Flakes and Jackasses

[David Quinn]

I’m guessing some of you have already seen this. It is a video of Ben Shapiro humiliating himself during a BBC interview. It is worth looking at more closely because, to me at least, the whole affair embodies everything that is reprehensible about the alt-right movement.

Here is the interview in full: BBC: Andrew Neil and Ben Shapiro

And here is an analysis of the interview by Kyle Kulinski that, for me, is absolutely spot on.

The interview is a truly hilarious spectacle on so many levels. In the space of 15 minutes, Ben Shapiro manages to not only undermine the very premise of his newly-published book, but he completely shreds his reputation as a supposed hard-headed opponent of snowflakism and identity politics. Having spent years denigrating leftists for being easily-triggered snowflakes who need their safe spaces, he proceeds in these 15 minutes to act exactly like a triggered snowflake floundering around for his safe space. He became the very thing that he built his entire career attacking.

Astonishing.

Or rather it would be astonishing if Shapiro really was a serious thinker, which of course he is not. As his responses to Andrew Neil's questions reveal, he is a flake. He has always been a flake, just as Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin and co. have always been flakes. Who could possibly take these intellectual lightweights seriously? You would have to be so mentally consumed by a blinding emotional hatred of a fringe segment of the community to even begin to take them seriously, and even then you would have to shut down large parts of your cerebral cortex just to dampen down all the cognitive dissonance.

Meanwhile, as these jackasses continue to wage their phony kiddie war against the left, they are continuing to make it as difficult as possible for us as a species to deal with the far more serious threats that face us - namely, the continuing rise of far-right fascism that is relentlessly being promoted by wealthy psychopaths and the accelerating pace of climate change and environmental destruction.

[jupiviv]

I’m guessing some of you have already seen this. It is a video of Ben Shapiro humiliating himself during a BBC interview. It is worth looking at more closely because, to me at least, the whole affair embodies everything that is reprehensible about the alt-right movement.

Here is the interview in full: BBC: Andrew Neil and Ben Shapiro

And here is an analysis of the interview by Kyle Kulinski that, for me, is absolutely spot on.

Why are you even interested in political talking heads on youtube? I've seen some of Kyle Kulinski's stuff and his views are decent enough, but ultimately both he and Shapiro are in the business of producing vaporub for anxiety about the volatile nature of our times. That anxiety combined with youtube's video recommendation algorithm is the perfect way to get people addicted to endless hours of inane "culture war" content. People with too much free time, like old people or teenagers, are especially susceptible.

Stop using youtube, facebook, twitter etc. and form your own opinions about things based on actual information available on the internet or elsewhere, like a Buddha is supposed to do.

[David Quinn]

The way you write here, it sounds as though you have been wrestling with this issue yourself.

After all, you have shown for years now that you have been deeply immersed in all this on-line cultural war stuff, even going so far as to defend Kevin Solway's obsession with it. I'm glad to see that you are finally making efforts to transcend it.

I agree that becoming immersed in the on-line cultural wars is an insane waste of one's time. And indeed, because of this, I haven't been immersing myself in them. I also haven't used Facebook since 2011 and have never subscribed to Twitter. I only go to youtube when I want to check out some music. I regard social media, in its current form, to be a spiritual and intellectual cancer.

The Shapiro thing happened to catch my eye because I remembered Kevin Solway praising the guy a couple of years ago and because I know that Shapiro is one of the leaders of a large cult following that is steeped in religious fundamentalism, climate change denialism and enabling the rise of far right lunacy. I had never heard of Kyle Kulinski until I came across his Shapiro video yesterday.

As mentioned in my initial post above, it is not the cultural wars themselves that interest me, but rather the real world consequences of these wars - and these real world consequences are extremely harmful from the perspective of wisdom and the survival of the species.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

the whole affair embodies everything that is reprehensible about the alt-right movement.

A great video and illustrative of how crazy, if not criminal, minds can gather so much attention and keep the spot light on themselves of lovers and haters alike. Although I was not really familiar with this particular flake (as I don't follow the pundit universe much) Wikipedia suggests he trashed his own stated views a few times before, as well as the whole alt-right movement as a "garbage movement comprised of garbage ideas". It seems nothing he says can be taken very seriously then or at least in relation to any "alt-right madness". He seems to cater to the need of many to be the counter-part, contrarian, opposition, push-backer, some kind of psychological facade? In my view it has all little to do with politics or "movements" but more with opportunity and entertainment. But a lot of media suffers from this increasingly.

He has always been a flake, just as Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin and co. have always been flakes. Who could possibly take these intellectual lightweights seriously? You would have to be so mentally consumed by a blinding emotional hatred of a fringe segment of the community to even begin to take them seriously, and even then you would have to shut down large parts of your cerebral cortex just to dampen down all the cognitive dissonance.

Not sure how "light weight" Jordan Peterson is in this particular context or how rational it is to even put him in the same waste basket. In this famous video Channel 4 News interview on gender gap & pap he exposes Cathy Newman (as flake) with the precision and insight reminding me of the work of David Quinn & Kevin Solway on gender. In my view these kind of voices should be supported despite the issues with his personality or perhaps a lack of deeper spiritual intuition. His subject expertise and academic status can be acknowledged and should not be lumped into the category of flaky entertainer. That seems too easy although it might become a trap for him as well.

But of course, being consumed by hatred, the flames of ressentiment and suffering under our existence can cause people to start burning down the very things they created or attack the persons they supported, like Shapiro dishing his own statements and the complete "alt-right". Or is this about how the American people, left and right, are breaking down their own system? Everyone angry, everyone worried, everyone opposed.

[jupiviv]

After all, you have shown for years now that you have been deeply immersed in all this on-line cultural war stuff, even going so far as to defend Kevin Solway's obsession with it. I'm glad to see that you are finally making efforts to transcend it.

Back when I joined this forum, I was immersed in online atheism, anti-feminist and philosophical stuff. That is very much different both in scope and popularity from the "culture wars" which really became popular around 2015. By then I was wise and cynical enough not to be taken in by it.

As for defending Kevin's obsession with it, no, I was defending him against your abrupt personal attacks, for example as a brainwashed alt-rightist. I wasn't defending his support for people like Milo or his Trump-curiousness. I was pretty critical of both, in fact, but was ultimately more interested in putting the Trump phenomenon within a larger context spanning the industrial era itself. As it happens, time has proven much of what I've said (about Trump as well as other things) correct. Unfortunately, can't say the same about Diebert.

I agree that becoming immersed in the on-line cultural wars is an insane waste of one's time. And indeed, because of this, I haven't been immersing myself in them.

That's a relief. Still, your post gives the impression you're vicariously winning an argument against Kevin through Kyle Kulinski's criticism of Ben Shapiro.

As mentioned in my initial post above, it is not the cultural wars themselves that interest me, but rather the real world consequences of these wars - and these real world consequences are extremely harmful from the perspective of wisdom and the survival of the species.

The culture wars, like God, are an illusion that functions as a category of things people feel strongly about. They don't have consequences, but the things that are falsely ascribed to them do. Since people don't want to think about really existing things, they put them into false categories and use those to explain the good or bad reality around them.

My observation since the QR/S schism started has been that all 3 of you have created or adopted false categories that resemble various aspects of the "Genius" worldview. You have done so out of an urgent need to explain a - in some instances rapidly - devolving world order, which you have never contemplated seriously before to my knowledge. Perhaps also, a need to explain why your ideals have failed to match the reality of your lives and your place within the aforementioned world order.

With Kevin it's the conflation of the WOMAN or feminine vs masculine set of ideas with alt-right anti-feminist/SJW ideas. He is willing to accept alt-right news and arguments on face value because they - or rather their vocabulary, like "facts vs feels" - agree with him on anti-feminist/SJW issues. I would say that exposes faults in some of QRS's *original* thinking on those topics. Perhaps an inability to reconcile the stark contrast between the actual impotence of the masculine project and its powerful premise, ultimately leading to a secularised version of the same that can be applied to any tough-sounding rhetoric.

In your case it's the fabrication of a "liberal establishment" that has steadily progressed towards enlightenment since the Renaissance, despite much of said progress being dependent on circumstance and convenience, not love. Where Kevin chose the underdog for his spectacle du jour, you chose the respectable mainstream besieged by the savages. What both of you have in common, it seems, is the desire for a bit of praxis in the world which you feel has left you behind. It's also the reason why the target demographic for the alt-right is disproportionately venerable, and thus ultimately indistinguishable from that of the right in general - they can't make sense of what is going on and they don't want to be on the side that wants to normalise transtesticles.

As for Dan, without his Trump derangement syndrome he may well be the sanest of all three.

[jupiviv]

In this famous video Channel 4 News interview on gender gap & pap he exposes Cathy Newman (as flake) with the precision and insight reminding me of the work of David Quinn & Kevin Solway on gender.

If Cathy Newman is a flake then wouldn't the exposition of her as such require only modest insight or precision? Yet you say it is reminiscent of QRS's insight into masculine/feminine psychology. Please explain!

His subject expertise and academic status can be acknowledged and should not be lumped into the category of flaky entertainer.

