Trump

[Rhett]

These days i find the left more racist than the right. The left is more anti-white than the right is pro-white. The left is pushing narratives and enacting policies that are explicitly racist or have a race effect. They are unfairly criticising, threatening, attacking, and undermining white people, because they are white.

I like a certain amount of multiculturalism, i find it fascinating meeting people from overseas, making friends, eating their food, cultural exchange, and a lot of the ones that come here are lovely people, and are integrating.

But after decades of excessive immigration and other policies, Australia has a lessened sense of identity. It has less of a culture. It no longer has a vision for the future, how we are going to make it better. People arent as invested in it anymore. If it goes bad or gets worse people will just move elsewhere. It is becoming a staging ground. A commodity. A piece of dirt.

People have retracted towards focusing on their own sphere and not caring about its totality. Politicians arent expressing vision for our future, and people arent voting for the minor parties that do have a vision. Politicians have become more corrupt and more influenced and people arent caring enough about the country to do much about it.

Trump sees this slide in America and is trying to energise patriotism, trying to get people to care about America again. To solve the big issues.

Once a country becomes 'developed', they lack vision beyond that. Its a bit like the business world, if a business isnt growing, its shrinking. If you arent moving forward, you are moving backwards. The nation building mentality, fades into chaos.

When baby boomers entered the workforce there was an undersupply of workers. They didnt need qualifications, years of study and debt, and if the workplace conditions werent good they could easily get a job elsewhere. Unions were generally making the workplace fairer and better. People could buy a house in the suburb they grew up in, buy a car, and raise a family on a single income. People typically left home in their early 20's to forge their own identity.

Nowadays, young people have to spend years in training, often accummulating debt, staying at home longer, and then struggle to find jobs relevant to their study. The same can apply for immigrants. The business world delights itself on an oversupply of highly qualified people. Young people face flat wages, high taxation, high deposit requirements for housing, high stamp duty, and high housing prices. Its no wonder so many are giving up on the dream of house and car ownership, of having a family, and are just living for the now. A life of hook up culture, mental health issues and cheap overseas holidays that trash the environment through carbon emissions and any direct effect on the upper atmosphere.

Who is talking about this? Who is doing anything about this? More is being done to further this problematic trend. Globalism has hurt developed countries, and Australia now relies on raping its resources to balance the books.

I sound like an old grump, but this is a response to anti-nationalism, and to issues we have in Australia.

[David Quinn]

For anyone to neatly fit into the left or the right, is either a massive coincidence given the breadth of issues, or they are a sheep.

I wouldn’t describe myself as left. I’m not sure how to describe myself politically. All I know for sure is that I am anti-right.

I never used to be anti-right. I used to see the value of conservatism acting as a brake on progressive reform. Too much reform, performed too quickly, rarely works out well for society. But over the past couple of decades the right has changed beyond all recognition. It has jumped the shark and is now little more than a cesspool that trades exclusively in deception, paranoia and fear.

These days i find the left more racist than the right. The left is more anti-white than the right is pro-white. The left is pushing narratives and enacting policies that are explicitly racist or have a race effect. They are unfairly criticising, threatening, attacking, and undermining white people, because they are white.

Or it could be that they are reacting to centuries of entrenched white identity politics that oppressed and abused those who were non-white.

Trump sees this slide in America and is trying to energise patriotism, trying to get people to care about America again. To solve the big issues.

Give me a break. By far and away the biggest issue confronting us is climate change and the world-wide destruction of the environment. Yet not only has Trump dismissed this as a hoax, but he is actively promoting greater environmental destruction by rolling back environmental regulations, giving greater rights to the fossil fuel industry and obstructing the ability for climate scientists to do their work, even to the point of suppressing their freedom to speak on the subject.

“Energising patriotism” will only make matters worse, as it undercuts the ability for nations to work together to address this tremendous global threat.

The second biggest issue facing us is the hostile take over of the West by the far-right, which is being funded by sociopathic billionaires who do not care about anything except making obscene amounts of money for themselves and crushing all those who oppose them. Again, Trump is doing nothing about this; rather, he is actively facilitating it with his increasing levels of lawlessness, corruption, gaslighting and divisive rhetoric - which is no surprise, given that he is a sociopathic billionaire himself.

There seems to be no end to the levels of cognitive dissonance that infect your thinking.

Trump has been fighting back hard against the trade war that China started against the world, and it is all unquestionably a war, its not about trade per se. Trump has been on about this for a long time, and his behaviour has been consistent. There has been an increase in manufacturing jobs in America as a result. He has also made statements about Hong Kong, where pissweak, sheepish Australia has not. You praise diplomacy, but China shrugs diplomacy off, strategic steps need to be taken, and from what i have seen, the rest of the world is doing nothing, and Trump is doing a lot.

This sounds like a grovelling campaign ad. It's hard to believe that after three years of watching this shambolic presidency and knowing everything that we know about his unbounded deceitfulness and corruption, there are still people who are falling for his con.

But I guess it illustrates the sheer power of relentless propaganda, as channeled through outlets like Fox News, Breitbart and Facebook on a daily basis.

In any case, it could all be moot soon. Trump's rampant criminality is becoming so blatant that even his most ardent supporters are having difficulty defending it. It's more than possible that he will be removed from the presidency before the end of the year. Fingers crossed.

Almost all of the influential people throughout history have been Type A personalities, including Socrates, Jesus, Siddartha, Kierkegaard, Einstein, Greta. In a similar way that a woman must become a man to become enlightened, a Type B personality must become a Type A personality to become enlightened. Properly enlightened that is.

If those people are Type A personalities, then a person like Trump is Type Z.

Get a grip, Rhett.

Once a country becomes 'developed', they lack vision beyond that. Its a bit like the business world, if a business isnt growing, its shrinking. If you arent moving forward, you are moving backwards. The nation building mentality, fades into chaos.

When baby boomers entered the workforce there was an undersupply of workers. They didnt need qualifications, years of study and debt, and if the workplace conditions werent good they could easily get a job elsewhere. Unions were generally making the workplace fairer and better. People could buy a house in the suburb they grew up in, buy a car, and raise a family on a single income. People typically left home in their early 20's to forge their own identity.

Nowadays, young people have to spend years in training, often accummulating debt, staying at home longer, and then struggle to find jobs relevant to their study. The same can apply for immigrants. The business world delights itself on an oversupply of highly qualified people. Young people face flat wages, high taxation, high deposit requirements for housing, high stamp duty, and high housing prices. Its no wonder so many are giving up on the dream of house and car ownership, of having a family, and are just living for the now. A life of hook up culture, mental health issues and cheap overseas holidays that trash the environment through carbon emissions and any direct effect on the upper atmosphere.

Who is talking about this? Who is doing anything about this? More is being done to further this problematic trend. Globalism has hurt developed countries, and Australia now relies on raping its resources to balance the books.

I sound like an old grump, but this is a response to anti-nationalism, and to issues we have in Australia.

The issues you raise are valid and important. But turning to Trump and far-right nationalism is not the answer. It’s a regressive step. It is an attempt to deal with the complexities of modern life by trying to impose simplistic solutions from the mythical past.

The only way forward, in my opinion, is to encourage and educate people to create their own lives from within themselves, and not rely on crude external props like patriotism or white identity politics or fundamentalist religion.

Most people who are attracted to Trump are unwilling or unable to function independently as autonomous units. They don’t know how to cope by themselves in a complex world. They need other people to come along and make things simpler and easier for them. They are the ones who have been left behind in the 21st century and thus they are the ones who want to turn back the clock.

When I look at you, Rhett, I see someone who is consumed with fear. That’s understandable, given there is a lot to be fearful about. But I urge you to resist the urge to keep looking outwards for a Saviour to come and rescue you, but instead look within and address the root causes of this fear with reason and wisdom.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But after decades of excessive immigration and other policies, Australia has a lessened sense of identity. It has less of a culture. It no longer has a vision for the future, how we are going to make it better. People arent as invested in it anymore. If it goes bad or gets worse people will just move elsewhere. It is becoming a staging ground. A commodity. A piece of dirt.

People have retracted towards focusing on their own sphere and not caring about its totality. Politicians arent expressing vision for our future, and people arent voting for the minor parties that do have a vision. Politicians have become more corrupt and more influenced and people arent caring enough about the country to do much about it.

