If Mort Divine ruled the world

[CiG]

i get my news from Breitbart, the most credible source

Fingers crossed Breitbart converts you and others like Ozzman into Trumpian socialists.

It is altogether possible that one may prefer lower living standards in favor of a more humane distribution of wealth or a government procurement policy that recycles dollars taxed and borrowed back into the domestic economy.

http://www.breitbart.com/economics/...an-case-for-donald-trumps-buy-american-order/

 

[arg]

national socialism can be good under some conditions...

1. if it's in small amounts; some wealth redistribution is ok as long as it's not massively taxing the shit out of everyone
2. it's conditional and still based on meritocracy/deserving it, NOT for everybody just because they're alive; you still let the most useless die
3. only for citizens
4. a market that is relatively free but with some protections against flooding it with foreign cheap goods/labor is a reasonable thing to have

 

[CiG]

 

[Dak]

Aha, but that doesn't matter! It doesn't conflict with the system's functionality.

Ok, so attempts don't matter. That's why we don't have laws against attempted murder.

 

[rms]

I think this could be an interesting discussion on the male v female social and economic world

p.s. the obvious hypocriscy of "men don't like healthcare and gov't work" but dare we say that about women in STEM fields

and if you watch you can totally see why Maher is a complete idiot most of the time. Just said Trump is analogous to the average white man..jeebus

this chick just said she thinks there is more woman hating now than in the past..wowza

 

[Dak]

Working class men aren't getting married because it's a raw deal for them. I disagree with the whole "cooperate better" thing. Women are busy patting themselves on the back because muscle has been easier to automate than a "soft skills". Also, women are clustered more closely around the IQ mean, so as the available jobs slowly render redundant those on the lower end of the curve, it's disproportionately affected men. They should watch out: the job fields mostly responsible for the boost in female workplace success are going to experience a contraction right when those getting degrees now hit middle age (ie nursing). But I'm sure that'll be because patriarchy too.

 

[arg]

what's so funny about my post on national socialism-lite? makes total sense to me

 

[rms]

I disagree with the whole "cooperate better" thing.

I'm not sure, I think they do 'cooperate' better only because the social mindset is tailored towards bringing women in and men have to adjust to that, women are inherently that.

patrice kills it here and I agree with it

Women are busy patting themselves on the back because muscle has been easier to automate than a "soft skills".

Yeah, the labor force is increasingly becoming less and less physical dependent. Yet, patriarchy.

They should watch out: the job fields mostly responsible for the boost in female workplace success are going to experience a contraction right when those getting degrees now hit middle age (ie nursing)

I think they already are, to be a pre-K style teacher requires 4 year degree and pays like 15$ an hour around here, that's ridiculous. And at Boulder I had some chicks argue that women going to nursing/teaching was a partiarchical move to keep women paid less and it just blew my fucking mind someone thinks at that level of man

 

[Einherjar86]

Ok, so attempts don't matter. That's why we don't have laws against attempted murder.

Of course they matter, just not in any way that seriously inhibits the functionality of legal immigration.

 

[Einherjar86]

Went and saw a lecture by Henry Louis Gates today at BU. Really excellent talk and presentation.

Also just thought I'd share two specific comments he made today: a) that he's anti-PC and that the protests shutting down conservative speakers on campus disgusts him, and b) that racial inequality is both structural and behavioral.

My only point here is to suggest that if Skip fucking Gates is calling these things out, then I hope it bursts the bubble of the conservative fantasy about liberal professors who want to take your free speech and forcibly distribute your tax monies to poor black mothers with fifteen babies.

 

[Dak]

Went and saw a lecture by Henry Louis Gates today at BU. Really excellent talk and presentation.

Also just thought I'd share two specific comments he made today: a) that he's anti-PC and that the protests shutting down conservative speakers on campus disgusts him, and b) that racial inequality is both structural and behavioral.

My only point here is to suggest that if Skip fucking Gates is calling these things out, then I hope it bursts the bubble of the conservative fantasy about liberal professors who want to take your free speech and forcibly distribute your tax monies to poor black mothers with fifteen babies.

Given Gates' history with standing against the groupthink on reparations, I'm interested in more details on what he considers the "structural and behavioral" nature of racial inequality. As soon as we get into behaviors it's in the territory of psychology.

 

[Einherjar86]

I think he's admitting that psychology (and also education, importantly) are as significant as any kind of structural reparations or affirmative action. He said this while answering a question during the Q&A about reparations, so it wasn't an aspect of his talk; but that's how I understood him.

 

[arg]

it is irrevocably ingrained in poor blacks' psyche that "more babies=more welfare" and they will never break out of it. we must literally allow their babies to starve to death and no matter how many they have, no government check should come. only then will they learn and their birth rates go down. same for illegals, refugees, and impoverished nations worldwide.

 

[Dak]

I think he's admitting that psychology (and also education, importantly) are as significant as any kind of structural reparations or affirmative action. He said this while answering a question during the Q&A about reparations, so it wasn't an aspect of his talk; but that's how I understood him.

Well that's far too vague. I could 100% agree and mean something 100% different than how that would be generally understood.