His professorship has demonstrably nothing to do with his celebrity status. He shot to fame based on either a deliberate, or stupid, gross misinterpretation of a piece of Canadian legislation. Since then he has, again demonstrably, lied about or misreported several things, and on a logical level he comes across very poorly as well. What he has going for him, however, is a cult-figure-like charisma (unsurprising, given his profession) and a perpetually distraught voice that sounds like a solitary balloon deflating on its own at a stillborn child's 1st birthday party.

As to his academic expertise, why should it be acknowledged in the context of his public life or his views in general? Even the book for which he is known within his own academic circles is chock full of nebulous New Age gibberish.

I'm *very concerned* that you are letting your many complex and diverse *feelings* and *intuitions* about this topic - and I have the utmost respect for them, of course - cloud your receptivity to the *fax*. As every competent litigator will tell you, the *fax* of the case Trump everything else and always in the end prevail.

[jupiviv]

Also found this Dec 2018 article from the same author & website (as on the link above):
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/12/ ... better-way

He has an answer for everything. He’s highly credentialed and seemingly profound. It can be hard to understand what he’s actually saying, which to an insecure person makes him appear a genius rather than a crank. If you’re not confident in yourself, when you hear someone saying something inscrutable, you don’t think “He is extremely poor at communicating his ideas clearly,” you think “He is so much wiser than dumb, inarticulate me, and I should spend more time listening to him so that I can comprehend his ideas.” (Charlatans can easily play on people’s uncertainty about their own intelligence.)
[...]
When Peterson’s self-help advice is boiled down to its real-world meaning, it is pretty run-of-the-mill stuff: Take control of your life, put your house in order. When he goes beyond cliches, much of what he says becomes questionable or incoherent.
[...]
It’s concerning, of course, that the depressed can be preyed on in this way, and convinced that social justice feminists are the cause of their suffering. But one encouraging sign is that these men seem like they just needed to discover Chomsky rather than Peterson. If the left could reach these people, who are sincere, decent, and sad, then they wouldn’t become entranced by Peterson’s ideas.

I’d like to send a message, then, to those who like Peterson, or those young men who think Ben Shapiro is a “cool kids’ philosopher,” or those who find Sam Harris profound: You are missing out on the real world of ideas. You are accepting a shallow substitute for the real thing, and it is a dead end. These men do not have solutions. They have pseudo-solutions. If you are depressed, if you are alone, if your job sucks and you aren’t sure where your life is going, what you need is not the shallow bromides of 12 Rules for Life. You need to come and join the left.

Why "join the left" tho? Can learning about the function and operation of propaganda within liberal capitalist democracies get people better jobs or sexier girlfriends? Much better to join GF and discover that we die and reincarnate every moment of our lives, thus depression is a consequence of the illusion that we possess a consistent and inherently existing self.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

If Cathy Newman is a flake then wouldn't the exposition of her as such require only modest insight or precision?

Exposing a flake to a larger audience is not that easy as you might think. It's way easier to sound unhinged and chaotic, pretending that one made some great case while it really wasn't. But my point was that in this clip some sound logic, consistent reasoning and valid gender research was used to confront a typical confused person who demonstrated some extreme cognitive dissonance and deceit. What's not to like?

His professorship has demonstrably nothing to do with his celebrity status.

Perhaps not much but it's changing the topic. This is still a psychologist with an active clinical practice and psychology professor of a large university of name, writing peer-reviewed articles and a book generally well received (eg by Camille Paglia) who should not be thrown into the same "flake" bin as some random rash young columnist with some emo ax to grind. One can disagree with people for different reasons and to varying degrees.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Also found this Dec 2018 article from the same author & website (as on the link above):
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/12/ ... better-way

A flaky young PhD student in sociology. Yeah, impressive! Do you crave to be oppositional that much, Jup, that you would steep so low?

f you are feeling sad and hopeless, you need a community of good people who care about you. You won’t find that community in the bitter world of right-wing YouTube. You’ll find it in a labor union, or at a Democratic Socialists of America meeting. Don’t allow yourself to be tricked by hucksters who don’t actually care about what happens to you.. Then come and join the left. Experience the joys of solidarity.

[jupiviv]

If Cathy Newman is a flake then wouldn't the exposition of her as such require only modest insight or precision?

Exposing a flake to a larger audience is not that easy as you might think.

I would say it is easy by *definition*, since a "flake" is a shallow and stupid person. I'm not complaining about the interview, just the comparison with Genius-type logic and insights into feminine psychology (because I found none). BTW just searched youtube and found this logically robust (though not in any way profound) response to Peterson's arguments, by a fellow professor.

EDIT:

Another (humorously) robust response!

His professorship has demonstrably nothing to do with his celebrity status.

Perhaps not much but it's changing the topic. This is still a psychologist with an active clinical practice and psychology professor of a large university of name, writing peer-reviewed articles and a book generally well received (eg by Camille Paglia) who should not be thrown into the same "flake" bin as some random rash young columnist with some emo ax to grind. One can disagree with people for different reasons and to varying degrees.

Appeal to authority? If memory serves, obsession with academic opinion and soundness was one of your most emphatic criticisms of David in his 2017 thread.

A flaky young PhD student in sociology. Yeah, impressive!

Not sure why flaky and PhD student so obviously follow from each other, especially considering your appeal to authority above. Still, what criticisms of Peterson in those two articles do you disagree with? I've stated at least one of my disagreements above.

Do you crave to be oppositional that much, Jup, that you would steep so low?

Nitpicking arguments under the pretense of maintaining the intellectual integrity of the overall discourse is indeed a waste of time. I hereby vow to clean that part of my room in the future.

[David Quinn]

After all, you have shown for years now that you have been deeply immersed in all this on-line cultural war stuff, even going so far as to defend Kevin Solway's obsession with it. I'm glad to see that you are finally making efforts to transcend it.

Back when I joined this forum, I was immersed in online atheism, anti-feminist and philosophical stuff. That is very much different both in scope and popularity from the "culture wars" which really became popular around 2015. By then I was wise and cynical enough not to be taken in by it.

I have one word in response - Obongo.

Case closed.

As for Dan, without his Trump derangement syndrome he may well be the sanest of all three.

Ah, another alt-right term. You’re on a roll.

By then I was wise and cynical enough not to be taken in by it.

You are not as wise as you think you are and your cynicism is nothing more than a refuge that you use to hide from having to deal with anything.

As for defending Kevin's obsession with it, no, I was defending him against your abrupt personal attacks, for example as a brainwashed alt-rightist.

While it amusing to see you wanting to rush over to protect Kevin all the time, as though he were some sort of damsel in distress, your observations on this matter are thoroughly deluded. Go back to that thread. Look at his words and demeanor. How can you argue that he has not been brainwashed?

The light has gone out of him. The spiritual authority that he used to possess has vanished. He has become joyless, angry and bitter. He praises intellectual flakes like Peterson, Milo, and Shapiro. He has turned his back on issues that he used to care about, such as science, environmentalism and the survival of the species. His approach to the free speech issue is openly dishonest and partisan. He is self-righteous to the point of being rigid, close-minded and hostile. Whereas his words and actions used to be infused with the spirit of Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu and the Buddha, now he sounds like just another violent, third-rate, ignorant commentator on Breitbart.

Again, this is not a personal attack on Kevin. It is simply the truth.

As mentioned in my initial post above, it is not the cultural wars themselves that interest me, but rather the real world consequences of these wars - and these real world consequences are extremely harmful from the perspective of wisdom and the survival of the species.

The culture wars, like God, are an illusion that functions as a category of things people feel strongly about. They don't have consequences, but the things that are falsely ascribed to them do. Since people don't want to think about really existing things, they put them into false categories and use those to explain the good or bad reality around them.

This is another way of saying that delusion and emotional attachment are the core problem - and of course, you are right. But this doesn’t address the point I was making - namely, that the religious fundamentalism and climate change denialism of the alt-right has spawned many repercussions that spiral out into the real world.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve met people (usually white, elderly and joyless) who regurgitate the same kind of idiotic language that the likes of Peterson and Shapiro peddle - for example, that the science of climate change is a marxist plot or a liberal conspiracy that seeks to undermine our Christian/materialistic/patriarchal way of life. These morons are hindering our chances of dealing with this issue properly.

But I'll cut you some slack here. Perhaps with you being stuck in India and not having any “on the ground” experience of Western culture, you’re not able to see what is going on.

My observation since the QR/S schism started has been that all 3 of you have created or adopted false categories that resemble various aspects of the "Genius" worldview. You have done so out of an urgent need to explain a - in some instances rapidly - devolving world order, which you have never contemplated seriously before to my knowledge. Perhaps also, a need to explain why your ideals have failed to match the reality of your lives and your place within the aforementioned world order.

Nonsense.

With Kevin it's the conflation of the WOMAN or feminine vs masculine set of ideas with alt-right anti-feminist/SJW ideas. He is willing to accept alt-right news and arguments on face value because they - or rather their vocabulary, like "facts vs feels" - agree with him on anti-feminist/SJW issues. I would say that exposes faults in some of QRS's *original* thinking on those topics. Perhaps an inability to reconcile the stark contrast between the actual impotence of the masculine project and its powerful premise, ultimately leading to a secularised version of the same that can be applied to any tough-sounding rhetoric.