But are you really sure this is just caused by immigration and multicultural societies? There could be a host of other developments in modern society contributing to it. Historically immigration has also energized populations although one could object that this was usually from similar cultures.

And in any case, to become easily overpowered by outside influences, not just powerful influences are needed but also weakened receptors.

Once a country becomes 'developed', they lack vision beyond that. Its a bit like the business world, if a business isnt growing, its shrinking. If you arent moving forward, you are moving backwards. The nation building mentality, fades into chaos.

Nietzsche wrote a lot about decadent "late" societies slipping into decline. Mostly because they started believing in and doing mostly nonsense.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I wouldn’t describe myself as left. I’m not sure how to describe myself politically. All I know for sure is that I am anti-right.

That's one of the main definitions and characteristics of the "extreme left" :-)

little more than a cesspool that trades exclusively in deception, paranoia and fear.

And yet deception, paranoid, fear as well as mental health issues are rampant in all layers of society and politics. It seems your own need for simple answers to that forces you to pile it on to one problematic and also rather vague political direction?

By far and away the biggest issue confronting us is climate change and the world-wide destruction of the environment.

You mean nuclear weapons ready to be launched and destroy the planet many times over within the hour are fully accepted by now?

In any case, it could all be moot soon. Trump's rampant criminality is becoming so blatant that even his most ardent supporters are having difficulty defending it. It's more than possible that he will be removed from the presidency before the end of the year. Fingers crossed.

Nothing you predicted over the years has happened yet. Dan even tried to bet with me on six months, around two years ago. It's therefore also possible you have little grip on realities. Especially those at the other side of the globe, not even involving much your own little bubble. That said, this holds also true for me of course. But I think Europe has problems way bigger than Trump. The US is also losing importance on the European stage and globally. It's becoming close to irrelevant what they do, unless it would be some suicidal action.

Most people who are attracted to Trump are unwilling or unable to function independently as autonomous units. They don’t know how to cope by themselves in a complex world.

But what in your own life speaks for that? Have you ever been for extended periods in the middle of the insane complexities of jobs, maintaining social circles, daily travel in urban madness or excelling in science or technology? Or anything like that in recent decades?

[David Quinn]

I wouldn’t describe myself as left. I’m not sure how to describe myself politically. All I know for sure is that I am anti-right.

That's one of the main definitions and characteristics of the "extreme left" :-)

The “extreme left” also opposes pedophilia. Does my own opposition to pedophilia make me a member of the “extreme left”?

[the right is] little more than a cesspool that trades exclusively in deception, paranoia and fear.

And yet deception, paranoid, fear as well as mental health issues are rampant in all layers of society and politics.

On the contrary, those things only infiltrate *some* aspects of society. Once we get away from the right, we can encounter large swathes of society that are largely devoid of deception, paranoia and fear.

In other words, you are engaging in a false equivalency here.

False equivalency is a tactic commonly used by the right to obscure and enable Trump’s despicable behaviour. Is that why you are doing it?

By far and away the biggest issue confronting us is climate change and the world-wide destruction of the environment.

You mean nuclear weapons ready to be launched and destroy the planet many times over within the hour are fully accepted by now?

No, clearly not. In fact, this was one of the main reasons why I was alarmed at Trump being elected in the first place. Having such a vindictive and unstable man in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal only makes a nuclear holocaust all the more possible.

Your stated concerns about nuclear holocaust conflict with your support of the unstable Trump. Rhett is not the only one who suffers from cognitive dissonance, it seems.

In any case, the main difference between a possible nuclear holocaust and the looming environmental armageddon is that the former remains merely a possibility, while the latter, as long as we continue to do nothing about it, is virtually guaranteed.

In any case, it could all be moot soon. Trump's rampant criminality is becoming so blatant that even his most ardent supporters are having difficulty defending it. It's more than possible that he will be removed from the presidency before the end of the year. Fingers crossed.

Nothing you predicted over the years has happened yet.

On the contrary:

Trump attempting a hostile take-over of the US. Check
Trump becoming more feral and unhinged as time goes on. Check.
Trump engaging in multiple avenues of criminal behaviour. Check
Trump looting the American community. Check.
Trump triggering a constitutional crisis. Check.

Dan even tried to bet with me on six months, around two years ago.

Cut him some slack. While it was easy to predict what Trump would do with his presidency, it is a lot harder to quantify and predict the number of people willing to stick by Trump and continue to justify and enable his criminal behaviour. It is because of this enabling that Trump is still managing to hang on to his presidency by his fingernails.

Most people who are attracted to Trump are unwilling or unable to function independently as autonomous units. They don’t know how to cope by themselves in a complex world.

But what in your own life speaks for that? Have you ever been for extended periods in the middle of the insane complexities of jobs, maintaining social circles, daily travel in urban madness or excelling in science or technology? Or anything like that in recent decades?

I have refrained from these things by choice. How is this relevant?

[Rhett]

David,

I generally concur with Diebert's comments.

I never used to be anti-right. I used to see the value of conservatism acting as a brake on progressive reform. Too much reform, performed too quickly, rarely works out well for society. But over the past couple of decades the right has changed beyond all recognition. It has jumped the shark and is now little more than a cesspool that trades exclusively in deception, paranoia and fear.

I try not to buy into popular ideas of what is progressive and what isnt. The way forward towards greater wisdom can be a path that doesnt pay regard to the left or right.

Interestingly, i used to identify as left leaning, but having been exposed to dark cultures i can see that being tough can sometimes be the only solution, and to me the left is what has changed the most in recent time. I find the greatest level of unresearched opinion, the greatest level of anti-discussion, anti-freedom of speech, and illogic, in the left.

For example, the Australian Greens say they are for the environment, and yet they stand for excessive immigration, way beyond a stable population, which means that 60,000 to 100,000 people each year go from a lower to higher or much higher ecological footprint, causing greater carbon pollution, urban sprawl, increased pressure on our agriculture and mining, etc. The Greens are also happy for China to do our manufacturing, where there are less environmental controls.

The left is also in favour of unfettered muslim immigration, without any controls or conditions, which has increased terrorism and is creating enclaves that history has shown will emanate issues on an ongoing basis. This destabilises and reduces the quality of life of Australians, incurs large costs of detective and police work, event insurance, events are getting cancelled. The left brushes off deaths from muslim terrorism like they dont matter. We didnt have terrorism, now we do, it matters. The left has so much faith in their ideology they dont pressure muslims to remove problematic phrases from the Koran, and restructure their religion so that muslims that become suicidal for whatever reason dont try to avoid a bad afterlife by instead becoming a martyr. The left goes so far as to demonise and assault anyone that criticises Islam.

Whereas, we have minor political parties here that are genuinely for the environment. They are neither left nor right, and advocate for a sustainable population, and to rebuild our manufacturing sector.

Rhett: These days i find the left more racist than the right. The left is more anti-white than the right is pro-white. The left is pushing narratives and enacting policies that are explicitly racist or have a race effect. They are unfairly criticising, threatening, attacking, and undermining white people, because they are white.

David: Or it could be that they are reacting to centuries of entrenched white identity politics that oppressed and abused those who were non-white.

Survival of the fittest enabled us to evolve from single cell organisms to what we are today. And whites are so fit they often look after non whites and raise their standard of living beyond what they could do for themselves. Even more so, whites have now mostly eradicated survival of the fittest, for good and for bad, which means we need them to continue their wondrous efforts in the field of genetic engineering.

Trump sees this slide in America and is trying to energise patriotism, trying to get people to care about America again. To solve the big issues.

David: Give me a break. By far and away the biggest issue confronting us is climate change and the world-wide destruction of the environment. Yet not only has Trump dismissed this as a hoax, but he is actively promoting greater environmental destruction by rolling back environmental regulations, giving greater rights to the fossil fuel industry and obstructing the ability for climate scientists to do their work, even to the point of suppressing their freedom to speak on the subject.

“Energising patriotism” will only make matters worse, as it undercuts the ability for nations to work together to address this tremendous global threat.

The second biggest issue facing us is the hostile take over of the West by the far-right, which is being funded by sociopathic billionaires who do not care about anything except making obscene amounts of money for themselves and crushing all those who oppose them. Again, Trump is doing nothing about this; rather, he is actively facilitating it with his increasing levels of lawlessness, corruption, gaslighting and divisive rhetoric - which is no surprise, given that he is a sociopathic billionaire himself.

