| Practical Philosophy » Liberty and regulation » 10/24/2018 2:25 pm |
- seigneur
- Replies: 41
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FZM wrote:I don't think they exist in the US. And it is more like a certain level of concern than outrage, though some might be outraged.
It's actually outspoken outrage there, and part of regular political action too
If it's not in law and not discussed in legislature, then the fact that there are political activists preemptively outraged over it is in itself quite outrageous. Such "level of concern" is just nuts.
Those people tend to proudly think of themselves as living in the freest country in the world. And what do they do with their freedom? They label their own government "communist" and campaign against it. Under communism you would not be able to campaign like this, duh, so if your target is communism, your government is not that. If your target is your government, find a more suitable label to describe your grievances. But I guess you have the freedom to do and say whatever nonsense gets in your heads so that's exactly what you do...
| Chit-Chat » How Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price prove convertibility » 10/24/2018 9:27 am |
- seigneur
- Replies: 15
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FZM wrote:
The point was, what does the Soviet experience tell us about the idea that Atheism=Leftism=Goodness?
In the framework of modern Western discourse, nothing about Soviet experience tells anything about Atheism=Leftism=Goodness. Atheism=Leftism=Goodness is a myth, both when rightists propose it and when leftists do.
Besides, who of New Atheists is/was a leftist in the first place?
| Chit-Chat » How Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price prove convertibility » 10/24/2018 9:22 am |
- seigneur
- Replies: 15
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FZM wrote:
The Soviets didn't promote bourgeois nationalism, but the brotherhood of all socialist peoples.
Since most countries were bourgeois, there was not much socialist brotherhood to be had. They were left with plain old nationalism. Moreover, socialist countries did not tend to naturally attract each other. For example, Mao and Stalin did not create a brotherly unified proletarian country. Instead, like any two dictators who happen to live next to each other, they fortified their shared borders. Straightforward nationalism all the way. (Looking at the actions, not the words. Never trust a politician's word, even when his ideology may seem coherent or sympathetic.)
FZM wrote:Soviet ideology didn't promote bourgeois family values, but socialist family values rooted in proletarian and peasant culture.
And those proletarian and peasant families were exact same as bourgeois families - mother, father, children, get an education and go to work to earn your living, get married and make babies like your own parents did, etc. Can you point out any difference at all?
FZM wrote:Stalin's personality cult was partly based on the idea that he was a political genius guiding social revolution and social transformation. Part of which was major religious persecution because religious and theistic belief were considered social and moral evils.
It's a common mistake to think that, since Stalin destroyed churches and persecuted the clergy, his personality cult was not religious. Each and every established religion in history aimed to root out other religions and kill off heretics. The anti-clergy persecution confirms that Stalin's personality cult was religious. And all the specifics are there, he was to be called "the father of nations", "the sun and life", etc. like any old Roman emperor.
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You know that Roman emperors were deified and worshipped, right? The fact that, prior to Constantine, the emperors were anti-Christian, does not make their
| Practical Philosophy » Liberty and regulation » 10/24/2018 9:00 am |
- seigneur
- Replies: 41
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FZM wrote:
It is likely to produce more comment in the UK, US, Anglo-Saxon countries because it runs contrary to the general political tradition to have formal laws like this, outside of wartime.
To summarize, the situation is as follows. Anglo-Saxon world is scared and outraged because of anti-hate speech laws due to their expected effects and because it goes against the political tradition. At the same time, the rest of the world is calm and the claimed effects are not there.
Possible reasons.
(A) Such laws are being effected only in the Anglo-Saxon world and not elsewhere.
(B) Such laws do not have the alleged effects.
(C) Such laws do not even exist, except in the minds of scaremongerers.
(A) is unlikely because, as you said, it runs against the general tradition. Also, it is unlikely that communists are taking over the government only in Anglo-Saxon world and not elsewhere (Are Macron and Merkel Marxist leftist liberals by any stretch of the imagination? How can anyone in the US say "Liberals are taking over the government!" when Trump is the president?). I personally lean towards (B). I would even assert (C) to the extent that some people tend to overestimate the impact of particular laws in society.
For example, in countries where gay marriage is legal, gay marriages are not any more rampant than before such law was put in place. (This does not make gay marriage right or correct or defensible. It just shows that the particular law does not suddenly worsen the general state of morality with regard to marriage, even though it of course does not improve anything either. More than half of children in the Western world are born outside marriage; it's pretty hard to make this situation any worse than it already is.)FZM wrote:It is very strange to me to think that in a part of the former Czarist Empire/USSR, 'Europe's Last Dictatorship', there is a higher level of freedom of speech about any subject than in Great Britain. I wouldn't have expe
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| Chit-Chat » How Richard Carrier and Robert M. Price prove convertibility » 10/24/2018 5:44 am |
- seigneur
- Replies: 15
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FZM wrote:
The success of some spin campaign that the Soviets weren't really left wingers at all but were in fact 'religious' types?
Let's look at some objective criteria:
Soviet ideology promoted nationalism. Check.
Soviet ideology promoted family values. Check.
Stalin's personality cult with singing hymns and praises to his name, and referring back to him with reverence and devotion on every little local party meeting. Check.
These are conservative and religious values, are they not? Of course, everything is not so black and white all the time. There are at least three or four eras in Soviet history:
1. Lenin's era, experimental anarchism and trying to hold power in the midst of civil war.
2. Stalin's era, establishing the state on slave work, suppression of dissent, and personality cult. "Socialist Realism" was made mainstream in arts and Stalinist Classicism in architecture.