In your case it's the fabrication of a "liberal establishment" that has steadily progressed towards enlightenment since the Renaissance, despite much of said progress being dependent on circumstance and convenience, not love. Where Kevin chose the underdog for his spectacle du jour, you chose the respectable mainstream besieged by the savages.

I have no interest in respectable mainstream society. Where do you get these stupid ideas from? While I do oppose this ongoing coup attempt by the savages, it doesn’t mean that I value the copious amounts of shite that currently infuses mainstream society. Stop thinking in such binary terms.

What both of you have in common, it seems, is the desire for a bit of praxis in the world which you feel has left you behind.

Again, I have never had any interest in slotting into the world and so the idea that I might be suffering over being left behind is misguided. I continue to enjoy my life immensely. My place in the world is irrelevant to me. I know how I fit into Nature and that's all that matters.

But I do agree that Kevin conflates the masculine/feminine issue with the SJW/anti-SJW shitstorm, which is strange given that the entire alt-right movement - from Shapiro, Milo and Peterson down - is so obviously feminine in nature.

And I do agree that there were flaws with the "original QRS thinking" on the masculine/feminine issue, mainly due to the fact that we treated it as a form of identity politics. By asserting that all women are evil, or soulless, or inferior, or whatever (albeit framed as a generalization), we were playing same kind of asinine identity games that Kevin now accuses the “radical left” of playing.

[jupiviv]

After all, you have shown for years now that you have been deeply immersed in all this on-line cultural war stuff, even going so far as to defend Kevin Solway's obsession with it. I'm glad to see that you are finally making efforts to transcend it.

Back when I joined this forum, I was immersed in online atheism, anti-feminist and philosophical stuff. That is very much different both in scope and popularity from the "culture wars" which really became popular around 2015. By then I was wise and cynical enough not to be taken in by it.

I have one word in response - Obongo.

Case closed.

That was directed exclusively at Obongo and not black people. His black heritage was a milestone in US and world history, but he betrayed it abjectly by using it to protect and enrich a cosmetically inclusive neoliberal establishment, which is now occupied by the Trump volk. That was my opinion in 2017 and it still is.

Case closed.

As for Dan, without his Trump derangement syndrome he may well be the sanest of all three.

Ah, another alt-right term. You’re on a roll.

Using an alt-right term doesn't make one alt-right. Not recognising that tends to throw the whole "I'm a sage" thing into serious doubt.

You are not as wise as you think you are and your cynicism is nothing more than a refuge that you use to hide from having to deal with anything.

No, I'm trying to clarify the nature of the problems our species confronts from a genuinely philosophical perspective.

While it amusing to see you wanting to rush over to protect Kevin all the time, as though he were some sort of damsel in distress

Cute.

How can you argue that he has not been brainwashed?

I started an email discussion with him around Dec 2018, but I abandoned it recently because it wasn't going anywhere. He did concede my arguments about things like the intellectual dishonesty of Jordan Peterson, the validity of conventional leftist politics as opposed to spectacular SJW-ism, and the spuriousness of the age old reactionary free speech persecution complex. On the other hand, he was irrationally adamant about "the authoritarian leftists" being a great danger to wisdom and human survival. He also calls a number of alt-righters "leftists", but that may be ignorance instead of outright cognitive dissonance because a lot of them do tend to call themselves "classical liberals". Oh, and he doesn't understand the difference between "liberal" and "leftist", or the fact that their definition varies by country.

No evidence of literal brainwashing though. You can redefine "brainwashing" to mean "thinks bad or false things" if you want but I don't think that's very useful.

His thinking is a mess but so is yours. Which is what troubles me so deeply. I may reincarnate as either one of you when I'm your age, and have to figure out how to prevent that!

As mentioned in my initial post above, it is not the cultural wars themselves that interest me, but rather the real world consequences of these wars - and these real world consequences are extremely harmful from the perspective of wisdom and the survival of the species.

The culture wars, like God, are an illusion that functions as a category of things people feel strongly about. They don't have consequences, but the things that are falsely ascribed to them do. Since people don't want to think about really existing things, they put them into false categories and use those to explain the good or bad reality around them.

This is another way of saying that delusion and emotional attachment are the core problem - and of course, you are right. But this doesn’t address the point I was making - namely, that the religious fundamentalism and climate change denialism of the alt-right has spawned many repercussions that spiral out into the real world.

It is a general observation about delusions, and addresses your point to the extent that religion and climate denialism should not, and cannot, be discussed in a vacuum. Likewise for Marxism, SJWs, feminism, (((WOMAN))) and of course Islam. All of those things contain fallacies, problems etc., but if you define wisdom in such a way that it opposes them in a unique way, you end up in the place where you and Kevin are right now. You fail to take into account all of the other problematic things in the world, and their relationship to the former category of - in your mind, uniquely dangerous - things. Any connections you do create between the world and the Bad Thing are governed solely by your fantasies about the nature of the Bad Thing. Causality itself yields to your enormous brain, as you shape past and present, cause and effect to form whatever reality you think can identify the Bad Thing as Bad and then vanquish it. Yet that never happens, and like Parsifal you wait within reach of the Grail. Du siehst mein Sohn, zum Raum wird hier die Zeit.

This is what happened with the New Atheist movement and their Islam-fetishism. People with zero actual experience of Muslims or Islam in general suddenly decided it was a grave threat to "western civilisation". The actual, complex reality of Islamic fundamentalism and the chaos of the Middle East all boiled down to Islam just being irrational and evil. Now Muslims (and brown people in general) are the great enemy of the west (white people), and Trumpifal is the noble fool who shall redeem it. Your anti-Trump hysteria follows the same pattern. You speak of Trump as if he is a monstrous aberration when he is in fact the latest symptom of industrial capitalism's decrepitude.

Finally, as a Hindu who has lived with Muslims all his life and who has a few of them for his oldest friends, I'd just like to point out that you have spouted the kind of racist New Atheist rhetoric outlined above more than once on this very forum. You know, things like how Muslims can't be advanced like the west because of' their uniquely irrational "religion" and "culture", as opposed to not experiencing the same economic and social progress in the last century or so as the west, or having their democratic-socialist, liberal or secular govts overthrown and their nations destabilised by relentless western intervention. I suspected there was something was wrong with the "GF worldview" when I read things like that, but didn't follow up on it because I thought they were in service of a larger point about wisdom. Just something to keep in mind while you're on your fucking enlightened centrist trip, calling me an alt-rightist and all that.

Dan Rowden is exempt from the above because he is the only one of you three who - to my knowledge - has explicitly criticised New Atheism on that point.

While I do oppose this ongoing coup attempt by the savages, it doesn’t mean that I value the copious amounts of shite that currently infuses mainstream society. Stop thinking in such binary terms.

Not what I wrote. All 3 of you have created or adopted false categories that resemble various aspects of the "Genius" worldview. Of course you don't have respect for the entirety of mainstream society or people, given that you think most people lead extremely deluded lives. That doesn't mean you are magically incapable of contradicting yourself. Like believing that some delusions are somehow much worse than all the others because they presently concern you the most. Or overestimating the rationality present in certain ideas while ignoring all the concomitant irrationality, and distinguishing them from the total madness of other ideas, even though both arise from the same (mental and physical) causes and serve the same irrational ends.

And I do agree that there were flaws with the "original QRS thinking" on the masculine/feminine issue, mainly due to the fact that we treated it as a form of identity politics. By asserting that all women are evil, or soulless, or inferior, or whatever (albeit framed as a generalization), we were playing same kind of asinine identity games that Kevin now accuses the “radical left” of playing.

That isn't the flaw I was talking about. I agree that femininity is unconsciousness, whatever form it assumes. However, I was saying that your definition of masculinity is too inconsistent, and thus managed to end up becoming so broad you could fit any anti-feminist idea into it (as has happened with Kevin). It can simultaneously refer to genuine wisdom and the "insight" of Jordan Peterson and traditionalist feminism. It can also refer to the "liberal establishment" and the rationality of greenie utopians who think we can maintain our current industrial society and much more on intermittent, low density "renewable" energy, or that climate change is the only physical limit we have to deal with.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

As for Dan, without his Trump derangement syndrome he may well be the sanest of all three.

Ah, another alt-right term. You’re on a roll.

Using an alt-right term doesn't make one alt-right. Not recognising that tends to throw the whole "I'm a sage" thing into serious doubt.

You're letting yourself be bamboozled in countering a very dodgy claim, Jup. The term originated not as alt-right term and is used by many other on the moderate left and right, including major Trump critics, to describe the perceived ongoing hysteria and vitriolic fact bending especially around the Russian collusion fable or completely imaginary support for antisemitism or Nazi groups. For more factual background, this is a reasonable Wikipedia article on the term : Trump derangement syndrome. Also note it's in fact a variation on the older "Bush/Thatcher/Etc derangement syndrome" which is perhaps familiar to those following political discourse a bit longer than the last few years.

[David Quinn]

It doesn’t really matter where the term originated, not when it has so clearly morphed into a standard alt-right trope.

The swastika was originally a symbol for peace and well-being in various Indian religions and look what has happened since.