There seems to be no end to the levels of cognitive dissonance that infect your thinking.

Yes, Trump is terrible for the environment, but its better for America to not be getting its oil from the middle East, and its more important for him to be tackling China. The rest of the world can focus on the environment to make up for his deficit in that area.

Environmentalists say that the best thing people can do for the environment is to look after their home ground, their nation. You and i can make voting decisions to empower the best parties in Australia, etc, whereas its much harder for us to fix Amazonian rainforests. Do you buy 100% Australian Greenpower? How many lefties even do that?

Thats a much better approach than what the Australian Greens advocate, who on the one hand hate 4wders from shifting a bit of dirt around and people from climbing a super tough rock monolith, and yet push for urban sprawl, which represents an almost total annihilation of the local natural biosphere.

The left empowers people's faiths, their superstitions, freedom of religion they say, so where do you stand on matters of untruth?

Rhett: Trump has been fighting back hard against the trade war that China started against the world, and it is all unquestionably a war, its not about trade per se. Trump has been on about this for a long time, and his behaviour has been consistent. There has been an increase in manufacturing jobs in America as a result. He has also made statements about Hong Kong, where pissweak, sheepish Australia has not. You praise diplomacy, but China shrugs diplomacy off, strategic steps need to be taken, and from what i have seen, the rest of the world is doing nothing, and Trump is doing a lot.

David: This sounds like a grovelling campaign ad. It's hard to believe that after three years of watching this shambolic presidency and knowing everything that we know about his unbounded deceitfulness and corruption, there are still people who are falling for his con.

But I guess it illustrates the sheer power of relentless propaganda, as channeled through outlets like Fox News, Breitbart and Facebook on a daily basis.

In any case, it could all be moot soon. Trump's rampant criminality is becoming so blatant that even his most ardent supporters are having difficulty defending it. It's more than possible that he will be removed from the presidency before the end of the year. Fingers crossed.

Okay, since you have sidestepped my points above, i will consider that you concede them.

Rhett: Almost all of the influential people throughout history have been Type A personalities, including Socrates, Jesus, Siddartha, Kierkegaard, Einstein, Greta. In a similar way that a woman must become a man to become enlightened, a Type B personality must become a Type A personality to become enlightened. Properly enlightened that is.

David: If those people are Type A personalities, then a person like Trump is Type Z.

Get a grip, Rhett.

Get an education in psychology, and enlightenment.

Do you think you could handle the pressure of the US presidency? He has a massive list of faults, and yet, he is nevertheless a capable guy, and have you seen his recent speech to the UN? He showed signs of statesmanship.

How good are you at going against the flow if that is what you believe in? Trump can go against the flow. So are you similar or different in that regard?

Rhett: Once a country becomes 'developed', they lack vision beyond that. Its a bit like the business world, if a business isnt growing, its shrinking. If you arent moving forward, you are moving backwards. The nation building mentality, fades into chaos.

When baby boomers entered the workforce there was an undersupply of workers. They didnt need qualifications, years of study and debt, and if the workplace conditions werent good they could easily get a job elsewhere. Unions were generally making the workplace fairer and better. People could buy a house in the suburb they grew up in, buy a car, and raise a family on a single income. People typically left home in their early 20's to forge their own identity.

Nowadays, young people have to spend years in training, often accummulating debt, staying at home longer, and then struggle to find jobs relevant to their study. The same can apply for immigrants. The business world delights itself on an oversupply of highly qualified people. Young people face flat wages, high taxation, high deposit requirements for housing, high stamp duty, and high housing prices. Its no wonder so many are giving up on the dream of house and car ownership, of having a family, and are just living for the now. A life of hook up culture, mental health issues and cheap overseas holidays that trash the environment through carbon emissions and any direct effect on the upper atmosphere.

Who is talking about this? Who is doing anything about this? More is being done to further this problematic trend. Globalism has hurt developed countries, and Australia now relies on raping its resources to balance the books.

I sound like an old grump, but this is a response to anti-nationalism, and to issues we have in Australia.

David: The issues you raise are valid and important. But turning to Trump and far-right nationalism is not the answer. It’s a regressive step. It is an attempt to deal with the complexities of modern life by trying to impose simplistic solutions from the mythical past.

The only way forward, in my opinion, is to encourage and educate people to create their own lives from within themselves, and not rely on crude external props like patriotism or white identity politics or fundamentalist religion.

Most people who are attracted to Trump are unwilling or unable to function independently as autonomous units. They don’t know how to cope by themselves in a complex world. They need other people to come along and make things simpler and easier for them. They are the ones who have been left behind in the 21st century and thus they are the ones who want to turn back the clock.

When I look at you, Rhett, I see someone who is consumed with fear. That’s understandable, given there is a lot to be fearful about. But I urge you to resist the urge to keep looking outwards for a Saviour to come and rescue you, but instead look within and address the root causes of this fear with reason and wisdom.

My primary point with regards to Trump is that he is tackling China's aggression, tackling illegal immigration which is undermining the wages and hence living standards of Americans, fighting against excessive immigration of risky muslim immigrants, and acknowledging that globalisation has produced a lot of problems as well as solutions.

Are you aware that the UN has a large voting block of muslim nations, and a large percentage of dictatorships? Are you aware the UN has been an avenue for some crazy stuff, restrictions on freedom of speech, immigration levels, etc?

[David Quinn]

I never used to be anti-right. I used to see the value of conservatism acting as a brake on progressive reform. Too much reform, performed too quickly, rarely works out well for society. But over the past couple of decades the right has changed beyond all recognition. It has jumped the shark and is now little more than a cesspool that trades exclusively in deception, paranoia and fear.

I try not to buy into popular ideas of what is progressive and what isnt. The way forward towards greater wisdom can be a path that doesnt pay regard to the left or right.

Don’t kid yourself. It’s clear that you have become fully aligned with the far right. You haven't just dipped your toe in. You've dived right into it.

It is as though you have swallowed the whole of Brietbart and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation manifesto in one gulp, and now you are just another far right zombie clone.

I generally concur with Diebert's comments.

Shh, don’t let him hear you say that. Diebert doesn’t like to be associated with the far right. At least that's what he told me.

The left is also in favour of unfettered muslim immigration, without any controls or conditions,

This is pure nonsense. I have’t met anyone on the left who supports unfettered muslim immigration. Maybe some on the very fringes do, but it is exceedingly rare. Whoever has told you otherwise has lied to you.

There is no point in addressing any of your other points. They are all infested with the same far-right madness. Your views have obviously been arrived at through the distorting lens of Brietbart/One Nation/Alan Jones/Andrew Bolt/etc, and it has caused you to become disconnected from reality.

[Rhett]

Rhett: But after decades of excessive immigration and other policies, Australia has a lessened sense of identity. It has less of a culture. It no longer has a vision for the future, how we are going to make it better. People arent as invested in it anymore. If it goes bad or gets worse people will just move elsewhere. It is becoming a staging ground. A commodity. A piece of dirt.

People have retracted towards focusing on their own sphere and not caring about its totality. Politicians arent expressing vision for our future, and people arent voting for the minor parties that do have a vision. Politicians have become more corrupt and more influenced and people arent caring enough about the country to do much about it.

Diebert: But are you really sure this is just caused by immigration and multicultural societies? There could be a host of other developments in modern society contributing to it. Historically immigration has also energized populations although one could object that this was usually from similar cultures.

And in any case, to become easily overpowered by outside influences, not just powerful influences are needed but also weakened receptors.

The values that built Australia and keep it on a decent trajectory are built into our culture. When immigration was at sensible levels, it was clear to newcomers what our values and culture were, and there was high levels of integration. Nowadays, i would understand if immigrants said, 'What culture do you want me to integrate into?' If we end up with too many cultural differences, it sets a scene for friction, not harmony.

[Rhett]

David: I never used to be anti-right. I used to see the value of conservatism acting as a brake on progressive reform. Too much reform, performed too quickly, rarely works out well for society. But over the past couple of decades the right has changed beyond all recognition. It has jumped the shark and is now little more than a cesspool that trades exclusively in deception, paranoia and fear.

Rhett: I try not to buy into popular ideas of what is progressive and what isnt. The way forward towards greater wisdom can be a path that doesnt pay regard to the left or right.

