Einherjar86
Active Member
That's actually part of the article I posted. He describes somewhere how white supremacist gangs target veterans for recruitment...
Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week
- Thread starter Ender Rises
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Dak
mentat
Across the entire US military, 200 in 7 years. Blowing this out of proportion is SPLCish biased sensationalism. The amount of Bloods, Crips, MS-13, etc would blow that number out of the water, if any serious attention were given to it. We had a Blood in our engineer section, and a Black Panther in my shop.
SentinelSlain
Suck my joined date.
- Nov 21, 2007
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It's just some shitty dumb British journalism.
The Guardian is basically a middle class socialist / labour party paper
so according to them, as a crude generalisation:
American = white man / racism
Gangs= the mafia, ABs, russian maffia and poor and deprived coloured people who have suffered due to institutional racism and the historical injustice of slavery
Middle class = being a bleeding heart liberal hypocrite who would live in a white area and send their kids to private school but set up a special institution to see why some white people at a lower economic level are so bigoted that whey would try and do the same
The Guardian is basically a middle class socialist / labour party paper
so according to them, as a crude generalisation:
American = white man / racism
Gangs= the mafia, ABs, russian maffia and poor and deprived coloured people who have suffered due to institutional racism and the historical injustice of slavery
Middle class = being a bleeding heart liberal hypocrite who would live in a white area and send their kids to private school but set up a special institution to see why some white people at a lower economic level are so bigoted that whey would try and do the same
Einherjar86
Active Member
Well, there have already been studies on the number of street gangs, prison gangs, and OMGs that have had members in the military.
Regardless of the "name of the gang," I think it's interesting (although entirely logical) that the military attracts gang members. Also, I would argue that inner-city street gangs revolve around a different ideological recruitment method than white supremacist gangs.
SentinelSlain
Suck my joined date.
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Einherjar86
Active Member
Dak
mentat
Absolutely, and this is where the net problem for WS gangs is: How do you make a strong national gang on a platform that partially exalts the individual? Your average street gangs have no pseudo-philosophy/ideology binding them. It's merely a question of force, and numbers generally increase force.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
I've been reading a ton of stuff on free will, determinism/indeterterminism and it's seriously blowing my mind.
I think I personally find determinism so attractive because it put's a focus on how constrained our choices really are, being so limited by one's biology, culture, etc, and I think realizing how one is influenced by these kinds of things sets you free in the sense that you can then make freer choices in light of that knowledge.
A woman I know is trying to write a paper on this stuff in Spinoza, and says she keeps getting self-conscious thinking that she sounds ridiculous and female-ish talking about the virtues of self-knowledge. I can't understand what she means by this...hm.
What are some of the thoughts here on determinism? I'm interested. esp from Ein, Dak, Zeph or whoever
I think I personally find determinism so attractive because it put's a focus on how constrained our choices really are, being so limited by one's biology, culture, etc, and I think realizing how one is influenced by these kinds of things sets you free in the sense that you can then make freer choices in light of that knowledge.
A woman I know is trying to write a paper on this stuff in Spinoza, and says she keeps getting self-conscious thinking that she sounds ridiculous and female-ish talking about the virtues of self-knowledge. I can't understand what she means by this...hm.
What are some of the thoughts here on determinism? I'm interested. esp from Ein, Dak, Zeph or whoever
Dak
mentat
Just off the cuff, I think the more you recognize were constraints and influences lie, the more free of them you are. IE: Self Awareness leads to stronger will.
monoxide_child
New Metal Member
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Einherjar86
Active Member
Who exactly are you reading? Determinism can mean lots of different things, but I've never really found it empowering...
Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
It take it you mean a strictly "materialistic" determinism that assumes every aspect of reality is ultimately reducible to calculable, particular quantities, and that their motion is theoretically predictable, and that the current limits of empiricism allow for an illusion of free will to fill the void.
I find it ironic that you connect determinism and liberation from cultural and biological constraints, when in fact you are simply mapping logical causality and necessity onto what may appear an objective historical and biological sequence but what is in reality, simply, perspective. You might as well be ascribing it all to divine providence, but your gods are atomoi rather than Athena.
I have no authority to consider how quantum physics enters into the equation, but I don't think it's relevant. Mind can never be fully separated from the object of contemplation, especially when that object is itself. It becomes what it thinks itself to be. If you treat Intellect like some computer machine, it will behave as such, but I think you will find that even programming languages can never construct a perfect random number generator.
