - probabilistically - favours the entropic fortunes of the species.
The several explanations are different levels of the same explanation once we consider the pragmatic evolutionary imperative at work.
This movie now seems to me to be an apt metaphor for the USA right now. (Unfortunately for everyone, even in other countries).
All your Wikipedia quote tells me is that if a chemical "system" (whatever that is supposed to be) is reacting with its environment, it is unstable. And, there is a proposed "thermodynamic stability" in which the system has a thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment.
It gives no indication as to what distinguishes a system from its environment, something I assume is an arbitrary determination. And it makes no mention of your proposed "collective entropy budget". So you really haven't provided anything to dissuade me from the belief that you're making shit up.
In your proposed scenario where "atoms form molecular arrangements", is a molecule supposed to be a system? Is a group of molecules supposed to be a system. But we were talking about the chemical make up of the earth's atmosphere. Since the atmosphere is constantly interacting with solar forces and the massive surface, how can it even make sense to you, to think about the atmosphere in such terms?
‘Morality pills’ may be the US’s best shot at ending the coronavirus pandemic, according to one ethicist
Yes, I am assuming this is an ethical issue, and that ethical problems are not thermodynamic problems.
Magic Mushrooms all 'round, perhaps.
Banno already elucidated this point. Some people, when someone tells them what they must do, will go and do the opposite, just to spite. So if thermodynamics is supposed to constrain what we can do, some people will do the opposite, just out of spite. That is your reason, "spite". It's fundamental to the nature of freedom, to prove that your proposed constraints cannot actually constrain.
It is you who misrepresents. You propose "thermodynamics constrains" as some sort of fact, instead of proposing thermodynamics as a theory which tells us something about constraints. Then you proceed to argue that thermodynamics is not "telling" us something, it is actually constraining us. So your mistake is that you refuse to recognize that when free minded people are told about constraints (thermodynamics in this case), they will figure out a way to demonstrate that such proposed constraints cannot actually constrain them.
What you ought to respect is that when people learn about constraints, and produce such theories, they are actually looking for a way to get outside of those boundaries, to enjoy freedom. That is how people "use" such theories. So we learn about the existing constraints for the purpose of finding loop holes and ways around those constraints, toward freedom from constraints, freedom being what we desire. And the desire for freedom validates the "spite" referred to above.
Stop being an idiot. Why is carbon dioxide stable? Because one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms collectively form a lower energy state than the same three atoms wandering around by themselves. That is why burning charcoal produces so much heat. The formation of CO2 is an exothermic reaction.
This is schoolboy chemistry.
Yeah. That sounds like a “good reason” to resist something.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
So out of spite, you will spread your arms, step off the cliff, and thus demonstrate your contempt for the constraints of gravity? OK.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That might be my mistake if it wasn’t what I was saying.
Forests and trees...
All views share the very same context. We are all in the forrest of a representative government in which the elected officials(are supposed to) act on behalf of American citizens. That is(supposed to be) the sole driving influence of decision/policy making.
The dichotomy or 'choice' between the keeping the economy going(preventing economic collapse) and personal safety/health is a false one. The economy need not crash in order to ensure the least amount of harm. People need not lose everything. People need not place their own lives at serious risk just to be able to survive.
The economy need not collapse at all.
We can, in simple terms, hit the pause button until we're better prepared. There is more than enough money available to keep everyone safe in relative isolation, through no cost of their own until the virus is contained and we are well enough prepared to keep it that way.
All those with such power have taken a vacation until after Labor Day... The irony. The shamelessness. The harm being caused to Americans who are supposed to have a government that is acting in their best interest...
The US population could just refuse to go to work, to socially distance, to wear masks and wash their hands. The US "ethic" surely says that in a society based on some collective notion of rugged individualism, folk wouldn't need federal government to be telling them anything. And if the CDC does give rational federal advice, the typical such individual would do the opposite out of @Metaphysician Undercover's spite.
The Swedish population made its own choice that surprised a lot of people expecting a more Volvo-like, public safety first, response to Covid. The Swedish social culture seemed to make that a viable approach to limiting death without tanking the economy. That is an experiment still in progress.
As far as my entropic hypothesis goes, the pandemic is simply too exceptional event to have been built into anyone's social system - apart from those like Korea who have had a few recent scares like SARS, or New Zealand, which has had to eliminate multiple biosecurity threats like Mycoplasma bovis.
There, the consequences have been thought through. So go hard, go early, is a concept that both governments and the population understand.
That is why "ethics" seems such a poor lens for this kind of geopolitical discussion. As @Janus demonstrates, this starts the discussion off as a standard Western philosophical drama of "what should I do?"
If you boil ethical systems down to personal choices then you are simply buying into the fundamental tropes upon which the aggressive and competitive Western way of life became based. You are going with the flow that was precisely the one that set us on the path to colonial expansion, coal burning industry, neoliberalism, climate denial and a general belief in a right to be "spiteful" as the ultimate expression of personal freedom.
So any discussion of the ethical choices has to recognise that we are all individually already grounded in an ethic. We are not the starting point when we make personal choices. We are the end-point. Our world has already been shaped by a succession of increasingly specified constraints that start at the brute physical level, work their way up through biology, sociology and culture, and right on through in terms of our community, our family history, every other aspect of our world that is shaping out habits of thought.
That doesn't mean we can't then make "ethical choices". It just points out that mostly we don't make thinking choices at all. We are already deeply embedded in layers of evolved and cultural habit. What is left is the making of self-interested calculations. We have the "freedom" to weigh the balance of multiple factors and come out with some plan that has a probability of success. A constraint that we impose on the world ourselves.
And that personal choice is the cherry on the cake. It is evolution's way of keeping the learning going and not becoming rigidly bound by habit. It is part of what is natural.
But personal choice only makes sense in the context of a set of habits that reflect much longer timespans of learning. There has to be that established flow first. A way of life has to be some form of success. Then the ability to act sharply "otherwise" can count as a meaningful action - an experiment that will have an outcome that can be judged. Something will be learnt as being either the right or wrong thing to have done.
Like maybe the US should have put health before money. Or perhaps even that the US should have had a leadership that could actually make a simple binary choice if it couldn't manage a more complex weighing of the factors like Sweden.
The problem in the US is not about the ethical choice it made, but about the confused inability to stick to any choice at all.
The point is that there is not at all merely one ethical choice being made. One law could be imposed, yet there would still be dissent. The ethical question would then be as to whether it is acceptable to imprison together those who refuse to cooperate, or shoot them, for the common good.
Sure. There can be a definite act of dissent because there is that one law. You have confirmed what I just said. What would dissent even look like if it wasn't in opposition in this fashion?
Yes, that seems obvious; but to me the more interesting question then would be as to what should be done with dissenters.
Well what should be done with dissenters then?
I asked if the American government should do everything it possibly can to minimize the harm caused to Americans.
I agree that a choice is not a real choice if it is uninformed by how things actually are. As far as I can tell, you’re using ‘hegelian’ simply to mean that history has a direction -& while I think it’s a confusing word-choice (‘Hegelian’ carries a lot of meaning) I agree that history has a direction.