David: Don’t kid yourself. It’s clear that you have become fully aligned with the far right. You haven't just dipped your toe in. You've dived right into it.

It is as though you have swallowed the whole of Brietbart and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation manifesto in one gulp, and now you are just another far right zombie clone.

If you had an introductory level of knowledge of politics you would see that i am 'left' on some topics, and possibly even far left on another one, or more.

You are the classic target of Jonathan Pie. I have made numerous specific arguments from all sides of politics, based on significant research and analysis, but you dont engage, instead, you falsely label me and think that means something.

What is "Brietbart"?

Rhett: The left is also in favour of unfettered muslim immigration, without any controls or conditions,....

David: This is pure nonsense. I have’t met anyone on the left who supports unfettered muslim immigration. Maybe some on the very fringes do, but it is exceedingly rare. Whoever has told you otherwise has lied to you.

Under UN obligations we are currently signed up to we are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion or faith with regards to our refugee intake. Are you aware of that?

We had a politician in Australia that spoke against muslim immigration, and he was physically assaulted by a member of the left, to great applause from the left, who turned the assailant into a celebrity guest.

David: There is no point in addressing any of your other points. They are all infested with the same far-right madness. Your views have obviously been arrived at through the distorting lens of Brietbart/One Nation/Alan Jones/Andrew Bolt/etc, and it has caused you to become disconnected from reality.

Refer above. I dont listen to Alan Jones, and who is Andrew Bolt?

I realise that my arguments are powerful, and give people that uncritically absorb mainstream media and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (government funded like the BBC) the jitters. It doesnt take too much research to start seeing how biased mainstream media is.

It seems like you are claiming to have prevailed in our discussion, by falsely labelling me, as if that means something. I remember you as a really switched on guy that i would vaguely regard as my intellectual equal, but i am struggling to believe i am actually interacting with the same person, or if you have been thumped over the head in the interim with a baseball bat. Or, more likely, you didnt inculcate wisdom enough, you didnt have enough motivation to push deep enough, and it has eaten away at you over the years. Maybe you were too attached to spreading wisdom, and the challenges and the limited rewards burnt you up.

You have achieved so much, and helped me so much. I was primed to continue my efforts in that same quest, of spreading wisdom. Except, society and fate had other desires for me. I was attacked so mercilessly by a region of people and more that i could not possibly care so much about society as to regain this cause in the intervening years. Thats extremely unfortunate but thats how the cookie can crumble. Its a shame Kevin and you had so little understanding of how to deal with a situation like that, and would perhaps be incapable of coping with it as i did. If i wasnt already dead enough, they killed a lot of the remainder, and more.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The “extreme left” also opposes pedophilia. Does my own opposition to pedophilia make me a member of the “extreme left”?

What a nonsense. Pedophilia has little to do with any political affiliation. While strong opposition to the right or fighting fascism does.

Logically, the most extreme opposition against full is empty, against white is black, against ignorance is truth. Therefore you claiming to be strongly anti-right politically means you're claiming to be very left. However the real world is not that simple of course. And I did write a smiley!

And yet deception, paranoid, fear as well as mental health issues are rampant in all layers of society and politics.

On the contrary, those things only infiltrate *some* aspects of society. Once we get away from the right, we can encounter large swathes of society that are largely devoid of deception, paranoia and fear.

... used by the right to obscure and enable Trump’s despicable behaviour (....) your support of the unstable Trump

First you subtly change the meaning of my words, leaving out especially mental health issues. Then you make some unsubstantiated claim that deception, paranoia and fear would only be rampant in some political right sphere. Then you smear by repeatedly associating me with some far away showman politician who is being accused of crime, racist and sexism. Wherever that comes from, it doesn't seem healthy or honest.

the main difference between a possible nuclear holocaust and the looming environmental armageddon is that the former remains merely a possibility, while the latter, as long as we continue to do nothing about it, is virtually guaranteed.

So you step over a guaranteed destruction of the planet including all life quite possibly, and increasingly so, right here and now while spending your energy fearing another disaster for human society in 100 years based on 95% probability that humans have caused at least half the observed warming since 1950, and "most likely" all of it (according to IPCC summary).

The point however was that humans took the chance with stockpiling, arming and aiming these weapons. In the end all the "rational" governments accepted it. The populations accepted it for the most part. We want to live under this umbrella of complete annihilation?

Perhaps it's this background pressure that is driving us all collectively insane? You might need to go back and rethink your ideas on ignorance. If everyone is doing so well with being wise, responsible and knowledgeable about the world in our enlightened media and government, needing only about 1% tuning, you are making your work look like a vanity project as it would mean it's absolutely not needed. Like we don't suffer from any great delusions, on the whole, after all!

Trump attempting a hostile take-over of the US. Check
Trump becoming more feral and unhinged as time goes on. Check.
Trump engaging in multiple avenues of criminal behaviour. Check
Trump looting the American community. Check.
Trump triggering a constitutional crisis. Check.

Your checks are mostly how your favorite media or politicians speculate on it so far. But it's not my task or wish to defend Trump. It's my task to show you haven't predicted anything noteworthy but opinion, suspicion and charges. And with you many way too fearful folks.

They don’t know how to cope by themselves in a complex world.

But what in your own life speaks for that? Have you ever been for extended periods in the middle of the insane complexities of jobs, maintaining social circles, daily travel in urban madness or excelling in science or technology? Or anything like that in recent decades?

I have refrained from these things by choice. How is this relevant?

My point is that you don't seem geared to speak about the complex world. You selected to live in an simpler, easier world. Good for you! Good to have some space for wisdom! But bad for really knowing about coping and complexity or how people individually react to that.

[Rhett]

I will catch up to any responses soon. I just want to add some recent experiences.

Yesterday, i happenned to have a chat to a woman between the age of 23 and 30. She told me that the last full time job she had was when she was 16. Since then she has been on contracts, and in recent years they have been 3 month contracts. Recently, a contract was coming to an end and despite having significant confidence she would be re-employed, she signed up to a labour hire company as a backup. It then turned out that she was re-hired into a similar job for the same organisation as what she had but through the labour hire company, for $9/hr less than her previous contract. She said that she cannot see how she could purchase property and have a family on the back of this kind of employment.

Today, i went for a jog down at my local oval. There was a sporting event happenning, with perhaps a few hundred people. There were matches of Futsal, which is a modified version of soccer. After my jog, i walked over to check it out. It was mostly children and teenagers, from african and muslim descent. I identified one white person, who was hosting the event, and maybe a couple more, not sure. The guy avoided me out of fear i might be racist, but i managed to get his attention with a bit of effort, find out what they were doing, and thanked him for bringing life to the area. I live in one of, if not the most multicultural and muslim suburbs in my city. The white guy wore a t-shirt with "One Nation" printed on it, not of the Pauline Hanson variety, the guy was paid by some government agency to run the event. So, have we now created spaces where Australians no longer feel comfortable or participate? Is this multiculturalism, one nation, or is this multiple nations in one?

[jimhaz]

The left represents too great a decline to the Last Man - it has become utterly feminine rather than working for the working class person.

They represent and support completely the weak non-disciplined 'anything goes' views of women. All the media I used to read, when I was sympathetic to the left, is now filled with feminine opinionators - they are all post-modernist gay softcocks or stupid women who have done gender studies type courses. They attack masculinity far, far too much. It has become like a communist force against masculinity.

As there are few places left for masculinity, naturally we begin to turn to the right, even though we detest those who lead such groups. We'd love to support masculine centrists, but as emotion rules the media domain due to capitalistic competition and our Pavlows dogs nature, such reasonable persons get insufficient attention, so never get the numbers.

As for Trump. I have some principles. On twitter, no one makes me angrier than his propaganda plays. He is setting up the circumstances for an avoidable world level conflict down the track. This is all because the Dems are so darn feminine and feminine is anti-conflict and anti-risk - they will do nothing to stop the anti-white, anti-masculinity and anti-working class capitalism trends that are greatly weakening the west - they'll only make it worse.

Here is an essay from some know all alpha arsehole that I enjoyed.
https://spandrell.com/2017/11/14/biological-leninism/

Twitter account about modern uni studies
https://twitter.com/realpeerreview?lang=en

[Diebert van Rhijn]

There were matches of Futsal, which is a modified version of soccer. ... So, have we now created spaces where Australians no longer feel comfortable or participate? Is this multiculturalism, one nation, or is this multiple nations in one?

For the sake of a counter argument: statistically it's perhaps not surprising since Futsal is the most popular within urban populations, as "street sport" or related to limited access to proper sport fields or clubs and (perhaps for that reason) internationally the most popular in South American and South European countries. And Indonesia too! So you might also have seen a social-economical reality? Without immigration from "darker" continents, you'd see perhaps poor fair skinned kids running behind that ball?

[jupiviv]

Logically, the most extreme opposition against full is empty, against white is black, against ignorance is truth.

Those are binaries, so extremeness is irrelevant.

And yet deception, paranoid, fear as well as mental health issues are rampant in all layers of society and politics.

In other words, you are engaging in a false equivalency here.

First you subtly change the meaning of my words, leaving out especially mental health issues. Then you make some unsubstantiated claim that deception, paranoia and fear would only be rampant in some political right sphere. Then you smear by repeatedly associating me with some far away showman politician who is being accused of crime, racist and sexism. Wherever that comes from, it doesn't seem healthy or honest.

David is correct about the false equivalency. In fact most your posts on these issues feature it ever since Trump won. You have nothing much to say about them but feel compelled to say something out of a sense of duty as forum elder, etc.? Kind of like David!

[jupiviv]

I never used to be anti-right. I used to see the value of conservatism acting as a brake on progressive reform. Too much reform, performed too quickly, rarely works out well for society. But over the past couple of decades the right has changed beyond all recognition. It has jumped the shark and is now little more than a cesspool that trades exclusively in deception, paranoia and fear.

I try not to buy into popular ideas of what is progressive and what isnt. The way forward towards greater wisdom can be a path that doesnt pay regard to the left or right.

Don’t kid yourself. It’s clear that you have become fully aligned with the far right. You haven't just dipped your toe in. You've dived right into it.

It is as though you have swallowed the whole of Brietbart and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation manifesto in one gulp, and now you are just another far right zombie clone.

You subscribe to a fantastical pop framework of politics where "ideas" are living entities beholden to a priori authorities like God or "the 600 year old liberal establishment" and compete for dominance of people's mind in some sort of market. That's also where the "SJW culture war" bs comes from.

In reality, the class interests of people like Rhett are increasingly threatened by the ongoing restructuring of the neoliberal world order. Since they are as deluded, myopic and selfish as the average person, they are reacting by aligning themselves with a politics that benefits them by seeking to supplant "unproductive" capitalism with a "productive" version that has them at/near the top.

That's basically what fascism is and has been historically. It's primarily a movement of middle class and declassed men that arises when the lifestyles/jobs/wimmins they feel entitled to can't be afforded by the energy-economic systems they inhabit. There were a lot of them in 1920s Germany and Italy and there are quite a few of them now (to varying degrees depending on country or zone). They aren't going away. There will likely be many more of them in a few more years. So put what wisdom you have to better use than calling this "far-right madness" for 3 years. It's the inevitable consequence of civilisations rooted in delusion.

[visheshdewan050193]

As predictable, yet another discussion unfolds in a pretty cringe worthy fashion. I thought I'd throw in my two cents, swim around in the cesspool for a bit, then excuse myself of the generic inanity involved here.

On a whimsical note, I'd like to disclose a bit of information about my background and hope to the gods that you guys won't be moronic enough to comment on its relevance or irrelevance to the thread. I'm an INTP, have parents of diverse Indian and Jewish ethnicity, and I come from a family of intellectual property technologists that has the largest single sole proprietorship firm in India dealing with thousands of independent inventors across all industries, Fortune 500 corporate clients, and other firms from over a 125 countries. Top 0.1% of national board examinations, schooled in the Indian equivalent of Philips Exeter Academy, studied EE in a top 10 worldwide program in Singapore and am currently working for Hewlett Packard Inc. (and soon Uipath). Have access to elites through my social networks that extend from the Ambanis to the sagely Edward Witten residing in IAS, Princeton (who worked for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign and published an article in the Nation arguing that the New Left had no strategy). I don't really value much of it at all, with most of my experiences and life's choices being guided with a yearning for the Infinite that began to manifest when I was about 16. I consider the work expressed here and elsewhere by men of the infinite (particularly David) to be quite incredulous and a unique development in human history, and am pretty much determined to use my resources to cultivate the wisdom he expresses and carve out a foothold for it to get further embedded in the world.

I think you guys under appreciate the role of narrative and persuasion as a polarizing and driving force for macro events. Take a look at the narrative that somebody like Andrew Yang (2020 Democratic presidential candidate) consistently drives at, centred about automation and about how his solutions address the core problem and tie into other issues that people care about, despite the myriad of nuances that he both addresses and doesn't adequately address elsewhere. He noticeably contrasts it with the narrative the Trump campaign championed (and continues to do so), and apparently it's an effective narrative evidenced by its ability to peel conservatives, independents, libertarians and progressive liberals from their affiliations (albeit on a relatively small scale).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse ... 7a0882379b
https://www.ft.com/content/dec677c0-b7e ... d1533d9a62

To me, the most pressing issues are to deal with staving of existential threats felt in the U.S. caused by dwindling real wages and economic displacement that are driven largely by transformative industrial trends, irresponsible monetary policies (a criticism voiced by Raghuram Rajan who was labeled as a 'luddite' by Lawrence Summers in 2005), and partly due to foreign fiscal debt. As for the the threat of climate change (which according to polls in the U.S., the majority of university students regard as the most pertinent issue to solve), besides a multi-pronged approach, pretty much the only option the world has is to get behind carbon capture technologies powered by renewables that can set up a recyclable carbon-neutral (or even negative emissions for a certain period) ecosystem that costs less than extracted crude and won't require the massive infrastructural changes required by industrial sectors to decarbonize. Let's not forget the fact that current renewable technologies haven't solved the technological problems associated with energy storage requirements for various sectors such as shipping or aviation. Carbon Engineering in British Columbia, Canada is setting up its first commercial plant, backed by oil interests and Gates.

to David,
I think you make your motives behind the expression of your views quite clear, notwithstanding the criticisms that Diebert and jupiviv mete out to you regarding hyperbole and simplifications of dynamic factors involved in systemic change.

to Diebert,
Besides harping about David's inadequacy of applying his wisdom to the complexities of the world, why don't you outline what systematic factors could actually aid the propagation and assimilation of wisdom in the world? As I understand it, you find the current status quo as irrelevant, neither positive nor negative, a natural emergence as a consequence of people's 'individual reactions' to the harrying forces of leading worldly lives.

to Rhett,
reading your comments all I can say is you ought to read Lee Kuan Yew's 'from Third World to First' to gain better perspective on the problems you associate with globalization, trade, and immigration.

to Jupiviv,
I find your verbosity to be intriguing. You offer interesting insights and information that showcases a breadth of literature, and yet the impressions you leave are thoroughly immemorable. After perusing through all the threads related to this topic (social justice wars, Trumpism, etc.) the only lasting impression I have about your words is you talking about the inevitable collapse of industrialized civilization, passing on lessons of its failure to future generations and how the most important thing we need to do is stop using automobiles.

[David Quinn]

As predictable, yet another discussion unfolds in a pretty cringe worthy fashion. I thought I'd throw in my two cents, swim around in the cesspool for a bit, then excuse myself of the generic inanity involved here.

Welcome to the Anglosphere! :)

The kind of cringe-inducing inanity that you refer to is what we in Australia, Britain and the US have had to endure for the past few years. Unlike you guys in India, we can't just switch off the computer and escape it.

Anglo-Saxons, particularly the older generations, particularly the baby boomers, fearing their loss of power and comfortable lifestyles in an ever-changing society, have jumped the shark and become mentally and spiritually rancid. That, I'm afraid, is the sorry truth about my race.

to David,
I think you make your motives behind the expression of your views quite clear, notwithstanding the criticisms that Diebert and jupiviv mete out to you regarding hyperbole and simplifications of dynamic factors involved in systemic change.

It's beyond the scope of an individual like me to come up with detailed plans to address something as urgent and complex as the environmental crisis. It is something that has to be tackled by all of us. We need everyone from government, business, science and the general community to be involved in changing the way we all live and consume resources. As an individual, all I can do is sound the alarm. And that's Greta Thunberg's role too, and Extinction Rebellion's. Half the population, the rancid half, is still asleep.

As for the the threat of climate change (which according to polls in the U.S., the majority of university students regard as the most pertinent issue to solve), besides a multi-pronged approach, pretty much the only option the world has is to get behind carbon capture technologies powered by renewables that can set up a recyclable carbon-neutral (or even negative emissions for a certain period) ecosystem that costs less than extracted crude and won't require the massive infrastructural changes required by industrial sectors to decarbonize. Let's not forget the fact that current renewable technologies haven't solved the technological problems associated with energy storage requirements for various sectors such as shipping or aviation. Carbon Engineering in British Columbia, Canada is setting up its first commercial plant, backed by oil interests and Gates.

It is going to have be multi-pronged, as you say. Carbon capture is just one part of the overall solution. And it's not just carbon-emissions and the consequences of climate change that have to be dealt with. It is also rampant species extinction, rapidly disappearing native forests and arable land, increasing political tensions due to dwindling resources, etc. Here in Australia, for example, we are starting to become so overwhelmed by wildfires and drought that we are having to face the possibility that the country could one day run out of water.

One of the most urgent tasks is to wean the world off of fossil fuels. Alternative green technologies are becoming more economically viable, but unfortunately too many people are still buying into the propaganda put out by the oil and coal conglomerates.

The left represents too great a decline to the Last Man - it has become utterly feminine rather than working for the working class person.

They represent and support completely the weak non-disciplined 'anything goes' views of women. All the media I used to read, when I was sympathetic to the left, is now filled with feminine opinionators - they are all post-modernist gay softcocks or stupid women who have done gender studies type courses. They attack masculinity far, far too much. It has become like a communist force against masculinity.

Hey Jim, I think that sort of concern is completely overblown. Some men seem to be freaking out over what they see as an attack on their identity as males - but from what I can see, what is actually occurring is that women are simply flexing their new-found freedoms and correcting what they see as longstanding grievances.

And who can blame women for doing this? The sort of treatment they are dishing out to men is precisely the same treatment they have had to endure for millennia. A lot of men, it seems, cannot handle the tables being turned in this way.

I just can't take this anti-feminist movement seriously, at least not in its current form. What I see is a dishonest movement being facilitated by beta-males who are looking to blame others for their own inadequacies.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Good to see you’re still alive. What has happened to Kelly Jones, do you know? I haven’t heard a peep from her in a long time.

Kelly had this amazing project of building her own ecohouse which seems to have been finalized. What a great endeavor of will and determination to follow a plan through! And also of course in tune with a strong overbearing nesting instinct, as the distinction between nature and Nature seems to be not very clear but nevertheless, as if she was looking to awaken, as well, to her hormonal nature? From her own website biography the following:

in 2017, I found it necessary to deal with deeper psychological blockages by choosing no longer to be celibate, and to explore sex and intimate relationships again. I have found my life has taken some new turnings, but the underlying purpose remains unchanged. My purpose in life is to help people awaken to Nature.

In any case, I'd never argue with people building their own house and being self-sufficient in terms of so many practical aspects. Great stuff.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

In fact most your posts on these issues feature it ever since Trump won. You have nothing much to say about them but feel compelled to say something out of a sense of duty as forum elder, etc.? Kind of like David!

Understanding and accepting the fact, reported across the Western world, that deception, paranoia, fear as well as mental health issues are rampant in all layers of society would be a good start. In any case, I'd rather say something out of a sense of elderly duty than rambling largely incoherent and forcefully oppositional as some young snapper who has a hard time defining himself, let alone anything else.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

As predictable, yet another discussion unfolds in a pretty cringe worthy fashion. I thought I'd throw in my two cents, swim around in the cesspool for a bit, then excuse myself of the generic inanity involved here.

It's nice to see you diving in! You have a lot to say actually and it's sometimes good to see what happens in a cesspool with ones philosophies, being it a philosophical topic or not. No need to display elitism, life is not about being clean or aloof, ultimately, as that's only the dream.

Besides harping about David's inadequacy of applying his wisdom to the complexities of the world, why don't you outline what systematic factors could actually aid the propagation and assimilation of wisdom in the world? As I understand it, you find the current status quo as irrelevant, neither positive nor negative, a natural emergence as a consequence of people's 'individual reactions' to the harrying forces of leading worldly lives.

Notwithstanding your white-knighting of the old cranky dame, you have jumped over the crucial parts to get there. It was David "accusing" the whole "right wing" of being unable to apply anything or cope with the complexities of the world. And this seemed something to be challenged, as it comes from someone who seems to have created the most gentle, simple, unconfrontational life imaginable in terms of practical demands.

But to answer your question, I don't need to outline systematic factors which help to spread the wisdom. It's not an academic course for the elites. The discussion you step in here has deeper roots, revolving around the question if one can load ultimate wisdom in a proverbial gun barrel and shoot conclusions at the political world, picking sides, praising one approach and demonizing the other in the most definite terms. And I'm with Kevin and others, to call this the improper, even delusional way to approach it. In some ways it's destructive towards one own wisdom and understanding, no matter what was achieved in the past. All we have are opinions on things that much steeped in causality, our opinions being part of those causes.

Now I hope you'll understand the deeper motives in the strong oppositional here, at least for me. Even when I'm sounding to some partially supportive of some "right" or fascinated by Trump's character, it's only a prodding stick into delusions forming elsewhere. There is no enlightenment in politics, no particular science either when it comes to making decision on the fate of millions, their economy, their minds, their hopes or dreams. This is because enlightenment, any ounce of it would take it all away in a blink of an eye. And certainly the ultimate doesn't care about anyone's prosperity or success. Wisdom cares about wisdom and realizes that any human scheming might build himself a house or maybe a religion but the spirit will never be really captured or passed on with those means. Wisdom so easily becomes a kind of ghost of the past, dwelling in the ruins of the now, only showing vague similarity but caught in some endless loop of memory, need and desire.

[David Quinn]

What a nonsense. Pedophilia has little to do with any political affiliation. While strong opposition to the right or fighting fascism does.

It’s interesting how the word “political” is often used to cover up a multitude of sins.

A group of people could be engaging in the most despicable behaviour imaginable - conning others, bullshitting them, confusing them with double-talk, demonizing them, slandering them, turning them into scapegoats, looting them, jailing them, separating their children from them and throwing them into cages, and so on - but as long they do it in the name of "politics" it is somehow deemed to be legitimate and acceptable. It's just another branch of politics, on a par with any other kind of political behaviour.

Well, sorry, I don’t accept that. I don’t support your repeated attempts to create false equivalencies and dissolve all ethical boundaries. I continue to maintain that what the right is doing nowadays is virtually indistinguishable from the physical and mental abuse of children.

Logically, the most extreme opposition against full is empty, against white is black, against ignorance is truth. Therefore you claiming to be strongly anti-right politically means you're claiming to be very left.

And so by this logic, does my opposition to pedophilia mean that I have a sexual fetish for grandmothers? Or corpses?

It's true that if a person is anti-right these days it could mean that he is part of the extreme left. Or it could just mean that he values wisdom and sanity.

And yet deception, paranoid, fear as well as mental health issues are rampant in all layers of society and politics.

On the contrary, those things only infiltrate *some* aspects of society. Once we get away from the right, we can encounter large swathes of society that are largely devoid of deception, paranoia and fear.

First you subtly change the meaning of my words, leaving out especially mental health issues. Then you make some unsubstantiated claim that deception, paranoia and fear would only be rampant in some political right sphere. Then you smear with associating with some far away showman politician, accused of crime, racist and sexism. Whatever that comes from, it doesn't seem healthy or honest.

If you can point me to an area of the right-wing universe that is not dominated by deception, paranoia and fear, please do so. I haven't come across any such area thus far.

Incidentally, I was amused by the way you referred to Trump as “some far away showman politician”. For years you have been openly supporting and cheering this vile scumbag, despite the fact that his behaviour has been openly deceitful and corrupt, and yet suddenly now you can’t even say his name. This made me chuckle.

the main difference between a possible nuclear holocaust and the looming environmental armageddon is that the former remains merely a possibility, while the latter, as long as we continue to do nothing about it, is virtually guaranteed.

So you step over a guaranteed destruction of the planet including all life this year and spend your energy fearing another disaster for human society in 100 years based on 95% probability that humans have caused at least half the observed warming since 1950, and "most likely" all of it.

I know English isn't your first language, but even so - what you say here doesn't make much sense. If the destruction of all life is guaranteed this year, then it means that we all have, at most, only two-and-a-half months to live. I don't think you meant to say this, but then again, what did you actually mean? It's difficult to fashion any other interpretation that makes sense.

In any case, it seems that more and more scientists are coming to the conclusion that our climate and environmental troubles are far worse than they seemed even only a years ago - that global temperatures, the melting of the polar ice caps, the rates of deforestation and species extinction, etc, are accelerating at an increasingly faster rate.

For example, New Climate Models Predict A Warming Surge and New Report Warns Planet May Be Warming Twice as Fast as Expected.

The biggest fear is the emergence of runaway feedback loops that could exponentially spiral out of control - a major example being the release of large quantities of methane currently trapped in the melting polar ice caps, triggering a spiral of ever-increasing temperatures. If that sort of thing were to happen, we could well be doomed. Forget about what may or may not happen in a 100 years' time. The extinction of all life could happen in our own lifetimes.

The point however was that humans took the chance with stockpiling, arming and aiming these weapons. In the end all the "rational" governemnts accepted it. The population accepted it. We want to live under this umbrella of complete annihilation.

Perhaps it's this background pressure that is driving us all collectively insane.

More false equivalency. “It’s not just me who is insane. We are all insane.”

I'm finding your fixation on nuclear annihilation to be of interest. Clearly, this has been a deep concern of yours for decades. I remember being concerned about it myself back in the eighties, particularly during the Reagan/Thatcher era. But I am wondering if this fixation goes to the heart of your positive attitude towards Trump and why you have been cheering on the prospect of his tearing down the whole system - and even further, why you constantly engage in the delusion of false equivalencies in order to eliminate all ethical boundaries.

When a person finds life to be beyond his control, he can become overwhelmed with stress - and in an attempt to regain a feeling of being in control, he can take try to charge of his own helplessness by actively willing his own self-destruction.

It is a bit like how a mentally-ill person suffering from self-loathing and anxiety might start to cut his arms or legs. He can't control the pain that life meters out to him, but he can gain some feeling of control by deliberately hurting himself. That way he can entertain the illusion that he is in charge of the pain.

The more extreme version of this, of course, is suicide. I'm wondering if your cheering on the destruction of the West, and even the destruction of civilization itself, is a way for you wrestle back a feeling of control of a dangerous situation that has long frightened you.

Anyway, it's just a thought.

You need to go back and rethink your ideas on ignorance. If everyone is doing so well with being wise, responsibly and knowledgeable about the world in our enlightened governments, and they only need that 1% tuning, you are making a fool of your own work. It would mean it's absolutely not needed. It's all going fine. We don't suffer great delusions, after all!

Except that I am not arguing that.

In acknowledging that significant realms of (non-right) society are largely devoid of deception, paranoia and fear, I am not asserting that those who inhabit these realms are enlightened philosophers or near-Buddhas.

Take the scientific community, for example. As a whole, it is largely devoid of deception, paranoia and fear. Its inhabitants understand the scientific method and know how to assess evidence in a rational manner. It doesn’t mean that they have pushed their rationality into their whole lives and eliminated all of their philosophic delusions. But it does mean that they refrain from the kind of bogus theorizing and slandering of others that seems to inundate the whole right-wing universe.

Have a look at the recent deposition statement by Marie Yovanovitch. She’s not a Buddha, but she is clear-headed, scientifically-minded and professional, and her heart is relatively pure. This alone makes her stand out in sharp contrast from the right-wing crowd.

[visheshdewan050193]

The kind of cringe-inducing inanity that you refer to is what we in Australia, Britain and the US have had to endure for the past few years. Unlike you guys in India, we can't just switch off the computer and escape it.

Well I'm actually based in Singapore, and it's pretty much affected by whatever happens in the Western Bloc and the East, so you're pretty much inundated with developments everywhere you go. I was chilling in a pub a stone's throw away from where Trump and Kim were probably basking in their hotel room tub baths or whatever when they were in Singapore for their summit meeting. And lol we're actually suing Trump in India on behalf of a client :)

it's nice to see you diving in! You have a lot to say actually and it's sometimes good to see what happens in a cesspool with ones philosophies, being it a philosophical topic or not. No need to display elitism, life is not about being clean or aloof, ultimately, as that's only the dream.

Hehe yeah don't mind me, I just felt like pissing about a little in the thread to make it feel more homely. I don't mind being called out for 'white knighting' Doomsayer Davie, but according to me (and I brought this up with Avolith whose cognitive orientation interests me to engage in extensive conversation with), David's probably reacting against the ethos and pathos employed in Trump's (and generally the right wing's) narrative rather than specific policymaking, and deems it to weigh more in negative repercussions for society in general. Democracies are shaped and driven by narratives of specific ethos and pathos much more than impassionate appraisals of policy proposals (just take a look at the 2019 election results in India), and while the ethos/pathos might be directed towards specific policies, for the everyday Joe in reality it just ends up spilling over and informing virtually every aspect of one's perspective on day to day living.

Trump's narratives on say immigration, trade loss to China, etc. play directly into cultivating a mentality of scarcity (which is partly reflected by economic dynamics on the ground). There have been studies that suggest cultivation of such a mentality leads to a cognitive diminishment which is equivalent to a loss of 13 IQ points (a whole standard deviation) (link: https://twitter.com/andrewyang/status/1 ... 68?lang=en). And you end up funneling whatever cognitive bandwidth that remains coupled with smoldering reserves of masculine intention into banal half baked solutions that at best end up being ineffective. How is this any good with enabling people to deal with complex issues such as economic transformation and climate change, and even about managing their own mental health, dreams and aspirations, and wisdom?

I personally don't share the extent of David's aversion to the idiosyncrasies of the conservative right. I've learnt interesting tidbits of relevant psychology from those affiliated to conservatives, and I draw inspiration from artistic themes in placing their relevance in society ( a process that is rather immature for now, but while continue to get refined over the course of my lifetime). I suspect David's particularly sensitive to issues regarding ethos/pathos, as evidenced by his position on say, Vladimir Putin. For example, I view Putin's foreign policies such as Crimea's annexation, intervention in Syria, and development of nuclear arms that countered developments in anti-ballistic missile shields and the U.S. unilaterally co-opting of their Cold War era nuclear pact as reasonable grounded measures reflecting geopolitical realities. David's succinct position on Putin was (at least at the time this was brought up) that he's somebody who ought to have a bullet put through his head.

So, quoting Yang, it's better to see Trump as a symptom and not the core problem (and clutch at whatever straws one can grasp to drive a powerful counter narrative to the one Trump uses, as Yang is doing). Sure, he feeds the pathos the way it fed him, which makes him problematic, but it can hardly be all pinned on him.

[Pam Seeback]

David to Diebert: I'm finding your fixation on nuclear annihilation to be of interest. Clearly, this has been a deep concern of yours for decades. I remember being concerned about it myself back in the eighties, particularly during the Reagan/Thatcher era. But I am wondering if this fixation goes to the heart of your positive attitude towards Trump and why you have been cheering on the prospect of his tearing down the whole system - and even further, why you constantly engage in the delusion of false equivalencies in order to eliminate all ethical boundaries.

When a person finds life to be beyond his control, he can become overwhelmed with stress - and in an attempt to regain a feeling of being in control, he can take try to charge of his own helplessness by actively willing his own self-destruction.

The first thing that came to mind on reading the above is that willing self-destruction is a necessary component of experiencing enlightenment. To give oneself completely over to what it 'feels like' not to exist (not to have thoughts), which of course, is also to experience annihilation of all ethical boundaries. And once 'over' and return to self-formation happens (as it must), there is no going back to the old way of boundary defense, ethical or otherwise, how can there be? To have tasted the nothingness of self in concert with its ever-present restless desire to appear as something is to taste the core reason or cause of every finite view and in doing so, to realize the value every view plays in the 'game' of the finite appearance of the infinite. A radical transformation of perspective wherein one could logically reason why the appearance of Trump is as necessary as is the appearance of a rock or a rocket scientist.

Of course, I have no way of knowing if Diebert is unconsciously or consciously alluding to philosophical (conscious/temporary) suicide when he refers to nuclear annihilation or if his apparent desire to eliminate all ethical boundaries is related to the experience of the eternally restless spirit of appearance, but I do believe he has mentioned such ideas in the past.

