Harris vs Trump;

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

Information does the rounds through this clusterfuck of piping and bad faith hijackers, that would make any plumber quit working on fixing that project and bring it all down and start from scratch. 

Appropriately, the ad that popped up when I clicked on this thread was a picture of badly damaged underground pipes.

All of that, yes. The working-class has been systematically disappeared over the last half century. It was done by a center-drifting left as well as the rightward-shifting right. It was intentional on both sides, for different reasons: the right wanted to deprive the proletariat of its solidarity; the left mistakenly assumed that everyone aspires to the middle class. That was their single greatest strategic error, failing to realize that class identity was not experienced as a tax bracket - back then.

Working people didn't understand exactly who took away their voice, their dignity and power, but they sure didn't see the Democrats acknowledging or addressing their loss. It was easy for the 'job-creators' and their lackeys to destroy livelihoods by the million and blame some nebulous elite to which they could later attach faces and names and targets.     

 

Edited yesterday at 04:29 PM by Peterkin

[CharonY]

Just my two cents. I think "lazy" is not very useful way to think about this situation, as it is not easily quantifiable and because of that, we will not know whether it is something new for this election or whether the level of laziness (whatever it may be) has been unchanged.

However, the question of inept is more interesting, and while it is pretty useless as a broad statement, it is important to look how people adapt to the onslaught of information presented to them. Even without malicious players, the democratization of information requires some skills to be able to identify reliable information. This used to be the role of news, but their role (and ability) have been diminished. Add to that broader societal changes in education and (I think) we have a serious erosion of ability to, even identify facts (much less interpret them).

The fact that there are malicious players are able to utilize it to their own benefit is, I think, just a symptom of the overall vulnerability we are facing. And so far, I have yet to see an approach beyond teaching medial literacy in school. And that does not seem to yield much benefits outside of limited tests, either. In part because the approach is still based on outdated assumptions.

The way people think about information, the desire for instantaneous answers and all the other elements are changing how we think and what what information we trust. It mirrors in a way some themes in Orwell's 1984, only that it is not governmental mandated language, but rather an emergent property of information overload.

[MSC]

Uhhhhh so many errors reading that back to myself and was too busy to edit quick enough. Profit, power and/or sex was the thing I messed up before I went on to Nick Fuentes... That guy certainly isn't doing what he does for sex though because it's a losing strategy to be king incel. Unless he's aiming for some extreme dictatorship where women are forced to be with a husband after a certain age. 

Edited yesterday at 04:52 PM by MSC
Technical difficulties

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

it's less than they have become eroded but have been hijacked and also multiplied exponentially over the years, not just of new pipelines but reservoirs and filters of varying levels of pollution.

I should clarify, with eroded I don't meant that they are lost per se. But they do not function as expected, i.e. inform and calibrate folks to a common baseline of reality. As I mentioned, I think even without hijacking, we would run into at least similar issues as we do not have mechanisms to deal with a couple elements. a) oversupply of information (in the broadest terms, includes cat videos), b) constant distraction by algorithms and related mechanisms, diminishing the time spent on sifting through the presented information, potentially related to that, c) diminishing role of folks trusted to sift through that and present a coherent analysis with explanation.

Folks increasingly are not willing or able to read longer articles (much less, books) and even have not the patience (nor do they expect) folks to explain why certain conclusions are wrong or not, even things are even slightly complicated. The latter was always an issue with the broader populace, but the attention span has even further diminished. Also, the conventional wisdom to simplify things for e.g. science reporting has now become a liability.

[MSC]

6 minutes ago, CharonY said:

a) oversupply of information (in the broadest terms, includes cat videos), b) constant distraction by algorithms and related mechanisms, diminishing the time spent on sifting through the presented information, potentially related to that, c) diminishing role of folks trusted to sift through that and present a coherent analysis with explanation.

Additionally to B; applied consumer psychology, in hardware and software design made to cultivate addiction and dependency. It's not just how much more is our there but how much more people are consuming and how much they have started to rely on and solidify their attachments to some sources of information over others.

[CharonY]

1 minute ago, MSC said:

Additionally to B; applied consumer psychology, in hardware and software design made to cultivate addiction and dependency. It's not just how much more is our there but how much more people are consuming and how much they have started to rely on and solidify their attachments to some sources of information over others.

I think both element amplify each other. If one stream does not entertain you, there are other sources to get your dopamine kick. And the algorithm makes sure to feed you from the well. I think it is also not necessarily specific sources that are an issue in isolation, but more that folks get access to virtually the same thing but from different directions, that solidifies their assumptions.