[Avolith]

I’m guessing some of you have already seen this. It is a video of Ben Shapiro humiliating himself during a BBC interview. It is worth looking at more closely because, to me at least, the whole affair embodies everything that is reprehensible about the alt-right movement.

Here is the interview in full: BBC: Andrew Neil and Ben Shapiro

And here is an analysis of the interview by Kyle Kulinski that, for me, is absolutely spot on.

The interview is a truly hilarious spectacle on so many levels. In the space of 15 minutes, Ben Shapiro manages to not only undermine the very premise of his newly-published book, but he completely shreds his reputation as a supposed hard-headed opponent of snowflakism and identity politics. Having spent years denigrating leftists for being easily-triggered snowflakes who need their safe spaces, he proceeds in these 15 minutes to act exactly like a triggered snowflake floundering around for his safe space. He became the very thing that he built his entire career attacking.

Astonishing.

Or rather it would be astonishing if Shapiro really was a serious thinker, which of course he is not. As his responses to Andrew Neil's questions reveal, he is a flake. He has always been a flake, just as Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin and co. have always been flakes. Who could possibly take these intellectual lightweights seriously? You would have to be so mentally consumed by a blinding emotional hatred of a fringe segment of the community to even begin to take them seriously, and even then you would have to shut down large parts of your cerebral cortex just to dampen down all the cognitive dissonance.

Meanwhile, as these jackasses continue to wage their phony kiddie war against the left, they are continuing to make it as difficult as possible for us as a species to deal with the far more serious threats that face us - namely, the continuing rise of far-right fascism that is relentlessly being promoted by wealthy psychopaths and the accelerating pace of climate change and environmental destruction.

In the beginning of the interview something can be said for Shapiro applying logic to call out some actual crap from the interviewer. But he also takes his absolutist logic into very complex and gray areas, where things aren't as black and white as he seems to think. As a result he's not flexible enough in his views, leaving no room to adjust or update his them. So, not able to bend, he has two options: double down or break/flake.

Examples of his black/white thinking: he says Jews in america are Jews in name only, are irreligious and show not enough commitment to the ideology. He also takes this stance that life is sacred, therefore abortions must be illegal and punished with very steep prison sentences.

I think it's better for him to have flaked, instead of hypothetically doubling down on his views. This way, the doubt/uncertainty is more visible for the viewer, and also, maybe a nuanced perspective is more likely for Shapiro himself.

[David Quinn]

Back when I joined this forum, I was immersed in online atheism, anti-feminist and philosophical stuff. That is very much different both in scope and popularity from the "culture wars" which really became popular around 2015. By then I was wise and cynical enough not to be taken in by it.

I have one word in response - Obongo.

Case closed.

That was directed exclusively at Obongo and not black people. His black heritage was a milestone in US and world history, but he betrayed it abjectly by using it to protect and enrich a cosmetically inclusive neoliberal establishment, which is now occupied by the Trump volk. That was my opinion in 2017 and it still is.

Case closed.

It has African connotations (thus surreptitiously linking it to the Birther conspiracy) and it has been used extensively by the frothing alt-right hordes on sites like Breitbart.

I find it hard to believe that you would have not known this.

As for Dan, without his Trump derangement syndrome he may well be the sanest of all three.

Ah, another alt-right term. You’re on a roll.

Using an alt-right term doesn't make one alt-right.

No, but with you, it is part of a pattern.

I think you need to be more honest with yourself here.

You are not as wise as you think you are and your cynicism is nothing more than a refuge that you use to hide from having to deal with anything.

No, I'm trying to clarify the nature of the problems our species confronts from a genuinely philosophical perspective.

Okay, from your perspective, what is the most urgent thing we should be doing right now?

This is another way of saying that delusion and emotional attachment are the core problem - and of course, you are right. But this doesn’t address the point I was making - namely, that the religious fundamentalism and climate change denialism of the alt-right has spawned many repercussions that spiral out into the real world.

It is a general observation about delusions, and addresses your point to the extent that religion and climate denialism should not, and cannot, be discussed in a vacuum. Likewise for Marxism, SJWs, feminism, (((WOMAN))) and of course Islam. All of those things contain fallacies, problems etc., but if you define wisdom in such a way that it opposes them in a unique way, you end up in the place where you and Kevin are right now. You fail to take into account all of the other problematic things in the world, and their relationship to the former category of - in your mind, uniquely dangerous - things. Any connections you do create between the world and the Bad Thing are governed solely by your fantasies about the nature of the Bad Thing. Causality itself yields to your enormous brain, as you shape past and present, cause and effect to form whatever reality you think can identify the Bad Thing as Bad and then vanquish it. Yet that never happens, and like Parsifal you wait within reach of the Grail. Du siehst mein Sohn, zum Raum wird hier die Zeit.

This is what happened with the New Atheist movement and their Islam-fetishism. People with zero actual experience of Muslims or Islam in general suddenly decided it was a grave threat to "western civilisation". The actual, complex reality of Islamic fundamentalism and the chaos of the Middle East all boiled down to Islam just being irrational and evil. Now Muslims (and brown people in general) are the great enemy of the west (white people), and Trumpifal is the noble fool who shall redeem it. Your anti-Trump hysteria follows the same pattern. You speak of Trump as if he is a monstrous aberration when he is in fact the latest symptom of industrial capitalism's decrepitude.

No, even though he is a bizarre freak, I do realize that he is not really an aberration and I agree that he is a symptom of a much wider problem. But nevertheless, it still remains the case that he is someone who needs to be removed as soon as possible before he does any more damage.

When a man becomes psychotic and starts shooting people in a crowded street, the first task at hand is to take him down as fast as possible. It is an urgent task that requires decisive action. What it doesn't require is an accompanying dissertation on the many causes and factors that might have led to this man's psychosis or a treatise on the economic and political conditions that might have contributed to his breakdown. That is something for another time.

You should take it as read that whenever I talk about Trump, or the alt-right, or about climate change denialism, that I am very aware that they are all part of a complex web of interconnecting issues.

Finally, as a Hindu who has lived with Muslims all his life and who has a few of them for his oldest friends, I'd just like to point out that you have spouted the kind of racist New Atheist rhetoric outlined above more than once on this very forum. You know, things like how Muslims can't be advanced like the west because of' their uniquely irrational "religion" and "culture", as opposed to not experiencing the same economic and social progress in the last century or so as the west, or having their democratic-socialist, liberal or secular govts overthrown and their nations destabilised by relentless western intervention. I suspected there was something was wrong with the "GF worldview" when I read things like that, but didn't follow up on it because I thought they were in service of a larger point about wisdom. Just something to keep in mind while you're on your fucking enlightened centrist trip, calling me an alt-rightist and all that.

You will have to give an example of where I said anything like that. I did a brief search on my past comments on Islam and can't find anything like what you describe.

My basic view of Islam is that it is a terrible religion that is steeped in violence and irrationality, which more or less places it in the same bracket as Christianity. What I dislike most about Islam is that it intrudes so much into the daily lives of Muslims, which makes it very oppressive. There is no room for dissidence or iconoclasm. An atheist, for example, has virtually no hope of surviving in a Muslim country, not unless he firmly keeps it a secret.

But I am also aware that the West has treated Muslims very badly for a long, long time, particularly the English in the centuries leading up to the aftermath of World War I, and of course the Americans in the decades since, and thus they helped to generate the kind of Islamic political fundamentalism that we see today.

Dan Rowden is exempt from the above because he is the only one of you three who - to my knowledge - has explicitly criticised New Atheism on that point.

To be honest, I never really explored New Atheism enough to become aware of their views on Islam. Their views on everything else were already too much of a turn-off for me.

And I do agree that there were flaws with the "original QRS thinking" on the masculine/feminine issue, mainly due to the fact that we treated it as a form of identity politics. By asserting that all women are evil, or soulless, or inferior, or whatever (albeit framed as a generalization), we were playing same kind of asinine identity games that Kevin now accuses the “radical left” of playing.

That isn't the flaw I was talking about. I agree that femininity is unconsciousness, whatever form it assumes. However, I was saying that your definition of masculinity is too inconsistent, and thus managed to end up becoming so broad you could fit any anti-feminist idea into it (as has happened with Kevin). It can simultaneously refer to genuine wisdom and the "insight" of Jordan Peterson and traditionalist feminism.

Aren't you just restating what I just said - namely, that our discourse too easily degenerated into a form of identity politics? Anything that man a does is good; anything that a woman does is bad.

Logic states that if femininity is unconsciousness, then its opposite (masculinity) must be consciousness. Moreover, consciousness of reality (wisdom) must necessarily be the highest expression of masculinity. So far, so good. Problems begin to emerge when people misunderstand this to mean that men are conscious and women unconscious. In the past on this forum, people too easily conflated these things and we were happy enough to let it happen.

[jupiviv]

David has informed me he accidentally deleted my response from yesterday, and I don't have a copy of it. This is a new version where some points from the original are expanded while other, less important ones are condensed:

That was directed exclusively at Obongo and not black people. His black heritage was a milestone in US and world history, but he betrayed it abjectly by using it to protect and enrich a cosmetically inclusive neoliberal establishment, which is now occupied by the Trump volk. That was my opinion in 2017 and it still is.