In a nutshell, to see the right and the left (and everything in between) from the perspective of the infinite perceiving itself finitely is to cease being for or against any one perspective, except of course, that of the restless spirit of appearance. To be sure, a frustrating perspective from the perspective being against a particular finite perspective, i.e., being against the alt-right or the alt-left or being for or against Trump, but of course, from the perspective of the one who has experienced the 'seat' of desire 'to be', such frustration is viewed as being the very fuel for letting go of finite view-attachment.

Having said this, I do agree with something you alluded to in a previous post, that those of leftist leanings are more likely to step into the philosophical arena (and perhaps go as far as to experience self-annihilation/awareness of the eternal spirit of life), mostly because their values hinge on ideals of boundary-dropping/merging.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

G'day David!

Any update on geniusrealms or your new chapter of the Wisdom of the Infinite? I'm asking about the first because I think, as some people have commented on as well, that some good source disappeared overnight. In a world where everything already is so dispensable and throw-away, I'd have rather seen this ongoing on its original location or something related. If you'd only had asked, I could host any site for free!

I don’t support your repeated attempts to create false equivalencies and dissolve all ethical boundaries. I continue to maintain that what the right is doing nowadays is virtually indistinguishable from the physical and mental abuse of children.

And is that why you introduced pedophilia into the discussion, rather out of the blue, somehow suggesting that your statement of being anti-right was meant as equally non-political? And using that event to argue that the other seems like dissolving ethical boundaries? The question is if you're still reasonable here at all since you're now calling the whole "right" child abusers. Whatever that "right" exactly consists of.

Perhaps all wise people are child abusers too, as they are often teaching things all the ignorant folks, like children, don't have appetite for and shut their ears, act distracted and rather keep running around in their own nonsense.

It's true that if a person is anti-right these days it could mean that he is part of the extreme left. Or it could just mean that he values wisdom and sanity.

You're entering a discussion on political orientations defining your self "for sure" as being anti-right and at the same time saying you were not sure how to describe yourself politically. But nearly everything else you write would sit comfortably in a typical left spectrum. That you are not sure how to describe yourself is mainly because you've shown at times not to be very educated on traditionally left or right ideologies. And to be fair, many people are mixing and matching. For example, I'm myself completely anti-nationalist which would make me extreme left in some ways and certainly incompatible with 95% of people on the right who believe in nation, fatherland and those borders. However being "anti-right" is a vague, unusable and contradicting position to take in combination with not being sure how to describe your own politics. It's basically impossible to defend.

If the destruction of all life is guaranteed this year, then it means that we all have, at most, only two-and-a-half months to live. I don't think you meant to say this, but then again, what did you actually mean? It's difficult to fashion any other interpretation that makes sense.

That phrase was edited out not long after I posted as it was unclear. It reads now: So you step over a guaranteed destruction of the planet including all life quite possibly, and increasingly so, right here and now while spending your energy fearing another disaster for human society.

In any case, it seems that more and more scientists are coming to the conclusion that our climate and environmental troubles are far worse than they seemed even only a years ago - that global temperatures, the melting of the polar ice caps, the rates of deforestation and species extinction, etc, are accelerating at an increasingly faster rate.

Okay perhaps I've to spell it out more slowly.

The reason I introduced the topic of nuclear threats was precisely because scientists, experts, thought leaders, authors, activists and major politicians all warned for the near inevitable destruction this race to the bottom could ultimately deliver. The risk was just too big.

Although the race slowed down with some treaties, recently more deadly, powerful and fast nuclear delivery mechanisms are being built, tested and pointed again at each other from even closer distances. But never mind all that, we're used to it? Lets talk about another big urgent danger!

It's even possible that rapidly changing energy supplies to "save' this world would be just as destructive and dangerous as building nuclear arms to counter some enemy. Another giant technical project to save the world again. while it's technology, large populations and modification of the surface which have been the major, obvious causes. And birth control is another thing that could solve the climate issue today if people wanted it but they prefer parks of high-tech turbines, panels, nuclear technology and more and more transforming elements with large unknowns and question marks attached, as the actual engineers and scientists deploying them are indicating. You never wonder where this might come from? As philosopher, like, you know, why not ask the tough questions, going against the holy cows of "progress", the "children" and "peace on earth"?

The extinction of all life could happen in our own lifetimes.

It matters nothing if timeless wisdom would be gained. We can postpone extinction for how long? The next Ice Age, collapse of our sun, the heat death of the universe. Why not be excited that you can witness the end of life in your lifetime? Of course I'm just challenging your faith here, not preaching my own as I don't have any left of that type.

Perhaps it's this background pressure that is driving us all collectively insane.

More false equivalency. “It’s not just me who is insane. We are all insane.”

First of all the word "perhaps" contradicts the notion of any "equivalence". Elementary!
Secondly you are paraphrasing me rather wildly, as I was theorizing that the fear for the end (eg nuclear, climate, Armageddon) was driving our emotions and fueling ignorance. Which is a fair position and I'm willing to explain further if you'd take a moment to actually read instead of feeling and assuming things.

I'm finding your fixation on nuclear annihilation to be of interest. Clearly, this has been a deep concern of yours for decades.

Where did I say it was my concern or for decades? The funny part is that you continue talking about your actual decades old concern:

I remember being concerned about it myself back in the eighties, particularly during the Reagan/Thatcher era.

Slowly again my question: when did it stop being a concern and why? The idea was to let you think, not worry even more! :-)

I'm wondering if your cheering on the destruction of the West, and even the destruction of civilization itself, is a way for you wrestle back a feeling of control of a dangerous situation that has long frightened you.

Anyway, it's just a thought.

Not sure about "cheering" on anything, that must be how you perceive my refusal to fear all the big danger, fix it, prevent it and so on.

My overall writing has been about the destruction of meaning, about words still connecting to actual realities. And yes, I do see this destruction as already having happened (like with Nietzsche's death of God). And I'm not here to convince anyone either. But I'm amazed about what many "late" people of these times have chosen to believe, to embrace, to collectively preach. Left and right I've to add (although you might feel compelled glossing over that). And I provide some challenges and predict and register all the responses. Luckily there are still some who understand effortlessly what I talk about here as it's being discovered the moment one stops being attached, emotional or invested in anything, least of all oneself.

In acknowledging that significant realms of (non-right) society are largely devoid of deception, paranoia and fear, I am not asserting that those who inhabit these realms are enlightened philosophers or near-Buddhas.

You are just inventing false distinctions between "somewhat ignorant" and "fully ignorant". As if you can portion enlightenment like a musical talent or physical dimensions of our body. It's almost like the esthetic version of enlightenment. It has little to do anymore with spirit or genius.

Take the scientific community, for example. ... they refrain from the kind of bogus theorizing and slandering of others that seems to inundate the whole right-wing universe.

Well, I've worked inside that community most of my working life and here you are, never been part of that community and not refraining from "bogus theorizing" and "slandering others", especially anyone who has betrayed your left-leaning worldview or doubts your rightful anger about the ignorance of the right. It's funny how that goes. You really don't see it, right? That you've no actual position left?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Of course, I have no way of knowing if Diebert is unconsciously or consciously alluding to philosophical (conscious/temporary) suicide when he refers to nuclear annihilation or if his apparent desire to eliminate all ethical boundaries is related to the experience of the eternally restless spirit of appearance, but I do believe he has mentioned such ideas in the past.

Wasn't it clear I was deliberately referring to nuclear annihilation, like a whole generation before did, as evidence of the suicidal tendencies we collectively display? It's pretty mainstream: the Will to an End has been explored by Nietzsche, Freud and many others when analyzing the human psyche. It's something I assume the philosophically inclined know all about and not somehow translate this to my own inventions or desires.

Having said this, I do agree with something you alluded to in a previous post, that those of leftist leanings are more likely to step into the philosophical arena (and perhaps go as far as to experience self-annihilation/awareness of the eternal spirit of life), mostly because their values hinge on ideals of boundary-dropping/merging.

Escapism, rejecting reality, drives the sentient being into action and yet the same motive becomes the largest obstacle when there's nothing left to merge with. Luckily death can be merciful that way. But more commonly anesthesia is deployed and I fully understand that need.