 

[CiG]

My only point here is to suggest that if Skip fucking Gates is calling these things out, then I hope it bursts the bubble of the conservative fantasy about liberal professors who want to take your free speech and forcibly distribute your tax monies to poor black mothers with fifteen babies.

Probably more succinct to suggest that if it's such a big deal for liberal professors to speak out against this stuff, the left might have a problem.

 

[Einherjar86]

Yeah, we do have a problem. Conservatives keep pushing this fantasy that we're all distributionist nutjobs who don't care about free speech.

 

[CiG]

Do you realise just how many people who used to lean left-wing have been driven right by the actions of the left? That isn't just some conspiracy, it's happening in real time. To some degree it happened to me.

The amount of people I considered friends who have told me directly that free speech is just a barrier to equality that needs to go, or that freedom of speech is overrated still shocks me. They were saying this when I still considered myself to be on the left.

You guys really need to wake up, you seem to be in denial as to what's actually happening around us. I wish the left was more Hitchensian than it is Sarkeesian but that's just not the case.

 

[Einherjar86]

The leftism that's driven people to the right isn't reducible to a few people in academia. It's the result of a cultural atmosphere that has demonized conservative values. This, by and large, has not happened in the classroom; it's happened because social media has intercepted a generation of humanities-educated young professionals (or young unprofessionals, whatever) who often misuse or misapply the tools given to them. They have all the catch-phrases and all the hot-button topics and none of the critical thinking skills; after all, it's easy when you can imitate a discourse. It's much harder to actually grasp the dynamics and internal logic of a discourse.

If we need to wake up, it's to how we've failed (not me personally, of course, as I wasn't teaching then) to properly communicate the tools and concepts we teach. To be entirely honest, we don't want to teach opinions or perspectives on explicit political topics. We want to teach critical thinking skills that allow people to assess political issues and come to their own conclusions.

People like Henry Louis Gates feel the need to make these clarifications because we live in an era in which a) most conservatives see the academy as something misguided, inbred, and dangerous, and b) most incoming students have been raised in a social media environment that has taught them a nonintellectual, firebrand version of academic thought. They come in with all the buzzwords and think they're good to go, hence the Berkeley protests shutting down conservative visitors.

What really frustrates me is that this isn't denial at all! If anything, most academics are disappointed and disturbed by the current political climate and their role in it.

Well that's far too vague. I could 100% agree and mean something 100% different than how that would be generally understood.

As I said, it was in the Q&A. He didn't mention psychology at all, I'm speculating.

 

[CiG]

We want to teach critical thinking skills that allow people to assess political issues and come to their own conclusions.

I'm 100% with you here.

But I was never turned away by the left's treatment of conservatism and the right more broadly speaking but rather their treatment of others in the left. The left (it gets rather tired always framing it as left and right because the moment it's uttered, my brain fills with exceptions on all sides) has for all intents and purposes become the side of the speech codes, self-censorship, killjoyism, moralism, witch-hunting and puritanism. Especially lately they're justifying racism (dismissing it by creating the power + prejudice = racism formula) and sexism.

I don't see how this same left could be the left of Billy Connolly, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Monty Python, Salman Rushdie, the great tradition of mockery and irreverence and so on.

It's become what I grew up associating with the right. The ones who were in favour of government enforced politeness to be hyperbolic for a second here.

There are many horrible professors out there on the left, whipping up violence, bigotry and insanity and if the right dominated the education system, they'd be no different. But when the hell did the right become the side that protects free speech against pearl-clutching moralists? It's bizarro world to me.

I don't feel comfortable at all on the right, but it's a hell of a lot better than being anywhere near what the left is today and that's just me being honest. I'll take slightly bigoted patriotism over "lets tear down western civilization" any day and I think that reality and choice is not lost on many people today.

 

[Einherjar86]

I sympathize a lot with what you're saying, and I'll just offer a few (perhaps idealistic) impressions:

1. The Hicks/Carlin/Hitchens/et all left still exists, it's just not in the spotlight as much. Campus protests make for great media coverage, Dave Chappelle's newest stand-up routine... not so much (but it's hilarious).

2. There are some horrible professors, but not as many as you might think (I'm inclined to believe, anyway).

3. The left within the academia (i.e. professors and grad students, primarily) doesn't want to censor anything other than violence.

There's a problem with phrasing #3 delicately, however. For example, University of Chicago released a statement saying it doesn't believe in safe spaces. I actually agree with that statement, but I don't agree with how they phrased it, which came off as hostile and threatening. In effect, it read almost as though they were promoting unsafe spaces, as weird as that sounds.

Additionally, there is such a thing as speech intended merely to threaten/harm/etc; and on campuses today there is a legitimate concern over right-wing students who have co-opted the censorship debate in order to exercise a kind of speech that is purely inflammatory or controversial, and is intended to do nothing more than piss people off. There is a place for that kind of speech (stand-up comedy would be one platform for it), but in an academic setting it doesn't do anyone any good. So now academics are in the unenviable position of trying to reconcile the value of free speech with the value of promoting substantive/productive discourse.

There are, I'm afraid, many right-wing students complaining that their free speech is being restricted, when in fact all that's being restricted is their option to intentionally piss other people off.