Case closed.

It has African connotations (thus surreptitiously linking it to the Birther conspiracy) and it has been used extensively by the frothing alt-right hordes on sites like Breitbart.

I know it has African connotations, which is why I used it to mock his cynical employment of black id politics.

Using an alt-right term doesn't make one alt-right.

No, but with you, it is part of a pattern.

Words and phrases picked randomly without context isn't a pattern.

Okay, from your perspective, what is the most urgent thing we should be doing right now?

Getting rid of all the cars.

But nevertheless, it still remains the case that he [Trump] is someone who needs to be removed as soon as possible before he does any more damage.

The problem isn't with Trump but with the financial and business interests aligned with right populism not only in the US but in many democratic nations around the world. Despite what they say or what dishonest media sources say about them, Hillary, Trump and Biden all agree that asset inflation, reckless speculation and intervention in countries that have things the US wants take precedence over anything else. The Dem Party elites want to be the hippie-dippie PR/HR department of corporate autocracy, while their Rep colleagues seek to be edgy S/M guys or nerdy-yet-handsome business analysts.

The root of the problem lies far deeper than politics and policies. Industrial economies require infinite growth of consumption and (therefore) production to absorb the increased costs over time of resource extraction and distribution. If economies cannot afford those costs, they (a) crash (b) take on debts, print money, concentrate assets and capital in fewer hands and impose one or other form of austerity on their citizens in an effort to avoid crashing for as long as possible. Right populism, Clintonian neoliberalism and alt-rightism are, in essence, excuses to do all of (b) without seeming to, at least in the eyes of a significant minority of the public.

In summation, while there are plenty of trivial bad things that might change if Trump goes away, the problems that led to his election will not. Therefore, an obsession with the person of Trump indicates either ignorance of those problems (the average fanatic Hillary supporter) or reticence to consider them problems as such (Capitalist, Cronymarxist Neoculturalists aka coastal billionaires who cause jealousy in snake-handling prosperity evangelists).

My basic view of Islam is that it is a terrible religion that is steeped in violence and irrationality, which more or less places it in the same bracket as Christianity. What I dislike most about Islam is that it intrudes so much into the daily lives of Muslims, which makes it very oppressive. There is no room for dissidence or iconoclasm. An atheist, for example, has virtually no hope of surviving in a Muslim country, not unless he firmly keeps it a secret.

The racism lies in assuming that Islam the religion is a physical, conscious entity with strange and evil features, which is also a culture, and is causing Muslims to become terrorists and supporters of authoritarian regimes. The rational approach would be to look at the non-religious/doctrinal factors that perpetuate violence and human rights abuses in Middle Eastern countries.

That isn't the flaw I was talking about. I agree that femininity is unconsciousness, whatever form it assumes. However, I was saying that your definition of masculinity is too inconsistent, and thus managed to end up becoming so broad you could fit any anti-feminist idea into it (as has happened with Kevin). It can simultaneously refer to genuine wisdom and the "insight" of Jordan Peterson and traditionalist feminism.

Aren't you just restating what I just said - namely, that our discourse too easily degenerated into a form of identity politics? Anything that man a does is good; anything that a woman does is bad.

I'm saying that the problem lies specifically in how masculinity is defined. If masculinity is just consciousness, and there are grades of masculinity that correspond to grades of consciousness, it isn't surprising that a lonely and frustrated wisdom seeker might decide that everyone who represents any of those grades are on the side that is protecting wisdom.

There are no grades of consciousness, only instances of consciousness that become more frequent and interconnected or don't, depending on other conditions. At best, one may intuitively sense an ephemeral link tying different instances of consciousness together, but even that boils down to ordinary causal links.

[David Quinn]

Okay, from your perspective, what is the most urgent thing we should be doing right now?

Getting rid of all the cars.

Go back to horses?

I can’t see cars ever being eliminated, can you? So what about something more realistic?

But nevertheless, it still remains the case that he [Trump] is someone who needs to be removed as soon as possible before he does any more damage.

The problem isn't with Trump but with the financial and business interests aligned with right populism not only in the US but in many democratic nations around the world. Despite what they say or what dishonest media sources say about them, Hillary, Trump and Biden all agree that asset inflation, reckless speculation and intervention in countries that have things the US wants take precedence over anything else. The Dem Party elites want to be the hippie-dippie PR/HR department of corporate autocracy, while their Rep colleagues seek to be edgy S/M guys or nerdy-yet-handsome business analysts.

The root of the problem lies far deeper than politics and policies. Industrial economies require infinite growth of consumption and (therefore) production to absorb the increased costs over time of resource extraction and distribution. If economies cannot afford those costs, they (a) crash (b) take on debts, print money, concentrate assets and capital in fewer hands and impose one or other form of austerity on their citizens in an effort to avoid crashing for as long as possible. Right populism, Clintonian neoliberalism and alt-rightism are, in essence, excuses to do all of (b) without seeming to, at least in the eyes of a significant minority of the public.

Are you saying that the answer lies with implementing a radical form of socialism? Or returning to the crude and basic lifestyle of the Dark Ages? Or are you saying there is no answer, short of war and the elimination of most of the world’s population?

In summation, while there are plenty of trivial bad things that might change if Trump goes away, the problems that led to his election will not. Therefore, an obsession with the person of Trump indicates either ignorance of those problems (the average fanatic Hillary supporter) or reticence to consider them problems as such (Capitalist, Cronymarxist Neoculturalists aka coastal billionaires who cause jealousy in snake-handling prosperity evangelists).

I think you’re wrong here. Given the current circumstances, a personality like Trump acts as a catalyst that unites the various disparate grievances that people have with the modern world and pushes it forward as a solid block to another level.

There is nothing unusual about this. Would the civil rights movement of the 60s have achieved so much success without the likes of Martin Luther King bringing it to the very forefront of public consciousness? Would India have achieved independence from Britain so quickly without the rallying force of Gandhi? Would Germany have gone down the destructive path it did in the 30s without the charismatic and malignant presence of Hitler?

Political personalities are not just symptoms of underlying cultural trends, they are also active (and often destructive) agents in their own right.

In summation, while there are plenty of trivial bad things that might change if Trump goes away, the problems that led to his election will not.

The problems that led to Trump’s election are capable of being addressed in different ways. It is not inevitable that they always lead to people supporting a mentally-ill, wannabe dictator like Trump (or Modi).

My basic view of Islam is that it is a terrible religion that is steeped in violence and irrationality, which more or less places it in the same bracket as Christianity. What I dislike most about Islam is that it intrudes so much into the daily lives of Muslims, which makes it very oppressive. There is no room for dissidence or iconoclasm. An atheist, for example, has virtually no hope of surviving in a Muslim country, not unless he firmly keeps it a secret.

The racism lies in assuming that Islam the religion is a physical, conscious entity with strange and evil features, which is also a culture, and is causing Muslims to become terrorists and supporters of authoritarian regimes. The rational approach would be to look at the non-religious/doctrinal factors that perpetuate violence and human rights abuses in Middle Eastern countries.

While that’s true, it is still the case that Islam is a very intrusive religion. For example, it requires people to pray five times a day and to fast for a month each year, and likes to dictate what you eat, what you wear, what you say, who you marry, etc. It is constantly in your face. No one has the breathing space to develop mentally of their own accord. From the perspective of wisdom, that is very harmful.

That isn't the flaw I was talking about. I agree that femininity is unconsciousness, whatever form it assumes. However, I was saying that your definition of masculinity is too inconsistent, and thus managed to end up becoming so broad you could fit any anti-feminist idea into it (as has happened with Kevin). It can simultaneously refer to genuine wisdom and the "insight" of Jordan Peterson and traditionalist feminism.

Aren't you just restating what I just said - namely, that our discourse too easily degenerated into a form of identity politics? Anything that man a does is good; anything that a woman does is bad.

I'm saying that the problem lies specifically in how masculinity is defined. If masculinity is just consciousness, and there are grades of masculinity that correspond to grades of consciousness, it isn't surprising that a lonely and frustrated wisdom seeker might decide that everyone who represents any of those grades are on the side that is protecting wisdom.

There are no grades of consciousness, only instances of consciousness that become more frequent and interconnected or don't, depending on other conditions. At best, one may intuitively sense an ephemeral link tying different instances of consciousness together, but even that boils down to ordinary causal links.

This is wrong on two levels:

- Toddler consciousness and adult consciousness can both be described as “instances of consciousness that become more frequent and interconnected or don't, depending on other conditions”, and yet there is a world of difference between them. Toddler consciousness is almost entirely unconscious in comparison to adult consciousness.

- There is an yawning chasm between normal adult consciousness and enlightened consciousness, one that requires a quantum leap to traverse. The two types cannot be placed in the same category, not without misrepresenting what enlightened consciousness is.

No, the problem does not lie with grading consciousness (itself an act that requires a high degree of consciousness), but with men’s unresolved emotional issues with women which causes them to want to deride and abuse them at any opportunity, and to slide without resistance into a form of identity politics.

[jupiviv]

I can’t see cars ever being eliminated, can you? So what about something more realistic?