Also, folks are strangely willing to scroll for a long time until they find something for their kick. But unwilling to spend a fraction of that time doing an assignment. Anything to avoid thinking.

[geordief]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

the left mistakenly assumed that everyone aspires to the middle class. That was their single greatest strategic error, failing to realize that class identity was not experienced as a tax bracket - back then

Are you talking about Canada?

I am not sure I follow your point.

You don't think the "working class" seek to better their economic situation?

That they remain "working class" even when they succeed in this?

Are you talking about their self image ?

 

 

[iNow]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

It mirrors in a way some themes in Orwell's 1984, only that it is not governmental mandated language, but rather an emergent property of information overload.

Perhaps closer to the drug Soma in Aldous Huxley's BNW

[MSC]

Don't know why it won't let me delete the quote box as I rethought my response to geordief. Problems with Android phone probably.

So this just in; Republicans are going to maintain control of the house. So that's Senate, house, Whitehouse and supreme Court in complete control of Trump's Republican party. No checks and even on issues the supreme Court has or will rebuke or try to muzzle Trump over, they've eroded their own public trust and support that Trump is likely to take advantage of that to completely ignore the supreme courts rulings on things and if his plans for Schedule 8 employees comes to fruition... I know things were pretty dystopian before Trump but welcome to the new dystopia. 

2 hours ago, geordief said:

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 08:39 PM by MSC
Clarity. The election has damaged my braincells

[TheVat]

3 hours ago, CharonY said:

 similar issues as we do not have mechanisms to deal with a couple elements. a) oversupply of information (in the broadest terms, includes cat videos), b) constant distraction by algorithms and related mechanisms, diminishing the time spent on sifting through the presented information, potentially related to that, c) diminishing role of folks trusted to sift through that and present a coherent analysis with explanation.

 

Your posts all touch on information firehose problems I have also reflected on.  My current response is that if many lack gatekeepers, then they will try to develop some kind of philosophy (for some, maybe "spiritual" is applicable, e.g. the Zen of web browsing) that can help see what knowledge does, and how to disconnect and go visit the analog world.  And, also important, how to humbly acknowledge where their knowledge is gappy or absent, i.e. that reading a wiki or watching a Veritasium video on YT doesn't make an expert.  That TT influencers are just amateurs and/or cranks.  Maybe we will need more people like that philosopher who writes a column in The Atlantic.  (Arthur Brooks)  Who (just looked) also has a YT channel, haha.  So then there's that paradox where someone with actual wisdom is on a medium that is mostly garbage and might be trying to warn you that it is mostly garbage (but trust them).

Sigh.

 

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Are you talking about Canada?

I am not sure I follow your point.

You don't think the "working class" seek to better their economic situation?

That they remain "working class" even when they succeed in this?

Are you talking about their self image ?

Not Canada alone; UK and Australia, I think too, but it was most pronounced in the US. 

My point was that group identity comprises far more than economic situation. I recall when working people had some pride in their skills, in their social organizations and mutual support, anchored in the unions and the communities. Yes, they fought for better wages, working conditions, benefits, safety and job security; trade unions offered scholarships and bursaries for the most promising children of their members and often held lecture series and discussion groups.

"That they remain "working class" even when they succeed in this?" It wasn't a pejorative: it was a description of people of people who work with their hands and produce real things. Winning at negotiation, improving their standard of living or broadening their knowledge didn't shift them into a different category.

Welders and dock-workers, streetcar conductors and orderlies did not hob-nob and certainly did not identify, with lawyers, accountants, executives and surgeons. (Nor vice versa, as you probably know.) When one of the workers' children got a degree and got a white collar job, he (and later, she) would move out of the neighbourhood and change their manners, customs and speech to fit in with lawyers, executives, etc. They would join the middle class.

In between, there is a layer of more or less socially mobile self-employed tradesmen and crafters, as well as foremen and supervisors promoted from the shop floor as a buffer between labour and management. Some skilled, clerical and technical workers fit into this group, which was never clearly defined. 

From FDR's  and Truman's presidencies to JFK's, the Democratic Party lost interest in the working class and was instead deeply engaged in civil rights (which alienated much of the South) and foreign affairs (which alienated the classes most affected by the draft).

A vacuum of attention and representation into which Nixon-Reagan-Bushes whoomed, deregulating business, finance, industry, kneecapping unions, and inflaming the resentments and disappointments of working men, all the while pointing the blame-stick at 'liberal elites'.      

 

[MSC]

31 minutes ago, TheVat said:

then they will try to develop some kind of philosophy (for some, maybe "spiritual" is applicable, e.g. the Zen of web browsing) that can help see what knowledge does, and how to disconnect and go visit the analog world

Bingo! What do you think my contextualism was born of? We live in a world of different tinted windows now. Although my studies took me much further afield than just wikipedia, free libraries like project Gutenberg helped me read any classic I wanted, the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy and Internet EP are fabulous resources, crash courses with structured curriculums and repeats of that same course as a keyword library for the studies mentioned in the previously mentioned resources. It's not perfect and human memory being what it is, I don't think anyone makes it through education (in the broad sense, formal or informal) without having gaps or weak areas, but when absent typical options you have to make do with what you have. 

Not that it did me any good in the end, arrogant jackass trying to predict an election months in advance and not even having the decency to be right. That's me. 

[StringJunky]

52 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Your posts all touch on information firehose problems I have also reflected on.  My current response is that if many lack gatekeepers, then they will try to develop some kind of philosophy (for some, maybe "spiritual" is applicable, e.g. the Zen of web browsing) that can help see what knowledge does, and how to disconnect and go visit the analog world.  And, also important, how to humbly acknowledge where their knowledge is gappy or absent, i.e. that reading a wiki or watching a Veritasium video on YT doesn't make an expert.  That TT influencers are just amateurs and/or cranks.  Maybe we will need more people like that philosopher who writes a column in The Atlantic.  (Arthur Brooks)  Who (just looked) also has a YT channel, haha.  So then there's that paradox where someone with actual wisdom is on a medium that is mostly garbage and might be trying to warn you that it is mostly garbage (but trust them).

Sigh.

 

It's like website companies that state in their privacy statement "We and our 6457 business partners take your privacy and data very seriously...."

Edited yesterday at 09:02 PM by StringJunky

[iNow]

1 hour ago, MSC said:

Republicans are going to maintain control of the house. So that's Senate, house, Whitehouse and supreme Court in complete control of Trump's Republican party. No checks

Don’t forget the state houses around the country where they also now hold a sizable majority and could potentially leverage it to amend the constitution 

[MSC]

40 minutes ago, iNow said:

Don’t forget the state houses around the country where they also now hold a sizable majority and could potentially leverage it to amend the constitution 

I'm afraid I'm not following. Isn't a 2rds majority vote required for a constitutional amendment or is there some other avenue I'm not aware of, as an immigrant? 

Kind of weird to say but thanks Sinema and Manchin I guess? For maintaining the filibuster. 

[iNow]

It’s just easier now. For example, if they wish to allow Trump to serve more than 2 terms. 

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

Perhaps closer to the drug Soma in Aldous Huxley's BNW

Depends, I think the difference that I see is that the drug is a clear external agent that, while strongly connected to society, could at least in theory be cut off. But here I think it is our very thinking that is affected, which makes things more invisible and insidious more akin to 1984 where folks are not able to follow a concept as the language moved away from it.

 

[iNow]

54 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I think the difference that I see is that the drug is a clear external agent that, while strongly connected to society, could at least in theory be cut off

Fair. I was suggesting TikTok, X, and all the like being the Soma in this instance. Our algorithms are our dopamine pushing drugs ruining our ability in aggregate to critically think or pay attention for extended periods. We’re rats tapping the lever for cocaine. 

[npts2020]

10 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Basically what you're displaying is called piety...

Call it whatever you like but unlike your meme I never claimed it had anything to do with being smarter or less smart than anyone. Do you think that someday you can debate without twisting my words or claiming I wrote or inferred things never written explicitly?

8 hours ago, MSC said:

I do hate to admit it but I agree with Zap here. I work with Trump supporters, working class people are not lazy and they aren't bad people either.

Here I had thought the discussion was about voters being lazy/inept about finding out about the issues the are voting on and had nothing to do with work habits or social grace...

[MSC]

1 hour ago, npts2020 said:

Call it whatever you like but unlike your meme I never claimed it had anything to do with being smarter or less smart than anyone. Do you think that someday you can debate without twisting my words or claiming I wrote or inferred things never written explicitly?

Here I had thought the discussion was about voters being lazy/inept about finding out about the issues the are voting on and had nothing to do with work habits or social grace...

Except I never claimed they were lazy or inept. I definitely claimed they were ignorant and didn't actually know (somehow) what the candidates truly stood for. 

Speaking of what people stand for, what do you stand for? You've hammered down into a few people on this thread now but I think you should speak plainly about what even motivates you to speak as you're pretty new to the discussion and so far we've all respected each other enough to share some of our skin in the game. What's yours?

[npts2020]

48 minutes ago, MSC said:

Except I never claimed they were lazy or inept. I definitely claimed they were ignorant and didn't actually know (somehow) what the candidates truly stood for. 

I am the one who claimed those voters are too lazy/inept to educate themselves about the issues (and candidates) prior to voting and have not seen anything written here to change my mind.

53 minutes ago, MSC said:

Speaking of what people stand for, what do you stand for? You've hammered down into a few people on this thread now but I think you should speak plainly about what even motivates you to speak as you're pretty new to the discussion and so far we've all respected each other enough to share some of our skin in the game. What's yours?

My interest is mostly academic but also practical as I have advised a couple different local campaigns about voter registration, ballot access etc. The topic of most interest for me is why the above seems to be true and if there is any practical way to change things to have a better informed electorate. If I have "hammered down" on anyone, I apologize, but I will push back against mischaracterization of what I have written.

[MSC]

11 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I am the one who claimed those voters are too lazy/inept to educate themselves about the issues (and candidates) prior to voting and have not seen anything written here to change my mind.

My interest is mostly academic but also practical as I have advised a couple different local campaigns about voter registration, ballot access etc. The topic of most interest for me is why the above seems to be true and if there is any practical way to change things to have a better informed electorate. If I have "hammered down" on anyone, I apologize, but I will push back against mischaracterization of what I have written.

You could stand to be a bit more diplomatic is all and be a bit more aware of the highly charged nature of this particular thread. Everyone is pretty pissed and frustrated, not with you just in general. What I will say is that your words have either been mischaracterised or could have been put better by you. 

Your claim; voters are too lazy/inept to educate themselves about the issues. 

So in response to this, what would be your advice to future campaigns? 

How do you expect working people to pull the ability to teach themselves about complex issues out of thin air or to guard themselves from manipulative and biased news sources and only read the legitimate sources, when they have to pull 40-80 hour work weeks just to get by, juggle kids, family, friends, doctors appointments etc? Do you have any clue how busy the average person's life truly is? 

What I will agree with, is that voters are having a lot of trouble educating themselves about the issues and it is for a variety of factors, variables and on the individual level not all of those are going to apply to everyone. Lazy and inept applies only to those it is true of, but that is not the story of every or even most voters. 

One of the things that further isolates members of a cult from the outside world, is the outside world viewing them as stupid and foolish rather than someone who was taken advantage of when they were vulnerable. It's a kind of victim blaming that goes nowhere and only serves to push people right back to the cult. 

It is certainly tempting to fall into the pattern of viewing the other side as somehow less than you, stupid, cruel, evil etc, especially when that is their bread and butter and they definitely see you as stupid, inferior and evil to them, but that really is just playing into the very narrative that made them vulnerable to cult manipulation, which comes through not just the acts of the higher ups in the know of the abuse of their supporters, but peer pressure from other supporters. 

Now the entire claim here of laziness and ineptitude that follows the average person around like a dark cloud over there heads, comes from a narrative started by wealthy people, the people paying wages and salaries, to explain the ill fortune and struggle for financial security and economic stability that is the reality of the average person. A manufactured reality where lack of fair payment for a person's time and effort is the reason for the struggle, but is blamed on the very things you are claiming in quite broad terms is what all these voters suffer from. Laziness and ineptitude. 

[dimreepr]

12 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I am the one who claimed those voters are too lazy/inept to educate themselves about the issues (and candidates) prior to voting and have not seen anything written here to change my mind.

You're conflating lazy with ineptitude, your assumption is that everyone is capable of higher thinking if only they work hard enough; that's like saying we could all drive a formula 1 car, if we learn how to change gear.

Classic pious behaviour, look it up, maybe that would change your mind; but it's more insidious than that, you can't even see the connection... 

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, dimreepr said:

You're conflating lazy with ineptitude, your assumption is that everyone is capable of higher thinking if only they work hard enough;

Are you sure that is isn't the case though? But I will highlight again that lazy is not necessarily the point. Spending time on something else is not a sign of laziness, but of prioritization.

Edit: I should add, that there are not a lot of incentives to do so, even before the rise of social media. Schools and Universities were the institutions where such skills were trained, with incentives to do so. Their influence has eroded as well and the modern media landscape and social media has a distinct anti-intellectual slant. Not necessarily out of maliciousness (though it adds to it) but in part simply because we reduced attention spans to less than a minute now.