I have no dogmatic position on determinism because my position is that most theories have their share in truth because that truth is at least partly a function of those who resolutely apply that theory (for I believe that truth is a way and not a thing). Lots of things makes sense from the right perspective, but like determinism, most of it is really just mapping arbitrary meaning onto a cosmos we know forbiddingly little about.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
Ein, I think Zeph (good stuff Zeph, as usual) pretty much summed up what type of determinism I'm leaning towards. To answer your question though, I'm not really reading any one person right now besides Spinoza. Just going through these ideas (neuroscience, quantum physics) via articles and some student papers. I'm interested in how they relate and if they (specifically neuroscience & quantum physics)can answer questions on determinism and free will.
I've noticed most most of this philosophy is very shallow, heavily swayed by rhetoric, and prone to fads. Scientism and the like tend to be very in vogue right now. I see a lot of very strident denials of free will and I notice people who actually understand and do philosophy see the very grave problems of such a view point and tend to reject it in favor of more reasonable conclusions.
I've noticed most most of this philosophy is very shallow, heavily swayed by rhetoric, and prone to fads. Scientism and the like tend to be very in vogue right now. I see a lot of very strident denials of free will and I notice people who actually understand and do philosophy see the very grave problems of such a view point and tend to reject it in favor of more reasonable conclusions.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Objects of contemplation can be thought of as separate from consciousness though, provided we establish an argument for the object in-itself.
Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
Einherjar86
Active Member
"...on the one hand, we acknowledge that the sensible only exists as a subject's relation to the world; but on the other hand, we maintain that the mathematizable properties of the object are exempt from the constraint of such a relation, and that they are effectively in the object in the way in which I conceive them, whether I am in relation with this object or not."
Dak
mentat
Einherjar86
Active Member
It is. 
I didn't see your last post Jimmy. I'm not familiar with Spinoza's work, and I'm only familiar with his ideas through other writers. I do have a large interest in both cognitive science and quantum physics though, and I'm curious about how you perceive them in relation to free will. Personally, I find cognitive science and quantum physics to be somewhat destructive for the traditional philosophic concept of "free will" (be it Cartesian, Spinozist, Lockean, Kantian, Marxist, etc.); but I don't think the devalorization of freedom, or free will, constitutes the impossibility of discussing human action. I merely think it alters the vocabulary.
I didn't see your last post Jimmy. I'm not familiar with Spinoza's work, and I'm only familiar with his ideas through other writers. I do have a large interest in both cognitive science and quantum physics though, and I'm curious about how you perceive them in relation to free will. Personally, I find cognitive science and quantum physics to be somewhat destructive for the traditional philosophic concept of "free will" (be it Cartesian, Spinozist, Lockean, Kantian, Marxist, etc.); but I don't think the devalorization of freedom, or free will, constitutes the impossibility of discussing human action. I merely think it alters the vocabulary.
Dak
mentat
I hate to suddenly change the subject in the midst of an already good topic but:
My current political conspiracy theory: The Republican Party is intentionally self destructing. Call it "Project Phoenix". I'll just copy and post my most recent post on this from another forum:
Thoughts?
My current political conspiracy theory: The Republican Party is intentionally self destructing. Call it "Project Phoenix". I'll just copy and post my most recent post on this from another forum:
Thoughts?
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
This is a subject of conversation that has come up a quite a bit recently in my circle of friends. I have one friend in particular who seems pretty dead set on the idea of determinism and free will being an illusion. That if one were to know enough about reality and nature, they could conceivably create an algorithm that would be able to determine future human interactions at a biological/neurological level and, essentially, predict the future. Whereas, given my limited knowledge of quantum physics and the idea that an electron exists in a superposition of two states until we observe it, I tend to feel that our choices actually do shape reality on some quantum level. Like, if I'm trying to decide between two shirts to wear in the morning, two respective realities of me wearing each shirt exist in a superposition of one another until I make my decision. I know I have heard of hypotheses that claim an existence of alternate realities in which our lives vary slightly based on the decisions we have made, and I suppose my idea would fall into a similar category. What I do not know, is whether or not these and similar hypotheses hold any water. So, am I justified in extrapolating this idea of quantum physics to a more macroscopic situation? Are there any concrete scientific reasons why one point of view is preferable to the other?