On the contrary, I see cars and a lot of other things becoming useless (if not "eliminated") sometime in the next few/several decades, whether voluntarily or otherwise. And why unrealistic? You might say it is *unfeasible* given human nature and the structure/dependencies of societies and economies, but it's 100% realistic.

Are you saying that the answer lies with implementing a radical form of socialism? Or returning to the crude and basic lifestyle of the Dark Ages? Or are you saying there is no answer, short of war and the elimination of most of the world’s population?

I'd say the answer is some version of "less", because that is what will happen either way. This world doesn't have an infinite amount of resources, and science isn't magic. While we cannot control any of the above, we can radically alter the way we think about the relationship between civilisation and the things that sustain it. If we do that, we may end up better as a species than if we hadn't.

In summation, while there are plenty of trivial bad things that might change if Trump goes away, the problems that led to his election will not. Therefore, an obsession with the person of Trump indicates either ignorance of those problems (the average fanatic Hillary supporter) or reticence to consider them problems as such (Capitalist, Cronymarxist Neoculturalists aka coastal billionaires who cause jealousy in snake-handling prosperity evangelists).

I think you’re wrong here. Given the current circumstances, a personality like Trump acts as a catalyst that unites the various disparate grievances that people have with the modern world and pushes it forward as a solid block to another level.

The "catalysts" are products of the grievances, conflicts-of-interest etc. which in turn are products of the inability of economies to keep enough people happy via unprecedented increases in living standards and promises of future prosperity - the story of the 20th century.

There is nothing unusual about this. Would the civil rights movement of the 60s have achieved so much success without the likes of Martin Luther King bringing it to the very forefront of public consciousness? Would India have achieved independence from Britain so quickly without the rallying force of Gandhi? Would Germany have gone down the destructive path it did in the 30s without the charismatic and malignant presence of Hitler?

Political personalities are not just symptoms of underlying cultural trends, they are also active (and often destructive) agents in their own right.

Individuals can be agents of great change but Trump is not even close to being such.

The problems that led to Trump’s election are capable of being addressed in different ways. It is not inevitable that they always lead to people supporting a mentally-ill, wannabe dictator like Trump (or Modi).

I agree, but the person who at least claimed to want to address them was booted out of the race in favour of an especially bad and problematic candidate. And let's face it, if Hillary won her admin would by now be run by more or less the same people that are doing so for Trump.

While that’s true, it is still the case that Islam is a very intrusive religion. For example, it requires people to pray five times a day and to fast for a month each year, and likes to dictate what you eat, what you wear, what you say, who you marry, etc. It is constantly in your face. No one has the breathing space to develop mentally of their own accord. From the perspective of wisdom, that is very harmful.

That isn't true because a) the religion itself doesn't intrude b) the level of intrusion as a result of customs or laws varies depending on material conditions which have nothing to do with scripture. Analogous restrictions on freedom exist, or have existed not very long ago, within every single mainstream religion including Buddhism and Jainism.

- Toddler consciousness and adult consciousness can both be described as “instances of consciousness that become more frequent and interconnected or don't, depending on other conditions”, and yet there is a world of difference between them. Toddler consciousness is almost entirely unconscious in comparison to adult consciousness.

Yes but an adult's conscious experiences are usually much more numerous and interconnected than a toddler's. The individual experiences don't necessarily become more profound.

- There is an yawning chasm between normal adult consciousness and enlightened consciousness, one that requires a quantum leap to traverse. The two types cannot be placed in the same category, not without misrepresenting what enlightened consciousness is.

The yawning chasm is not due to a higher type or grade of conscious experience. To put it succinctly, it is exactly the same as an actual chasm.

No, the problem does not lie with grading consciousness (itself an act that requires a high degree of consciousness), but with men’s unresolved emotional issues with women which causes them to want to deride and abuse them at any opportunity, and to slide without resistance into a form of identity politics.

I'd say emotional issues lead to the creation of false categories. Keep in mind that I'm talking about the grading of individual conscious experiences. "Consciousness" is a broader category that encompasses multiple experiences and thus can deepen or fragment with time.

[David Quinn]

I can’t see cars ever being eliminated, can you? So what about something more realistic?

On the contrary, I see cars and a lot of other things becoming useless (if not "eliminated") sometime in the next few/several decades, whether voluntarily or otherwise. And why unrealistic? You might say it is *unfeasible* given human nature and the structure/dependencies of societies and economies, but it's 100% realistic.

It is unrealistic given people's deep attachment to cars, and to the economic benefits they engender. Without cars, the entire modern economy would grind to a halt. Everyone knows this, which is why it will never happen (at least voluntarily).

A far more realistic solution is the hydrogen car, which is continuing to make advances. As far as the general public is concerned, the hydrogen car is likely to be a far more acceptable alternative than the electric car. The rednecks and hillbillies won't find them as girlie.

Are you saying that the answer lies with implementing a radical form of socialism? Or returning to the crude and basic lifestyle of the Dark Ages? Or are you saying there is no answer, short of war and the elimination of most of the world’s population?

I'd say the answer is some version of "less", because that is what will happen either way. This world doesn't have an infinite amount of resources, and science isn't magic. While we cannot control any of the above, we can radically alter the way we think about the relationship between civilisation and the things that sustain it. If we do that, we may end up better as a species than if we hadn't.

I can't disagree with this. The question is, how do we make it happen?

There is nothing unusual about this. Would the civil rights movement of the 60s have achieved so much success without the likes of Martin Luther King bringing it to the very forefront of public consciousness? Would India have achieved independence from Britain so quickly without the rallying force of Gandhi? Would Germany have gone down the destructive path it did in the 30s without the charismatic and malignant presence of Hitler?

Political personalities are not just symptoms of underlying cultural trends, they are also active (and often destructive) agents in their own right.

Individuals can be agents of great change but Trump is not even close to being such.

I think you have your mental blinkers on. You are allowing yourself to be taken in by his surface show of buffoonery, while ignoring the malignancy and ruthless cunning that is powering it behind the scenes.

To use just one example of his capacity to cause great change, Trump has been having a significant detrimental effect on both of our countries over the past two years. Modi has been increasingly using the Trump playbook in his attempt to divide India with lies, bigotry and fear, and here in Australia, the same thing has been occurring. Our right-wing party, the LNP, headed by a smirking, gormless Trump mini-me, has just been re-elected on the back of a shameless campaign based in blatant lies, bigotry and fear (fully supported by the Murdoch press). All around the world, Trump is making it easier for sociopathic bullies to drag their countries down into the mud, making it almost impossible for intelligent policy-making to take place. This is going to have massive effects in the years ahead.

The problems that led to Trump’s election are capable of being addressed in different ways. It is not inevitable that they always lead to people supporting a mentally-ill, wannabe dictator like Trump (or Modi).

I agree, but the person who at least claimed to want to address them was booted out of the race in favour of an especially bad and problematic candidate. And let's face it, if Hillary won her admin would by now be run by more or less the same people that are doing so for Trump.

That is completely untrue. Your emotional hatred for the Democrats, and indeed for the liberal statement, and for mainstream media, and for science, is causing you to be disconnected from reality when it comes to these matters.

This is not to say that the Democrats are not without their flaws (and your observation that they have been bowing down far too much to their rich donors does indeed have merit), but to say that the bunch of low-grade sociopaths, grifters and scam-artists currently enabling Trump's criminal enterprise are somehow in the same class as those who work for the Democrats is laughable.

It is like comparing Christian scientists with actual scientists and stating that they are mentally the same.

While that’s true, it is still the case that Islam is a very intrusive religion. For example, it requires people to pray five times a day and to fast for a month each year, and likes to dictate what you eat, what you wear, what you say, who you marry, etc. It is constantly in your face. No one has the breathing space to develop mentally of their own accord. From the perspective of wisdom, that is very harmful.

That isn't true because a) the religion itself doesn't intrude b) the level of intrusion as a result of customs or laws varies depending on material conditions which have nothing to do with scripture. Analogous restrictions on freedom exist, or have existed not very long ago, within every single mainstream religion including Buddhism and Jainism.

It is in the very nature of religion to intrude. Religion is essentially a system of thought that is designed to stop people from becoming aware of God and help enable the political class to control the population. Without this kind of intrusion, religion ceases to exist. However, I accept your point that the level of this intrusion can vary from place to place, and from time to time, even within the same religion.

- Toddler consciousness and adult consciousness can both be described as “instances of consciousness that become more frequent and interconnected or don't, depending on other conditions”, and yet there is a world of difference between them. Toddler consciousness is almost entirely unconscious in comparison to adult consciousness.

Yes but an adult's conscious experiences are usually much more numerous and interconnected than a toddler's. The individual experiences don't necessarily become more profound.

The expanded perspective of the adult does make him more profound than the toddler, even in the shallowest of adults. For example, unlike the toddler, they are aware of the existence of their own mortality.

The quality of a person's consciousness doesn't derive from the number of connections he makes, or how fast his brain is able to make them; rather, it derives from the quality of thoughts and insights that his brain's connections generate.

- There is an yawning chasm between normal adult consciousness and enlightened consciousness, one that requires a quantum leap to traverse. The two types cannot be placed in the same category, not without misrepresenting what enlightened consciousness is.