If ‘ought’ is taken to mean a suprahistorical (platonic) set of norms that can be applied indifferently to any situation, I also agree that it is mistaken lens through which to view things.
But I can’t understand your above post without some wedge between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ - if, as you say, It is by understanding how things are that we become able to make a choice and ‘resist’, then there is a space in which to choose that isn’t inevitable. There’s a ‘gap’ in the ‘is.’
Well, maybe not. Is it the commanding aspect of ‘ought’ ( that there is a ‘correct’ choice) that you are most objecting to? If so, I agree (& not as an anything-goes relativist.)
For a while I’ve felt that if ‘free will’ means anything, it involves learning to observe patterns and cycles, including the weak/unstable points that would allow for the disruption of the whole, thereby allowing actual change. and then to ‘wait’ for that moment or part of the cycle to come around again, and act (with and against the pattern.) I have a sense that this is probably a cumulative thing that finally (as Hegel would say: quantity becoming quality) leads to kind of phase change, but one you’ve nudged in the right direction. (The ‘ought’ that leads to nudging in this direction organically bubbles up as discontent before finding this means of finding a way forward.)
That reply is as lame as it gets. You say it is an interesting question until the moment it gets asked. Then run away.
Quoting Janus
It's an incredibly easy question. Laws tell you what the penalties are for dissent.
If you want a more interesting answer, that is why you have to step out of the whole is-ought schtick where nature is presumed to operate by deterministic law and that then makes human choice an existential drama.
As I have already said, constraints are inherently permissive. You can do anything that isn't in fact limited, because the system is merely indifferent to your choices beyond that.
And being a systems deal, constraints evolve. They are learnings made habits. Peirce 101. So "dissent" becomes part of the learning side of the equation - the experiments that keep the system open and developing.
Modern western society was all about institutionalising a rational framework of laws and penalties. But the natural sense of such a philosophy can be seen in the way learning is still built into an apparently deterministic system. Law is implemented in hierarchical fashion. In the US, Congress makes law, the President can write regulations. A judiciary exists to interpret as well as enforce. Voters get to change those making the laws if they seem incompetent. There are are multiple recognised channels for dissenting and achieving change.
All this is the bleeding obvious again.
I replied that the US likes to say the government should keep its nose out of people's business. That is the social context that in fact constrains US choices.
I could say the US should be more like New Zealand, Korea or Sweden. Or I could dig even deeper into the contextual constraints to give you an answer in terms of the recent Western fossil fuel story, or the longer run agrarian revolution, or the perspective of the past million years of hominid hunter-gatherer evolutionary biology.
In fact I did.
I did not ask what "the US likes to say". I asked if the American government should do everything it possibly can to minimize the harm caused to Americans.
In history circles, it is well understood as a term. And the idea that history could have a direction, a trajectory, is also highly disputed.
Hegel's actual finality was the arrival at a rationally organised society - an optimisation function that would deliver Maslow's hierarchy of needs, pretty much.
I say that is what is happening, but for another deeper underlying reason. The negentropic dividend is being paid for by the greater entropy that it manages to produce.
Quoting csalisbury
You will never understand my position until you manage to let go of the position from which you are trying to understand it. Give up on this is-ought nonsense - a metaphysics that opposes determinism and freedom as irreconcilable opposites.
My approach is based on dialectics - the unity of opposites. Your language has to start reflecting that logic to get a purchase on the argument.
Constraints are not laws. They don't dictate. They just limit. And thus that which is not limited is free. Or at least, a matter of deep indifference. :smile:
In practice, that is how human law works. And even natural law.
Quoting csalisbury
You mean tipping points? Bistability? Butterfly wings and chaotic attractors? All the good things provided to us as mental models by the modern science of non-linear dynamics?
This is exactly the physics that employs a probabalistic and constraints-based view of reality.
How does one ever jump off the high diving board? Or even find the will to get out of a warm bed?
Do we just command ourselves, now is the moment? Or do we get tipped into the act at the very moment we finally forget our fears for an instant?
Quoting csalisbury
Yes. You are describing what I've been saying. Change often happens because some random event is the straw that breaks the camel's back. You can then either blame the straw or recognise that there was some deeper constraint coming under such tension that "anything" was going to release it to do its equilibrium rebalancing thing.
And who are you asking that question of now?
God? Some Platonic abstraction? Some random dude on the internet?
Why so much resistance?
Anyone who knows how to use the English language, particularly those who know what a representative form of government is supposed to do, already knows the answer to that question.
Because I really have no idea who you want to be answering.
I had assumed you wanted the answer from "entropy's point of view", so that is what I gave.
What about you... personally? Set the unquenchable thirst for explanatory power aside...
Answer the question.
It speaks to the OP in so many more ways than are obvious at first blush. This pandemic and it's effects/affects, are symptoms of much deeper problems with the US... as is Trump. Symptoms of the unraveling...
Yes, I know that’s what you’ve been saying! I have a good sense of your view, and, having a good sense of it in all its dimensions, it does not surprise me that you see me as blinking, waking up to it. I think you’ve misunderstood how much we agree on, which has led to previous confusions about the points we disagree on. Anyway, my butting-in was simply to try to point out that Banno’s responses aren’t nonsense and to tease out the space where one can make a reasonable response. I also agree with a dissolution of the is/ought along similar lines, but it takes some explanation, rather than indignation.
Maybe you missed the point at which I entered this conversation. My geopolitically informed view is that even a buffoon can’t damage the US in an end times way. The US starts with so much advantage that talk of its unravelling are premature.
I think what that says is respect is a two way street - given and earned. If we are to biologise thymos, then I would point to the fact that social animals are adapted to make smart choices in terms of social dominance and submission. Our neurobiology is designed to promote hierarchical social order. That was the “ethics” that proved entropically functional.
So self esteem has to be situated within a hierarchical social order to be meaningful. And it has to be essentially permissive in that constraints based fashion.
Of course we can deny our biological heritage. Just as folk like to deny geopolitical national advantage - Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis where the world could be viewed as a single flat market of opportunity.
Denying the constraints that in fact historically shape our freedoms “for a reason” always works out well, doesn’t it?
You've tossed around Fukuyama recently - have you actually read his book? I've long had a general suspicion about some of your references...
If you haven't, I'm happy to recapitulate what he said, just let me know.
Here is a previous discussion anyway....
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/226840
Wait, what? If you've read The End of History, you'd know instantly I was talking about a key part of that book. Did you just google "fukuyama+thymos" and see Identity pop up? (of course that came up first and almost exclusively...think of how many online pieces were written in reaction to that book!) Which book did you read, Apo? It would have been a better look if you hadn't doubled down on having read it, and just come out with it.
Well, clearly you are itching to explain your point?
Quoting apokrisis
So, for you the legal answer just is the ethical answer. Incredibly subtle of you!
The problem with utopia, Fukuyma says, (jk, there's no way to actually know what fukuyama said) is that those with the right model of the world have to explain it. And they have to explain it to those who don't get it. Without the gap between those who have the right view and those who don't, those who do have the right view can't get the kick of explaining, scolding and berating those who don't. If they don't get to explain, scold and berate, what do they do with their understanding?
Do you have the page number where he said this? Not ringing any bells yet.
Quoting csalisbury
Don’t be so hard on yourself. I don’t take your anti-totalising rants to heart. My only complaint is your failure to make a case to match your scolding and berating. Explaining would in fact be good.
I see you are pretending to take seriously the ironic answer so as to run away from the actual answer which followed.
Not so subtle. Quite transparent in fact.
It's you who is being an idiot, talking about things like "atoms wandering around by themselves". I was comparing one type of molecule to another, we never mentioned independent atoms. The reason why one type of molecule is more stable than another is due to the nature of the chemical bonding . It makes no sense to say that one type of bond is a lower or higher "energy state" than another. It's simply the case that the electron arrangement of one molecule renders that molecule as more precariously balanced than the electron arrangement of another molecule. These are known as different "energy levels". And, using "energy" in this way borders on nonsensical due to the contradictory nature of wave/particle duality. In reality, "energy level" refers to the misunderstood phenomenon of discrete quantized units of energy which are supposed to exist within a continuous wave field.
Quoting apokrisis
Many people have done that. I'm not one of them. I don't tend to act out of spite, but many people do. And you cannot dismiss the actions of others, as impossible actions, just because they seem unreasonable to you. That's a problem with ethics, we cannot simply say that such and such actions are unreasonable, therefore no one will do them. In fact, that's a principle part of ethics, trying to get people not to do unreasonable things.
Quoting apokrisis
You are ignoring, and denying observable facts. People do unreasonable things, things outside all the familiar, cultural, biological, and whatever other terms of constraint which you use in your description. There are human acts which are outside the constraints of any type of habit, just like there are so-called random genetic mutations. And that's why these acts are seen as unreasonable, in all senses of the word. Because of the reality of these unconstrained acts, we cannot look at the individual human being as the end point, the individual must be apprehended as the beginning point. The nature of free will forces this conclusion upon us. And so, in all respectable forms of ethics, the interest of the individual is higher than the interest of the society, culture, or state, because this is necessary in order to establish consistency with reality, and agreement from the freely choosing individuals. Without consent, all your constraints are for naught.
I had to reread what you wrote to catch what you meant.
Because even as the powers wane, those who have chosen to care for them, most of them are still standing.
The health and safety of all Americans is not at all a concern so long as it does not impact on your(one's own) personal freedoms?
That's the mindset that is common, as you've hinted at, that is a part of the unraveling. The overvalued notions of individual freedom and liberty at the expense of the community.
It's all about enshrining narratives. It is ironic that the sacrifices and community-oriented nature of WWII are seen as patriotic, yet by some of the same people, will not be applied in any other realm of time, space, and governance. It is also interesting how the idealized post-war years of the late 40s-70s were run by mainly moderate to liberal policies with upwards of 90% tax rate for wealthy.
Thus the narratives of sacrifice and community are only revered when crystallized in nostalgic times and never to be actually implemented in the present. The narrative of individualism at all costs and opposed to government-mandated community action reigns supreme at all times for some folks. Why then and not now? People need to have something to rebel against? Even if it is themselves and their fellow citizens they are rebelling against in the bigger picture? Narrative of individualism and falsely associating it with a form of "freedom" is too ingrained for many people, even though their own narrative of exceptions in the past that worked say otherwise (WWII, post-war moderate-liberal consensus, etc.).
Allow me a loud AMEN! Especially for that last sentence.
Indeed.
A representative form of government acts on behalf on what's in the best interest of all it's citizens, each and every time it can do so. That is what makes it a representative form of government. The US is exactly such a system, or at least it is supposed to be. It is in the best interest of all Americans(and the world for that matter) for us to do whatever we can do as a means to contain Covid19 in such a way that most minimizes the harm to all Americans(and by extension non Americans alike). We are not doing that. We are more than capable of doing so. The question is why not? Look to what's needed...
Putting our everyday normal lives on hold is necessary. Wearing masks in public(when we must go out into public) is necessary. Practicing social distancing is necessary(when we must go out into public). Testing at a rate much higher than we currently are is necessary. Contact tracing and isolation is necessary. Ensuring that people do not suffer personal injury(health or financial) as a result of Covid19 is necessary. For many, perhaps most, this course of necessary action would mean no longer having a steady source of personal income. For others, the negative financial aspect is inconsequential, for they've more than enough to survive a few months without a steady stream of new income.
There is nothing stopping the US government from exercising it's power to contain Covid19, except where and/or how to adequately fund the much needed process briefly outlined above. From where do we get the funds to do all this? It is expensive after-all.
From those who have it to spare.
The problem, of course, is that those who have it are either in control of those tasked with the responsibility of writing and enacting public policy on behalf of all Americans, or are those who write and enact the laws. Those who could fix the problems either do not know how, or do not care enough about the citizens they're supposed to be acting on behalf of.
Neither is acceptable. The latter, sadly enough, would be a better situation.
Press pause. Defer all debt. Contain the virus. Get back to normal.
Restore some much needed trust in the American government.
Yeah. I was very disturbed when I saw and heard people beginning to speak as if doing what's necessary for containing Covid19 was somehow infringing upon personal liberty and freedom. That narrative began several months back along with sewing the seeds of doubt about the actual severity of the pandemic. This was also accompanied by efforts to discredit anyone who attempted to rightly inform the public about the dangers of Covid19.
This continues to this day.
That’s the bind. If you aren’t free to be unaffected by things then you aren’t really free. But there is no point to freedom unless it is so as to be able make choices in forming your communities - your social interest groups.
Isn’t the US unravelling in the sense that two opposed interest groups are forming more strongly - the woke against the rednecks? And aren’t both of these something like coercive tyrannies if you don’t particularly care to get involved with them?
What is natural is for human affairs to be in a flexible state of ravelling and unravelling in ways that optimise a general state of adaptedness to the world. When it comes to the pandemic response, what strikes the outsider about the US is its social confusion.
But as I have also argued, many think it is clear that folk are ready for a shift from the neoliberal order that has prevailed for the last 30 years - the era of peak resource extraction with no care for the environmental consequences. So great social confusion in the “world leader” is to be expected.
And the US may still be the most likely to lead the way into whatever follows as the next stage in world history. Even just by turning inwards, becoming a regional empire, that could be a key change. The US is also well positioned if it suddenly decided to go green in serious fashion. It has the tech creative advantage as well.
What could hold it back is that while it is a highly creative nation in terms tech and economics, it seems very poor at rewriting its political institutions to fit the times. The constitution and federation of states locks it into the past. The political sphere has long been captured by billionaires, industry lobbies and elite interest groups.
A modern state is constantly updating its political framework to better meet the needs of tomorrow. The US is strangely sclerotic on that score.
Ah, the fantasy of unfettered freedom. A myth, at best. A weapon to be used against others, at worst. No one on the face of this earth is unaffected by things.
To the second point, you've summarized the general idea underwriting the laws(now defunct) that forbade black people from buying property in some community or another because they wanted to exercise their freedom to choose their own community members.
Quoting apokrisis
This is much too broad a brushstroke.
No.
To quite the contrary, I think that that is the opposite of unraveling. It's creating a much more cohesive understanding of racial relations in the states. It would be unraveling, perhaps, to someone with racist beliefs and/or tendencies who saw and/or interpreted these changes as things falling apart at the seams. However, it looks - to me anyway - much more like the stitching together of different American lives into the fabric of community, understanding, and caring...
There are many people in the US who have a lack of knowledge about the history of the country as it pertains to how minorities have been treated, particularly blacks. Due to the easy access to these stories and this information, many people have become aware of the facts, and as a result have altered their opinions accordingly. When one actually integrates knowledge of the history into their own worldview, they cannot help but to have an increased understanding of the plight of black Americans.
Assuming they care...
I have no idea whether or not we're talking about the same individuals.
Quoting apokrisis
Indeed.
Freedom to believe that it's all a hoax, or it's not as bad as they make it out to be. Freedom to believe whatever one wants, and for that freedom to continue to be unfettered, unabated, and/or otherwise completely unaffected by things like facts.
Freedom to place other lives at risk by running stop signs, drinking and driving, and/or refusing to wear a mask in public.
That's part of the unraveling.... and a big one.
You are being terribly literal. But yes. Liberal democracy would mean being free to fight for such arrangements and free to contest such arrangements. If the political system actually works, the right balance results. And the outcome isn't determined by some Platonic moral abstraction, or even "a feeling". It is based on some rational and evidence-driven grounds. An optimisation principle.
Quoting creativesoul
It would help if you actually read what I say. What I said was that two cohesive interest groups are emerging via a dialectical confrontation. And that could be a crisis which produces its resolution in some mutually agreed new social balance. Or not. Depending on the US capacity for political change these days.
No you don't see; you're wrong again. I didn't, and still dont, see what you wrote after the so-called "ironic answer" as any kind of answer to the question you posed, which was " what would you do with the dissenters". I thought you were honestly saying you would be happy with whatever the law prescribed. So come on then what would YOU do with the disenters?
:chin:
I wonder if you might fill this out for me. In what way does history have a direction? Or what determines that direction?
My inclination is towards a view of increased social complexity over time. The Hegelian dialectic is then an oversimplification of that process, a convenient myth that fell to Popper's criticism and subsequent work on complex systems. That is, I see history as having a direction but as being pretty much unpredictable.
Hence, I haven't read Fukuyma in any detail; the premise of the predictability of social change did not appeal at all.
In the interview with George Friedman I cited earlier, he makes the claim that the myth of the individual is comparatively recent, coming into it's own after Nixon as part of the neoconservative economic reforms of the following twenty years.
If that's the case then perhaps these myths are not as fixed as it might seem. Will the failure of the myth of individualism see the rise of a more communally oriented United States?
Quoting creativesoul
Quoting apokrisis
That already happened.
Quoting apokrisis
That is not what you 'said'. Even if it were, it's wrong anyway. Woke people are emerging. Rednecks have been with us for a very long time. Anyway, seems you've nothing much to offer that's of any interest to me. I'm not in the mood for pin the tail on the insincere and/or self-contradictory speaker.
Come back when you've decided that it's safe to believe what you say. I'm all ears then.
Be well.
Armed militia would worry me. Cancel culture is being matched by online extremism.
If there is unravelling, it is happening in both its directions.
I hope so, but until enough influential people start thinking, talking, and acting in(on) such terms, the masses will not follow.
The poverty of Historicism is that whatever the outcome, it will fit the narrative. Hence the narrative is uninformative.
Those have been around for a long time as well. What worries me about them is that the president has recently been using federal officers that do not have clearly marked uniforms. One reason for law enforcement officers to have them is so they can be easily identified.
However, if the public gets used to federal agents that do not have clearly marked uniforms, and those camo patterns are readily available for public consumption, then what's stopping some armed militia group from impersonating federal agents, or from being mistaken as such?
How would anyone know the difference?
Short term? Current administration? Sure. Certainly there will be no admission of wrong doing and/or being mistaken by those people.
But there will be those watching who aim for power, and can form strategy.
You’re doing a lot of shoulder shrugging here. Sure I characterise the divide in caricature terms - woke vs redneck. But then people are caricaturing themselves in that regard. That is how you know it is identity politics rather than the real political discussion that needs to be had.
From my distanced view, that particular stand-off is just a symptom. Even a diversion.
Occupy Wall Street and Extinction Rebellion at least feel like attacks on "the system". BLM had its specific target before it all blew up into confused general posturing - the concrete aim of "defund the police" as the other way of saying "fund the social system".
The US problems of a pandemic, historic racism and economic inequality are three different things. Yet they have all be stirred into the same confused stew, at least from what Fox and CNN tell me. And then there is another problem in a president being allowed to trample over every political norm.
To me, that is what a confused nation looks like. It is why I would take a measured approach that tries instead to understand what is "really going on" as historical trends.
If we understand the logic of the thermodynamic imperative, we can see what kind of world fossil fuels needed us to create. One willing to remove all the internal constraints on maximising entropy production. Hence eventually, neoliberalism.
I offered up fracking as a concrete example. It makes no sense to burn so much investment capital to squeeze that tight oil out of the ground. So why is it happening? Well it makes perfect entropic sense. And it makes perfect geopolitical sense in a world economic system so distorted that the US can suddenly cherish an "energy independence" that isn't now renewables based. And so distorted that foreign wealth feels it has little better option than to double down on dollarisation. Any US dollar-denominated investment can lose money, but not as much money as investments in every other currency if world economy tanks.
So the US could be fixed at every level of the problems I outlined. But that is the kind of systematic political project where people are gathered around the same table as interest groups fighting their own corner, yet also bound to arrive at some mutual arrangement by the end – a new balance that could stick.
All the huffing and puffing about ethics and morality is quite pointless unless it is anchored to the reality of life as it happens.
Well, Trump has certainly shown some gaping holes and fundamental flaws in the American system.
I think the opposite is the case: the overvalued (and abstract) notions of community are acted out at the expense of individual freedom and liberty. And the fact that all communities are composed of individuals makes any denial of individuals rights and freedoms all the more dangerous.
Right you are!
The point of a good morality is to encourage the individual to seek one's own well-being. Morality definitely must start with the individual. But "individual freedom and liberty" might not be an appropriate value to be assigned high priority. We observe that a good community is much more conducive to the individual's well-being than is freedom and liberty. So a good morality would inspire an individual toward producing a good community, rather than direct the individual toward freedom and liberty.
Interesting, as I agree partially with the idea that parents/communities think that their abstract reasons to have a child make it okay to actually birth that child into existence, despite the negative consequences for that particular child, and despite that the child is being forced into existence by means/decisions other than its own. It's also interesting to note, just because the child does not have the means to have a say in the decision, it does not mean the default position is then "forcing a new person into existence is then okay (due to common notions, ideology, tradition, or that someone else wants that child forced into existence, so it must be okay)." Anyways, keep making the antinatalist case, unintentionally NOS!
Once born though, don't people have some duties and responsibilities to each other? I would say ethically-speaking, doing the least amount of harm to the most people is a good rule of thumb to go by when dealing with a disease with some knowns (that it can be deadly or cause severe illness to some people and some unknowns (how it affects certain individuals).
By NOT taking precautions as a leader, by spreading conspiracy theories, by not following the latest science, you are in fact DENYING people's individual right not to be made sick by others in the community. By not unifying people in a time of a large health crisis, you are in fact creating divisions that will lead to the whole systems downfall anyways, the very system intended to protect individual freedoms. We made individual sacrifices in WW2 in order to protect a greater global freedom and the community in general. Things are not as simple as "individual freedom vs. community". Individualism to the extreme often means less freedom in the end, not more. The freedom not to fight Nazism or Fascism could have led to the downfall of more "freer" liberal democracies in general.
Let's take an example. A company is allowed certain leeway in how it handles its employees. Let's call that "individual freedom of the employer". That manager decides that due to his preference to manage in person, he wants all workers to come into the office, exposing them to the virus at a higher likelihood. Now, this is not a job that needs to be in any location. It can be done from anywhere, but the manager has the freedom to do what he wants with his workers. The employee can quit, get fired, or go into the office. What about the employees freedom to do his job without being exposed to the virus? That doesn't matter? Again, this is a case of individual freedom actually being ENHANCED by thinking of the larger community- putting the community's interests before one's own in a time of crisis.
Civic duty was supposed to be a part of the the whole freedom thing, and that is inherently community-oriented. But, it's going to take more than just the more liberal party winning the executive branch to do that. There is a large contingent of people who have the narrative that freedom is tied up in complete individualism. Rather, freedom often needs to be bolstered at a community-level. Freedom from and freedom to "what" is the real question? The way people answer that often will contradict themselves. The freedom to not wear a mask, might be another's freedom to not get sick.
The logical conclusion to any form of extreme individualism is that death is a preferable outcome than being forced to give up some money to pay for public goods. I don't even know what to say to that.
Neither you or I can tell another how to seek his own well-being, for how to live one’s life is best left for him to decide. That is why one must be at liberty to choose his own fate. If that means adopting a collectivist mindset, that’s fine, but without first the freedom to decide on his own he is little more than a slave.
That’s a very convoluted argument regarding anti-natalism. But it shows that even you subscribe to the notion of individual liberty. The difference is you only offer it to “potential children”, beings that cannot be found on any plane of existence. Let’s see if you can extend that sentiment to flesh and blood human beings.
An individual right not to be made sick by others? Of course intentionally infecting others with disease is a serious crime, and one has every right to hide in a padded cell to avoid community infection. But there is no right to not be infected by others, just like there is no right not to get wet from rain. Life is a risk. One must take the precautions he deems necessary in order to be safe.
If you feel unsafe at work you can refuse to work there. It’s that easy.
Ugh, if life just fit your "liberty" model so easily.. You don't recognize de facto unfreedoms, so we probably have nothing more to say to each other. If you don't recognize how de facto situations lead to "not really freedom" situations, I can't help you.
If you cannot find the strength and courage to alter your situation, I can understand why you wish you were never born to begin with. But things can change.
Things can change is so vague. As I've said previously:
Quoting schopenhauer1
But the answer is that in a world where "de facto" people can't just leave their job on a whim, or without causing much disruption, the better outcome is to have a policy that allows for maximum freedom without affecting people's personal health unnecessarily. Good day.
So I've mentioned before how birth is the only case where one can perfectly not cause harm and force. The simple act of NOT doing something (negative ethics) would allow this. However, once born, things change. People are now in the world. Prior to birth, it is inter-worldly considerations (birth and life), where once in the world, its intra-worldly affairs. This means a) there will ALWAYS be some violation of negative ethics. Thus any form of deontological ethics and utilitarianism in intraworldly affairs would have to be mitigated against what forms of violation are considered more valuable or lead to greater outcomes than others. Of course, this mitigation and negotiation of ethical dillemmas could have been avoided altogether if one prevented it at the inter-wordly consideration level.
My point being is that to live "in the world", you have to bite the bullet somewhere. Community and individuals go hand-in-hand. You are arbitrarily picking a line when you say "this" and not "that". What happens if you KNEW for a fact people's well-being would be increased by more community oriented policies. Would that change your mind? I am not saying this is a case of we don't know.. but all the info is there, and you yourself agree it indeed brings about positive well-being and its done equally at all levels of society.
People can leave their jobs as countless people have proven. Whether they have the confidence to do so is another question. Either way, no policy can replace personal responsibility. And if policies is what one requires to guide him through life, quitting his job should be the least of his concerns. Cheers.
Sure, if you prevent life you prevent any difficulties that come with it. But I still think pretending one is being ethical in doing so is a disguise for self-concern and personal failures. The anti-natalist is literally helping no one but himself while pretending he is. In that sense it is not so ethical as it is deceitful.
The policy would be for the manager in this case.. But I guess other employees not screwing each other over either. It's like you live in a dream world where everyone takes the responsible action. If that was the case, you're right, no need for government.. Shades of Locke and definitely Hobbes here.
Quoting NOS4A2
You should have ended it there
Quoting NOS4A2
Why would an antinatalist put so much energy into proving it, if it was selfish? This isn't just a personal lifestyle choice, it's a whole ethos and largely very passionate one. Even on its face you are incorrect.
You are backpeddling and now without justification.. Don't force others, don't cause harm to others unnecessarily.. I explained inter-wordly affairs and intra-worldly affairs. I gave justifications for why your own ethos actually only applies at one level and not another. You seem perturbed by this and cast ad homs at antinatalists. Not a great rebuttal.
I don’t believe some legislator knows how to run my business better than I do. Likewise, I don’t need nor want the state to step in where my own employment is concerned. But no I do not believe everyone takes the responsible action. I just believe that they are capable of doing so.
Passionate or not, In my mind it’s a poor ethos that benefits no one but the one espousing it. I say this because no anti-natalist can point to a single person who benefits from it, lest he points to himself. These “others” you purport to be helping do not exist. So how can you, and why would you, claim that you are in some way refusing to force and cause them suffering? It’s an ethos that cannot serve anyone outside of your own imaginings.
But your employer knows what's best for your health better than what the general scientific consensus is? Do they have that right?
Quoting NOS4A2
Putting the cart before horse. In your view, we need to cause suffering to others in the first place in order for anything to be done about it. That is ridiculous but actually explains your other poor ethos. For example, one can take measures to prevent others from getting sick. They aren't sick yet, but we can anticipate them getting sick. In fact, we don't even know an actual person who will be the beneficiary of who might get sick, but we know that, X person (doesn't have to exist in actuality yet) can be prevented from getting sick if 1, 2, 3 measures are taken. C'mon, you know this.
If this were true then there'd be no such thing as guidance counselling, and no such thing as the study of morality. Are you amoral?
Quoting NOS4A2
And there is no truth to this either. One cannot choose one's own fate because there are very many things which are beyond one's control. Therefore each one of us must learn to have the proper respect for all those things which are beyond one's control.
Do you recognize for example, that you were born into a very particular place in this world, and no matter how hard you try to "find the strength and courage to alter your situation", this situation cannot be altered? It makes no difference how much freedom and liberty you afford yourself, the situation you are in right now, being defined by what has come to pass, cannot be altered.
The Democratic convention is talking about a platform that moves to the left of where we are today, which isn't saying much. But, it's also left of where we were with Obama, which is a good start.
If we can get the monetary corruption under control, it would go a very long way to moving towards more community oriented thinking...
On another note(more relevant as a result of Harris)... "Defund the police" pretty much means "Fund the social/community programs"...
There is no right to not be killed by drunk drivers either. Laws against it are to protect people from those who do not care enough about other people's lives, so they take that risk... with their own life and others'.
The exact same 'argument' holds good for wearing masks at this time.
For fuck's sake, get your head out of Trump's drunk driving ass for just one fucking minute.
So you accept the rule of law then? On what basis?
And when it comes to rights, doesn't jurisprudence usually say rights come with duties? For instance -
Your thoughts on this two-way street?
Yes if you afford someone rights you thereby have a duty not to break them. Your right to free speech is my duty not to censor you, and so on.
I accept the rule of law but only where it is just.
I’m not amoral. I just don’t feel the need to adopt any one morality without first choosing to do so. There certainly is such a thing as guidance counselling. But it’s just advice, not some prescription on how to best live one’s life.
The fact that I can move something from one place to another proves I can alter my situation. I know I cannot go back and change the beginning, but I can start where am and change the ending. I think that was CS Lewis.
What’s your definition of “just” then? For example, is it just for the law to impose a duty of care on you as a driver so that you could be charged with criminal negligence for injuring someone in an accident?
I don't really believe that one can choose one's own morality. Your morality is a product of your genetics and upbringing, as is your "self". If you are dissatisfied with yourself, you can choose to make changes to yourself, but if you think that you can "choose" whatever morality you want, your mistaken, because there are many limiting factors on what is possible. Evidence of this is that it is very hard to break a bad habit.
Furthermore, one would have to study moral philosophy, to determine various different moral precepts, in order to choose between them. Otherwise one's choice of "a morality" would just be a random selection of what appeals to that person at the moment, and the next moment there would be a selection of a different morality according to the situation, etc.. Of course you can see that this cannot be called "a morality", because a morality is supposed to give you a set of consistent principles according to which you would judge the correct action in a given situation, rather than being a whole lot of distinct and inconsistent "moralities" which you could select from according to what you desire in a particular situation. The latter does not provide one with any rigorous principles of guidance, allowing a person to choose principles (which would be make believe principles if one did not study moral philosophy), and therefore cannot be called "a morality".
Quoting NOS4A2
This is not quite true. To be true, the statement requires a deficient definition of "my situation" which gives the "situation" an undefined temporal extension. Notice that to change "my situation" requires that what is referred to as "my situation", extends from the way it is now to the changed condition, such that they are both referred to by "my situation". When you give "my situation" such an unwarranted temporal extension you prevent the law of non-contradiction from being applicable, because "my situation" may have the attributes of both before and after.
So you need to respect the fact that to move something from one place to another requires a passage of time. And when you see that the passage of time is a necessary condition for moving something, then you cannot validly conclude that you have altered your situation, because it may have been the passing of time, not you, which has caused the change. This is the determinist's argument, that free will is just an illusion. You believe that you are making changes, but it's really just the forces of nature with the passing of time which makes the changes.
Therefore, we must separate things which are determined, and caused by the passing of time, from things which are caused by the human free will, in order to get a proper understanding of how we can actually change things, and thereby derive conclusions about what is possible for me to do, and what is impossible for me to do. Hence "choosing a morality" requires understanding metaphysical principles.
I think you’re balancing two mutually exclusive ideas.
I’m sure that if a drunk driving victim had the opportunity to wear a mask that protected them from getting hit by a car, they would do so.
We need to operate with some historical perspective. Look at contraction rates, death rates, demographics. The fear is the real killer, the hatred for trump is another
I believe you can choose your own morality. One can be convinced of the value of certain moral principles, the danger of others, and can alter his beliefs thereby. People convert all the time, for instance, at least when given the freedom to do so.
Certainly genes influence behavior but they do not determine morality. People still choose and shape their lives because their genes have provided them the agency and the faculties to do so.
And I do not believe in the determinist position. Unless the determinist can point to something else in the world making the decisions, it cannot be said that anything else in the universe is making the decisions. No “force of nature” outside of myself makes me move something from one place to another. The decisions and actions begin and end in the self and nowhere else.
How are "some things I can change" and "some things I cannot change" mutually exclusive? They would only be mutually exclusive if I had said that the same things were both changeable and not changeable. But clearly I was talking about the need to be able to distinguish between what is changeable and what is not.
Quoting NOS4A2
Altering one's beliefs is not sufficient for changing one's behaviour, as my examples demonstrate. There is the further matter of one's disposition and will power. If an individual does not already have the moral disposition which allows one to adhere firmly to one's beliefs, and not give in to temptation, then altering one's beliefs is an ineffective procedure. The person would just become more and more hypocritical, believing that resisting certain actions is the good and right thing to do, but still lacking the necessary will power to abstain.
Quoting NOS4A2
Do you agree that things were happening, things were moving, prior in time to the existence of living beings capable of making decisions. If so, then you ought to see that it is not necessary for a "decision" to be made in order for something to move from one place to another.
I note you carefully steered clear of my last question. How are you defining "just"?
So unless you are simply happy to keep chanting propaganda slogans, can you supply the argument that backs up this opinion.
Why is this something you merely say rather than something I ought to believe?
Oh look... the very privileged point of view.
And if one's morality is such that they cannot do both, be free and help the society(by helping others in as many ways as they reasonably can) they have no business whatsoever having any power that affects/effects the lives and/or livelihoods of those others who they refuse to help.
Including employment. Employees are people, not a means to an end.
In fact, no one can. We are by our very inevitable nature... necessarily... interdependent social creatures.
That misses the point entirely. Trump, and each and every individual who refuses to wear a mask in public is taking a risk with another's life.
Drunk drivers do the same. The difference is that those in power acknowledged and honored the need to legally prohibit such things as drunk driving. However, had those in power not, but instead behaved in precisely such ways, then they would be guilty of taking serious risks with another person's life by driving while intoxicated.
Trump is the drunk driver who gets to write the rules governing his own behaviour. He clearly does not care or he does not know that he's placing other lives at serious risk. Neither is acceptable.
...a knee perhaps?
This talk as if anyone can achieve the American dream is such myopic nonsense on it's face. Common sense tells us all better. All we need to do is think about... for just a minute or two...
The resident Trump supporter suggested that because we can move a box, we ought be able to have whatever life we want, and by implication if we do not have a good life, it's our own fault(perpetuating the machismo individualism rubbish that is so rampant).
One can make some changes, therefore one can make all the necessary changes that need made in order to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, regardless of the socio-economic circumstances one may be born into. Hard work and keeping one's nose clean is all you need to become a poster child of the American wet dream... self made!
What a crock of horse shit.
Some... sure. Just because there are plenty of examples, it does not follow that anyone can do it. We create the socio-economic landscape, and it ought include opportunities for everyone, not just those fortunate and capable enough of making their own way in the current landscape, so to speak. We as a society owe it to ourselves to create as many different ways as we can for any and all individuals to be able to make it.
You were arguing that a person moving an object in their room was actually time affecting matter and space (determinism). You used this to say that a person can’t be sure if they have the agency to proactively change their given situation. Then you said a person actually does have at least some control over certain things and can actually affect their situation. But If determinism is a reality, there is no free will. It’s not that it’s a grey area, it’s one or the other, determinism simply can’t exist with free actors.
“Therefore, we must separate things which are determined, and caused by the passing of time, from things which are caused by the human free will”
Do you mean things like weathering, chemical reactions, momentum? Or do you mean the framework of the human mind, as being the factor that’s determined? I fell like all animals already intuitively do this.
“That misses the point entirely. Trump, and each and every individual who refuses to wear a mask in public is taking a risk with another's life.”
I completely understand your point. I was pointing out how drunk driving and wearing a mask are two completely different interactions. Isn’t the carina virus only transmitted through the air. So shouldn’t the person wearing the mask already be protected? They make masks that filter in going and out going air. So whatever you’re afraid of is covered. I think fearful people react to situations like this eagerly. Then they see other people who aren’t abiding by the tribes costumes, and it angers them. Stop watching the news so much and don’t let people around you go on and on about all the scary shit. This whole situation is fucked, focus more on what you control. Don’t fill your mind with so much anger braaa
I’m just telling you what I believe, not what you ought to believe. What do you believe?
Sure, one must change his conduct to align with his morality. If one has difficulty doing so he has to try harder. If he doesn’t, then yes he becomes a hypocrite. Will power is often difficult to muster, especially for people who do not believe in it.
I never said it is necessary for a decision to be made in order for something to move from one place to another. I was just saying that you or I can decide to move something from one place to another, altering our situation, changing the world.
But beliefs without a rational basis apparently. Well that was already clear. :up:
No, what I said is that time is a necessary condition for moving an object. A person cannot move an object unless time passes. Because of this fact, there are those, (determinists), who argue that it is just the passing of time which necessitates that the object moves, not a person's will.
Quoting Manbabyzeus
Right, the determinist argument can be convincing, but whether it is believable or not depends on one's perspective as to what the passing of time actually is.
Quoting Manbabyzeus
Yes, the way I understand the passing of time, this is what I believe is the case, a person has some control over some things..
Quoting Manbabyzeus
But determinism is only true if the passing of time is as the determinist believes it is. However, regardless of what one believes about what the passing of time really is, the passing of time is still a necessary condition for a person to move an object. And, it is obviously not something which the human will has control over. So no matter how free my will is, time still passes, and I cannot change that. Furthermore, there are many things which happen as time passes which I have not the capacity to change.
So there's really no question of either determinism or not determinism, only a question of which things I can and cannot change. The determinist argument is just an invalid conclusion derived from the apprehension that some things cannot be changed. In relation to the question of which things can and cannot be changed, many of these things I might not be sure about. You can call this a grey area if you like.
Quoting Manbabyzeus
Yes, momentum might be an applicable term. When something has momentum, it tends to continue in the way it has been, such is the nature of inertia as well. So a massive object like the earth moving, is determined by the passing of time, to keep moving in the same way. But this is not to say that all things with mass, inertia, or momentum, are determined. My body has mass, and momentum, but I believe that my free will has the capacity to alter that momentum. Therefore, I believe that not all things with momentum are necessarily determined. It appears to me, that larger things, and things with more momentum are more difficult for the human will to interfere with.
Quoting NOS4A2
Trying harder is not necessarily the answer. Often this just leads to frustration and the person might become of a worse moral disposition than before. There are many factors involved with trying to change one's morality, and learning to have realistic goals might be one of the first. However, inspiration (and this is directly related to will power), might be the most important of all. As you say, some do not even believe in will power. If a person doesn't believe in will power, how could one even be inspired to try to change one's morality? So the question here might be what provides the prerequisite inspiration for a person to actually change one's morality. It's easy for a person to look at oneself and say I have some bad habits, I should get rid of these, but what inspires a person to actually carry out the work required to drop those habits. It's not like the person gets paid for that work, so the motivation must come from something else.
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes, and I was pointing out, that just because a person decides to move something from one place to another, this does not mean that the person can actually do it. That's the problem with your view of morality. You seem to think that a person can just pick and choose one's morality, as if one's current moral disposition has no bearing on what type of moral principles the person has the capacity to uphold.
Someone recently mentioned the inconvenient facts regarding the actual public policies being implemented during those times so long ago still yearned for to this day. These horribly inconvenient actions that resulted in the very time periods championed by those who either have no fucking clue what it took to get there... hence what it takes to get there again, or they are deliberately perpetuating fraud against the American people.
Many, perhaps most, of those who want to make America great again want us all to return to times like they were between WWII and Nixon. Those were the times that socialist policies provided.
Great for your average white folk.
“However, regardless of what one believes about what the passing of time really is, the passing of time is still a necessary condition for a person to move an object. And, it is obviously not something which the human will has control over. So no matter how free my will is, time still passes, and I cannot change that.”
“ So a massive object like the earth moving, is determined by the passing of time, to keep moving in the same way. But this is not to say that all things with mass, inertia, or momentum, are determined. My body has mass, and momentum, but I believe that my free will has the capacity to alter that momentum.”
That’s all fine and good, but I understand determinism as an exercise on the nature of causality, (and yeah I see how time/causality could be seen as splitting hairs) but space/time acts more as an arena for causality to operate. I don’t see much of a real world application for determinism other than a prerequisite for an expanding and contracting universe. It’s only use in philosophy, in my view, is to create self fulfilling proficiencies like “It doesn’t matter what I do, everything’s already determined”. Your use of it here obscures your point and made it hard for me to realize what you were actually saying. So yeah there are things in existence that are constants like time/space, weak/strong nuclear force, and last but not least a mothers love. But If you’re trying to separate these uncontrollable constants from controllable entropy in order to find true existence, it’s a noble goal but in truth we live separate conceptually but not actually from these things. If you set the separation from the universal constants aside your essentially describing stoicism. I also think pondering time excessively is not only bad for your mental health but also an exercise in futility.
I really like your thinking here. Nicely said. I will just say, though, that inspiration is followed by a choice, some sort of follow-through, which begins and ends in the individual. Man becomes inspired. He is the genesis of his inspiration, and all subsequent follow-through. He is not the passive object and I cannot speak about him as such.
I don’t believe a person just picks and chooses a morality, as if from a menu, just that he can come to believe in certain moral principles by his own volition, by weighing the pros, the cons, the value and justice of certain moral principles, and that the sum of his moral principles can be called a “morality”. I would say this is a choice, a matter of choosing.
Kamala Harris' speech at the DNC offers a glimpse of hope that some of the unraveling will be mended soon...
That was a brilliantly crafted speech. She exuded sincerity, genuine goodwill, and exhibited fierce determination against unjust unlawful discrimination. She also knows quite a bit about what is required to realize the necessary changes(equal treatment under the law). That is(will be) the first female president of the United States of America!
Quoting Manbabyzeus
The point was that making such a distinction is necessary in order to distinguish between what is possible and what is impossible. Otherwise you'll be insisting like NOS4A2 seemed to assert, to be able to do the impossible, and persistently trying harder when your attempts to do the impossible fail. This is what NOS suggested one ought to do, and contrary to what Nos seems to think, this is not necessarily good for one's moral character.
Quoting Manbabyzeus
This is a perfect example. If it is impossible to understand the nature of time, then pondering time excessively is an exercise in futility, (just like NOS4A2's, choosing one's own morality, if it's impossible to do so), and this would be bad for one's mental health.
Quoting NOS4A2
I agree that the human being is the active agent, and the source of action is within, and this justifies the notion of "free" will as the source of activity. However, to maintain the notion of "free" here, we must allow a separation between that which inspires the person to act, and that which causes the person to act. Otherwise the human being would be constantly acting according to ones inspirations, directly, and there would be no capacity to choose. So there are two distinct features here which must be accounted for. One is being an active agent, and the other is being able to choose one's actions. The latter is more difficult to understand because it is a matter of preventing oneself from acting on impulse, in order to choose the best course of action, and this is will power. So the free will is only free by means of preventing action, such that a desired action can be chosen. This is how the agent is acting rather than reacting.
The problem is to place both of these features as completely within the individual, because they are incompatible. One is active the other a negation of activity. If the active principle is within, then the person is active, and cannot have the capacity to prevent oneself from acting. If the principle of prevention or negation is within the individual, then the source of action must be exterior, allowing the person to choose the appropriate source of activity (efficient causes) deemed necessary toward a desired goal.
For the sake of discussion, let's suppose that the person, following some mystical discipline or something like that, might come to understand a unity of both, within oneself. Within oneself there is some sort of unity between activity and its negation. Where do you think "inspiration" would fit within this scheme? I would think that inspiration might very well be that unity itself. If the person has the capacity to direct all of one's energy towards activities required for a desired goal, and at the same time prevent all unwanted activity, as unproductive toward that goal, then we can say that the person is ambitious and inspired, focusing one's attention toward that goal..
Now we come to morality. How can we judge this goal itself, which the ambitious, or inspired person holds, as good or bad? I'm sure you see what I mean. A person might just as well be inspired toward doing bad as toward doing good. Of course this ambitious person thinks the goal is a good goal, and so is inspired toward that goal, but how are we going to judge whether it really is a good goal or not? The person has the complete disposition required to be a very inspired actor, and we might believe that this is very good, but how might the person know how to discern the good goal from the bad goal? If the goal is really a bad goal, then being very inspired and motivated toward that goal is not a good thing.
Quoting NOS4A2
OK, how do you think that a person would make this choice? Suppose that we have a very ambitious person who wants to act, and make a difference in the world. That person is presented with many different moral principles, some inconsistent, incompatible, and even contradicting each other. The person is very conscientious, and wants to be guided only by the highest of moral principles. Where would the person turn to find the highest moral principles, to ensure that one's acting in the world was in fact good, and not really bad actions being mistaken for good?
In 'merica, folk wear face masks to protect themselves.
If history is any indication, with these two, the necessary changes will likely not be made any time soon. However, Those two are much closer to making those changes than Trump actually is. Trump has usurped the 'America first' idea, but unfortunately it is accompanied by xenophobia, which means white America first, and fuck everyone else(historical allies besides the UK) at the same time. That pains me, because I fear that the idea itself will continue to be correlated to Trump and xenophobia.
No argument here...
I did say "usurped" the idea. He mouthes the words.
Telling isn't it?
It's in decline, but it's still a "great power" which just means it's capable of exerting global influence. Its military and economy give it that position.
What's unclear is whether China has now achieved great power status. A sign of that would be the onset of cold war, which is actually a source of global stability.
China has achieved very long ago great power status as we give great power status to Russia, France and the UK too.
What they will never have is similar cultural dominance as the US has. We all speak English: if I would communicate with an African or an Asian, I would likely use English (as I'm not a French speaker, and many of them aren't also).
Don't think that some power will replace the US. After the US there is only a void in it's place.
And that void can surely happen.
Russia maybe, due to its military. France and the UK are regional powers, neither is global at present. No academic says China became a great power "long ago."
Quoting ssu
More likely China and the US will represent a bipolar power structure in the years to come.
Only Superpowers were truly global in their reach as many great powers haven't been even in their hey day truly global (think about Japan, Austro-Hungarian empire or the Ottoman Empire etc.). A regional power would be a country like India, South Africa or Germany as you won't find them operating by their own in other continents. What especially is lacking is the will to do that, which is crucial: A great power nation thinks it's a great power... at least some people in their governments do.
And I think a lot of Africans would disagree with you, especially with the case of France. It still has bases around the World, but especially in Africa. France as the former colonial power basically never left and is very much part of the politics in it's former colonies.
And that hasn't stopped in this Century as the war in Mali and the intervention in Ivory Coast (among others) has shown. France has spread it's forces over the Sahel and at present has a military bases in these African countries:
And the UK? Well, it does have now two fancy new aircraft carriers each capable of operating 72 aircraft as it learned after the Falklands war that scrapping your flat top carriers and hunting soviet subs isn't the only thing to do with your NATO navy. Last intervention on it's own the UK did was I guess to Sierra Leone in 2000, which actually was rather successful as it stopped the civil war there.
(They even have gotten finally the F-35s into trials aboard their carriers!)
I think a political constructivist says there are no great powers but thinking makes them so.
The neorealist sets the scene with the pure anarchy of our little godless planet and predicts the circumstances in which push will come to shove.
I dont think constructivism can make predictions very well. It always has us stuck in our givens.
Well, old school gun boat diplomacy is something that the US can do.
But that doesn't mean the World has gotten less interventionist. In fact, now it's just an international effort through vehicles like NATO and the UN. A power like Germany is totally incapable of deploying it's troops outside it's border (perhaps only into it's neighbors), but is very active all around the World in various operations.
Or in the African example, groups of nations have put their resources together like the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) has formed the ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) which has sent forces to Liberia, Sierra Leona and Guinea-Bissau. Nigeria is the largest participant (being the local regional power), so the idea that only European great powers can play "the grand chessboard" is incorrect. And when you think about the African nations involved in the First and Second Congolese Civil War... so-called imperialism isn't anymore only a thing of the West.
(Africans can do it themselves!)