3. Brezhnev's era, abolition of cultist aspects of state ideology, toning down monumentalism in arts, reasonably well managed (compared to the other eras) economic stability/stagnation with regular near-equal salaries for everyone.
4. Gorbachev, whose attempts to reform broke everything beyond repair.
Ideally, one would identify which phase or aspect of Sovietism one is talking about. Sovietism = Bad is a bit too simplistic, as is Sovietism = Left.
| Religion » Trump is a messenger of HaShem » 10/24/2018 5:06 am |
- seigneur
- Replies: 8
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Timocrates wrote:
I also really like your deliberately chosen username. Very special.
My username is a little play on my actual surname. To make an issue of it is like making an issue of Trump's surname.
| Practical Philosophy » Liberty and regulation » 10/24/2018 4:47 am |
- seigneur
- Replies: 41
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Admittedly I don't pay much attention to whining, particularly when it's the rightists whining that leftists are whining too much, so correct me if the following perception is wrong.
All the online whining about anti-hate laws occurs only in US/UK rightist circles. Somehow it is non-existent on continental Europe, even though continental Europe should be the bastion of liberal Communist Fascist SJW Marxists with vastly overshooting anti-hate laws. Can you find those laws being enacted in continental Europe in objectively objectionable ways and people protesting them?FZM wrote:In the UK the anti-hate laws are very subjectively and vaguely drawn and have the potential to be used to ban a whole range of political views if interpreted broadly. If other European countries have similarly wide ranging legislation in force this could explain how things like 'Wojack NPC' has been recently banned from Twitter.
Now, I had to google up this Wojack NPC and I got to know nothing about it. What is it? Who is it? Where from? Relevant to what, why and how?
If it's a US twitter account, then this only proves my point: All the online whining about anti-hate laws occurs only in US/UK rightist circles. Somehow US/UK is particularly hardly hit by leftist liberal commie anti-hate censorship, while continental Europe is unaffected. Why so? Why so much attack on freedom of speech in US/UK and nothing even remotely similar in continental Europe?FZM wrote:I don't know, in police states there is often very vaguely worded legislation...
No. You get much more clearly worded legislation in police states because they do not have to debate and compromise with whomever. It's just that it's often too broadly worded. Or too broadly interpreted. Or overstepped by 'special tribunals' under 'extraordinary circumstances' which tend to be the norm. Or laws are kept hidden from the public altogether. The rest of what you say is correct though.
FZM wrote:I find it incre
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| Religion » Trump is a messenger of HaShem » 10/24/2018 2:19 am |
- seigneur
- Replies: 8
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Timocrates wrote:
I don't know much about the circumstances in Yemen but I do know Trump has demonstrated an unwillingness to involve America in unnecessary conflicts. His handling of North Korea and Syria so far are strong proofs of that, in my opinion.
His handling of North Korea, Syria, Iran, and most lately of the nuclear anti-proliferation treaty with Russia are strong proofs of that Trump has no clue what gets countries in unnecessary conflicts. Moreover, he is pretty happy to stir up conflicts. In his mind, conflicts stirred up by himself are good. Conflicts that UN attempts to deal with are bad because that's UN doing it, not Trump. UN has not solved some things, therefore it can never solve anything (the same principle of course cannot apply to Trump, because there is nobody better than Trump). Conflicts that have found diplomatic solutions in the past, insofar as they are known to exist, deserve to be stirred up again because this puts Trump at the centre of the arena.
Timocrates wrote:He's also a traditional American geopolitical isolationist, an extremely radical turn from post-WWII tendencies of the United States.
He is more like a unilateralist. He loves a unipolar world with himself in the limelight and everybody else at various secondary roles.
| Practical Philosophy » Liberty and regulation » 10/24/2018 1:47 am |
- seigneur
- Replies: 41
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Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook ban certain brands of views? They are big companies who only care about profit. They do not notice anybody's views. They only censor because some expressions, such as invitations to lynch, sharing copyrighted data, and stalking, are illegal.
The way laws are currently set up, the sharing platforms are supposed to proactively counteract these activities, but since the companies are not really law enforcement, they automatize the task (because this is how engineers solve every problem) and rake rather broadly than narrowly (to be on the safe side vis-a-vis authorities).
There are other sharing platforms who really ban certain brands of views, such as Conservapedia and forums of creationists and flat earthers. They indeed ban people to suppress dissent and to let their own main ideology shine bright. Nobody asks those other platforms to do it, they do it themselves.
Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook merely follow the law, and the law requires them to proactively identify and block illegal activity. It's somewhat of a law enforcement outsourced to companies that have nothing to do with law enforcement.
If we lived in a police state, only the police would get to enforce the law - and the police would be everywhere. It would not be as free as now, but the lines of categories would be clear. However, we live in nominal liberty, so the police force is limited and, consequently, "protection of our liberties" gets outsourced left and right, blurring the categories. The principle seems to be: Capitalism is effective at taking care of business, so let it take care of this business too.
| Practical Philosophy » Why has consent become the ruling principle of ethics? » 10/16/2018 2:33 am |
- seigneur
- Replies: 9
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@Brian
Agreed, it's entirely pragmatic. Consent as the ethical principle in modern utilitarian society is not a conscious intellectual choice, but more like a fallback with the decline of objective morality.