The yawning chasm is not due to a higher type or grade of conscious experience. To put it succinctly, it is exactly the same as an actual chasm.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say here. The yawning chasm is indeed an actual chasm, and it exists because enlightened consciousness is indeed radically different from ordinary consciousness. Whether we want to call it higher or deeper or just radically different depends on how we want to look at it.

[jupiviv]

On the contrary, I see cars and a lot of other things becoming useless (if not "eliminated") sometime in the next few/several decades, whether voluntarily or otherwise. And why unrealistic? You might say it is *unfeasible* given human nature and the structure/dependencies of societies and economies, but it's 100% realistic.

It is unrealistic given people's deep attachment to cars, and to the economic benefits they engender. Without cars, the entire modern economy would grind to a halt. Everyone knows this, which is why it will never happen (at least voluntarily).

There will inevitably be major economic repercussions for a collective global rejection of cars, but it won't grind everything to a halt. There are many other ways of travelling like buses, trains, bicycles. There are also ways in which car owners can change their lifestyles, like moving away from the suburbs and closer to work, or working from home. You asked me for a solution and this is one that, if pursued earnestly, will definitely cause a significant reduction in fossil fuel usage.

A far more realistic solution is the hydrogen car, which is continuing to make advances. As far as the general public is concerned, the hydrogen car is likely to be a far more acceptable alternative than the electric car. The rednecks and hillbillies won't find them as girlie.

That isn't so much a solution as a fairy tale where science-magic makes the actual problem vanish. Firstly, hydrogen is an energy *carrier* (like a battery), not an energy *source* (like coal). It has to be produced and then energised, both of which require energy. Besides that, most hydrogen is produced from natural gas, which itself is an energy *source* that is also used to power engines.

Even assuming everything predicted about the commercial applications of this new material is true, which is unlikely, there remains the problem of building an entire hydrogen-based transport infrastructure - plants, pipelines, employees, investment etc. - and justifying the cost-benefit of replacing the current one. In conclusion then, I wouldn't hold your breath.

I'd say the answer is some version of "less", because that is what will happen either way. This world doesn't have an infinite amount of resources, and science isn't magic. While we cannot control any of the above, we can radically alter the way we think about the relationship between civilisation and the things that sustain it. If we do that, we may end up better as a species than if we hadn't.

I can't disagree with this. The question is, how do we make it happen?

A significant minority of the human race has to become enlightened or at least realise that our current civilisation is not sustainable and urgently requires reorganisation. Failing either of those, conservation by "other means".

Individuals can be agents of great change but Trump is not even close to being such.

I think you have your mental blinkers on. You are allowing yourself to be taken in by his surface show of buffoonery, while ignoring the malignancy and ruthless cunning that is powering it behind the scenes. (etc. etc.)

Modi was elected in 2014 and was on very good terms with Obama, who visited India twice since then.

Right populism/reactionism gains power when it can use the economic precarity and social alienation of various sections of the working/middle class under late stage capitalism to turn them against more conventional, "friendly" representatives of the same system. Once in power, it either cannot or does not intend to (or both) alleviate those problems beyond putting up a good show or bribing sections of its supporters with short-term promises of wealth and glory. Trump is an especially bad POTUS in terms of character and intelligence, but close to the median in terms of the actual functioning of his admin. Bush was considerably worse on foreign policy, unless of course they go to war with Iran (which seems likelier by the day).

The Trump admin's primary aim since the beginning has been to establish a stronger executive which could function as a Bonapartist office when SHTF later on.

Your emotional hatred for the Democrats, and indeed for the liberal statement, and for mainstream media, and for science, is causing you to be disconnected from reality when it comes to these matters.

Hillary is a conservative on everything except abortion and Marvel movies. Her campaign was a disaster because she had nothing to offer but vague platitudes to the disenfranchised and debt-ridden. Bernie would have mobilised many, many more voters than Hillary did.

I think liberals and the MSM are as capable of lying, hypocrisy or malignancy as any right winger or Breitbart columnist, under the right conditions. That isn't hatred. I don't hate science, but rather its usage (as authority, rationale, abstruse vocabulary etc.) in bad faith towards dishonest and irrational ends.

And it's kind of ridiculous when an objective fax-based sage responds to a statement beginning with "I agree", with accusations of emotional hatred!

This is not to say that the Democrats are not without their flaws (and your observation that they have been bowing down far too much to their rich donors does indeed have merit), but to say that the bunch of low-grade sociopaths, grifters and scam-artists currently enabling Trump's criminal enterprise are somehow in the same class as those who work for the Democrats is laughable.

To say that a Hillary admin would not be run by the finance/IPO/gambling class is a perfect example of Trump Derangement. This is what I was talking about before - you want to believe a large and easily identifiable section of the human race approves of the Genius worldview in a small and marginal way.

It is in the very nature of religion to intrude.

Religion is (at best) documentary justification for intrusion, not an intruder. But I see you went on to say more or less the same thing, so I'm assuming we agree on this point.

The quality of a person's consciousness doesn't derive from the number of connections he makes, or how fast his brain is able to make them; rather, it derives from the quality of thoughts and insights that his brain's connections generate.

The quality of an insight depends on how interconnected it is to other experiences and insights, i.e. context, scope, application etc. The thought "everything is the same" can have a shallow or deep meaning, depending on what *else* is thought. It's like the Buddha's warning about gurus who are right about nine things and wrong about the tenth. If someone can reason properly about nine things but not a tenth, there is something wrong with his reasoning.

One could define high and low quality thoughts as being true and false respectively, but such a definition isn't very useful imo.

The yawning chasm is not due to a higher type or grade of conscious experience. To put it succinctly, it is exactly the same as an actual chasm.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say here. The yawning chasm is indeed an actual chasm, and it exists because enlightened consciousness is indeed radically different from ordinary consciousness. Whether we want to call it higher or deeper or just radically different depends on how we want to look at it.

The physical space between two ordinary things is filled with other ordinary things (like air), and can be bridged by ordinary things (like bridges). In the same way the metaphysical space between ordinary and enlightened consciousness is filled with ordinary unconscious mental activity (like emotions), and can be bridged by ordinary conscious thoughts. There is no *inherently* wise thought. There may be specific experiences that seem to cause more wisdom in specific instances, but even those depend on factors other than the inherent quality, grade or type of the thought/experience itself.

[David Quinn]

On the contrary, I see cars and a lot of other things becoming useless (if not "eliminated") sometime in the next few/several decades, whether voluntarily or otherwise. And why unrealistic? You might say it is *unfeasible* given human nature and the structure/dependencies of societies and economies, but it's 100% realistic.

It is unrealistic given people's deep attachment to cars, and to the economic benefits they engender. Without cars, the entire modern economy would grind to a halt. Everyone knows this, which is why it will never happen (at least voluntarily).

There will inevitably be major economic repercussions for a collective global rejection of cars, but it won't grind everything to a halt. There are many other ways of travelling like buses, trains, bicycles. There are also ways in which car owners can change their lifestyles, like moving away from the suburbs and closer to work, or working from home. You asked me for a solution and this is one that, if pursued earnestly, will definitely cause a significant reduction in fossil fuel usage.

This is pie in the sky stuff. It will never happen. It is about as likely to happen as 6 billion people suddenly offering to commit suicide for the sake of the environment.

It's obvious that you don't take the issue seriously. You offer full-blown fantasies in the same way that you offer full-blown cynicism - as a way to hide from having to deal with anything.

A far more realistic solution is the hydrogen car, which is continuing to make advances. As far as the general public is concerned, the hydrogen car is likely to be a far more acceptable alternative than the electric car. The rednecks and hillbillies won't find them as girlie.

That isn't so much a solution as a fairy tale where science-magic makes the actual problem vanish. Firstly, hydrogen is an energy *carrier* (like a battery), not an energy *source* (like coal).

If all goes well with the technology, water will be the energy source.

Science has repeatedly shown throughout its history that it can make seemingly intractable problems vanish. It isn't magic. It is the application of rational understanding and solid theorizing.

Even assuming everything predicted about the commercial applications of this new material is true, which is unlikely, there remains the problem of building an entire hydrogen-based transport infrastructure - plants, pipelines, employees, investment etc. - and justifying the cost-benefit of replacing the current one. In conclusion then, I wouldn't hold your breath.

The rich would be able to make lots of money out of such a transition and it would provide plenty of jobs for the plebs. If the technology proves to be viable and people can discern its benefits, there will be plenty of motivation to make it happen.

Modi was elected in 2014 and was on very good terms with Obama, who visited India twice since then.

A lot has certainly changed since then.

Trump is an especially bad POTUS in terms of character and intelligence, but close to the median in terms of the actual functioning of his admin.

That's because the saner members of the Republican party have long ago left his administration in disgust and Trump has since stacked it with his cronies, flunkies and yes men.

The Trump admin's primary aim since the beginning has been to establish a stronger executive which could function as a Bonapartist office when SHTF later on.

In other words, to establish a dictatorship.

You can say the d word, you know. I won't accuse you of being hysterical.

Yes, this has been obvious from the start.

I don't hate science, but rather its usage (as authority, rationale, abstruse vocabulary etc.) in bad faith towards dishonest and irrational ends.

Most of the scientific community is only interested in exploring knowledge for its own sake. Their work is usually exemplary. What you're talking about are those scientists for hire - i.e. corruptible charlatans who work for corporations and political causes and engage in dodgy scientific practices designed to reach a predetermined conclusion. You shouldn't conflate the two.

This is not to say that the Democrats are not without their flaws (and your observation that they have been bowing down far too much to their rich donors does indeed have merit), but to say that the bunch of low-grade sociopaths, grifters and scam-artists currently enabling Trump's criminal enterprise are somehow in the same class as those who work for the Democrats is laughable.

To say that a Hillary admin would not be run by the finance/IPO/gambling class is a perfect example of Trump Derangement.

As I've said in previous times, I have no in interest in Hillary. Never had done. She represents the very worst of what the Democrats have to offer; apart from anything else, she is centre-right and thus a Republican in all but name. There are plenty of other world-views and modes of behaviour going around in the Democrat hemisphere that are very different from this.

At the moment, my politics more or less aligns with Chris Hedges. I've never been convinced of Bernie Sanders, though. He's always seemed a bit flaky to me.

This is what I was talking about before - you want to believe a large and easily identifiable section of the human race approves of the Genius worldview in a small and marginal way.

No, I simply support rational behaviour in all its forms, whether it be in science, politics, law or philosophy. I offer my support even though I know that most of the rationality-inclined scientists, politicians, lawyers and philosophers in the world would probably find Genius Forum too extreme and distasteful. My support for them is not contingent on their having a favorable attitude towards me. I support them because I know that rationality, in all its forms, is the best way forward for our species.

This explains why I tend to gravitate toward the Democrats, rather than the Republicans. I can find nothing to support in the Republican side of things.

The quality of a person's consciousness doesn't derive from the number of connections he makes, or how fast his brain is able to make them; rather, it derives from the quality of thoughts and insights that his brain's connections generate.

The quality of an insight depends on how interconnected it is to other experiences and insights, i.e. context, scope, application etc. The thought "everything is the same" can have a shallow or deep meaning, depending on what *else* is thought. It's like the Buddha's warning about gurus who are right about nine things and wrong about the tenth. If someone can reason properly about nine things but not a tenth, there is something wrong with his reasoning.

Right, so going back to the original point, consciousness can indeed be graded on the basis of how deluded it is, or how deeply it is bathed in the Truth.

Speaking of that Buddhist warning, it's interesting how Kevin has completely inverted it with his descent into the alt-right. Nowadays his dictum is: if a person says one truthful thing about women or the radical left, then we should overlook the other 9 things they say that are complete crap.

The physical space between two ordinary things is filled with other ordinary things (like air), and can be bridged by ordinary things (like bridges). In the same way the metaphysical space between ordinary and enlightened consciousness is filled with ordinary unconscious mental activity (like emotions), and can be bridged by ordinary conscious thoughts. There is no *inherently* wise thought. There may be specific experiences that seem to cause more wisdom in specific instances, but even those depend on factors other than the inherent quality, grade or type of the thought/experience itself.

And yet enlightened consciousness and ordinary consciousness remain two distinct things and can be categorized as such.

But again, going back to the original point, if we define the feminine as unconsciousness (which we both did earlier), then the direct opposite of that (i.e. full masculinity) cannot be anything other than the enlightened mind, which is full consciousness of everything that can ever be known.

[jupiviv]

There will inevitably be major economic repercussions for a collective global rejection of cars, but it won't grind everything to a halt. There are many other ways of travelling like buses, trains, bicycles. There are also ways in which car owners can change their lifestyles, like moving away from the suburbs and closer to work, or working from home. You asked me for a solution and this is one that, if pursued earnestly, will definitely cause a significant reduction in fossil fuel usage.

This is pie in the sky stuff. It will never happen. It is about as likely to happen as 6 billion people suddenly offering to commit suicide for the sake of the environment.

It's obvious that you don't take the issue seriously. You offer full-blown fantasies in the same way that you offer full-blown cynicism - as a way to hide from having to deal with anything.

Thank you for proving my point! The problems we face as a species are too large and imminent to be dealt with in incremental steps without inflicting much collateral damage. They require drastic collective action and willingness to make difficult personal sacrifices, which is very unlikely to happen by your own admission.

A far more realistic solution is the hydrogen car, which is continuing to make advances. As far as the general public is concerned, the hydrogen car is likely to be a far more acceptable alternative than the electric car. The rednecks and hillbillies won't find them as girlie.

That isn't so much a solution as a fairy tale where science-magic makes the actual problem vanish. Firstly, hydrogen is an energy *carrier* (like a battery), not an energy *source* (like coal).

If all goes well with the technology, water will be the energy source.

Water is *already* the energy source for a tiny amount of hydrogen production. The reason it's a tiny amount: the process is expensive and emits large amounts of CO2.

Science has repeatedly shown throughout its history that it can make seemingly intractable problems vanish. It isn't magic. It is the application of rational understanding and solid theorizing.

Science can at most identify real world problems accurately. Solving or overcoming them takes a lot more than scientific knowledge, e.g. cheaply extractable fossil fuels and other natural resources.

Even assuming everything predicted about the commercial applications of this new material is true, which is unlikely, there remains the problem of building an entire hydrogen-based transport infrastructure - plants, pipelines, employees, investment etc. - and justifying the cost-benefit of replacing the current one. In conclusion then, I wouldn't hold your breath.

The rich would be able to make lots of money out of such a transition and it would provide plenty of jobs for the plebs.

If a hydrogen-based economy consumes more energy to build and operate than it provides, it won't create wealth or employment for the vast majority of people. Such is presently the case on the planet and dimension I probably share with you. Nothing in the article you cited disputes that.

If the technology proves to be viable...

What technology? The article talks about the discovery of a new material that can *potentially* lead to more efficient hydrogen fuel cell technology. It does not specify when that technology will be developed, or if it can be developed at all, or how much it will cost, or what its hazards might be, or whether its production can scale up to non-elite commercial usage, etc.

Modi was elected in 2014 and was on very good terms with Obama, who visited India twice since then.

A lot has certainly changed since then.

No.

That's because the saner members of the Republican party have long ago left his administration in disgust and Trump has since stacked it with his cronies, flunkies and yes men.

Another feature of Trump Derangement - thinking that Trump and the "good" Republicans are at odds with each other. All/most disagreements on that front (thus far) have been about protocol, procedure or implementation, not content.

The Trump admin's primary aim since the beginning has been to establish a stronger executive which could function as a Bonapartist office when SHTF later on.

In other words, to establish a dictatorship.

Not exactly. The world has been shifting towards corporate oligarchy for a while, with bipartisan accord on fundamental premises. This was recognised decades ago, e.g. Wolin, Chomsky, Gross. Trump, Modi, Putin, Orban etc. are the latest brand names.

This is what I was talking about before - you want to believe a large and easily identifiable section of the human race approves of the Genius worldview in a small and marginal way.

No, I simply support rational behaviour in all its forms, whether it be in science, politics, law or philosophy.

That's fair enough but irrelevant to my point. You want to believe rational behaviour is more common, less superficial, more present in groups of people you like, etc., than it actually is. While leftists are more truthful on average than centrists and rightists, none of them value rationality in a fundamental way.

The quality of an insight depends on how interconnected it is to other experiences and insights, i.e. context, scope, application etc. The thought "everything is the same" can have a shallow or deep meaning, depending on what *else* is thought. It's like the Buddha's warning about gurus who are right about nine things and wrong about the tenth. If someone can reason properly about nine things but not a tenth, there is something wrong with his reasoning.

Right, so going back to the original point, consciousness can indeed be graded on the basis of how deluded it is, or how deeply it is bathed in the Truth.

No because experiences in and of themselves do not differ in quality. The difference is whether experiences are sporadic and compartmentalised or contiguous and seamlessly leading into each other. Mere information or many experiences restricted to narrow categories of things is not contiguity.

And yet enlightened consciousness and ordinary consciousness remain two distinct things and can be categorized as such.

It depends on what "distinct" means. Rainwater is distinct from tap water in one sense and identical to it in another. What cannot be disputed is that enlightened consciousness is made up of ordinary consciousness.

But again, going back to the original point, if we define the feminine as unconsciousness (which we both did earlier), then the direct opposite of that (i.e. full masculinity) cannot be anything other than the enlightened mind, which is full consciousness of everything that can ever be known.

I define femininity as those features of the mind that prevent it from being more conscious. It is not the opposite of consciousness because it contains some consciousness within itself.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The world has been shifting towards corporate oligarchy for a while, with bipartisan accord on fundamental premises. This was recognised decades ago, e.g. Wolin, Chomsky, Gross.

Just dropping a link to this entry I spotted on the BBC Blog: Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy which is commenting on the recent work of two notable professors who conclude that based on their surveys performed over the last decades that "America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened" and their observation is not just about last years.

Now the main question here is not about research or any other claim but the question of how it could be established at all, if our world was indeed a democracy in name and a corporate oligarchy in practice. Who would you ask? Who would you read? How would you reason it out?

[jupiviv]

Also relevant, from the aforementioned Bertram Gross' Friendly Fascism: