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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#139426: Sep 21st 2016 at 6:40:19 AM

If I can bring up a point, libertarianism - by its tenets and official philosophy - isn't racist, but libertarians as a group are so thick with racism that the movement shuts out people who aren't racist and want blacks to be as heavily armed as whites. (Remember the guy from the Oath Keepers who wanted to arm and train the blacks of Ferguson to defend themselves against the cops? As nutty as that idea is, he was arguing for the professed tenets of his militia, and I really feel for the guy when he found out that the rest of his group was only "fighting to defend" white people from government tyranny.)

People like Gary Johnson, meanwhile, believe what they're saying and really do think that their ideas will help black people as much as they help white people, and they're often perplexed when black communities don't trust them, because they haven't seen the side of the movement who think swastikas are a Christian symbol.

edited 21st Sep '16 6:41:56 AM by Ramidel

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#139427: Sep 21st 2016 at 6:40:31 AM

[up][up] Hence the "accelerationist" ideology, which rejects attempts to improve the system because the system is, to them, beyond saving. They would rather see society crash and burn so they can attempt to rebuild their ideal society from its ashes. This will fail for two reasons: first, their ideologies are unrealistic; second, they would be fighting to rebuild society against other groups who have incompatible ideologies. Remove the referee and you don't get Utopia; you get places like Iraq.

[up] As we've noted, the fundamental problem with Libertarianism is that, left to their own devices, most people are assholes. More precisely, that the assholes will take over the power vacuum because they are the ones willing to use force to back up their ideas. You can't run a nation of 300 million people on negative freedoms. There's just too much at stake for people who seek power.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:13:31 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#139428: Sep 21st 2016 at 6:58:28 AM

[up] Not when dealing within numbers within Dunbar's limit. In such numbers people are generally quite pleasant, cooperative, and helpful. Unfortunately, human empathy does not function properly beyond the scale of "the tribe", but there's no reason to think we will not be able to overcome this through technology at some point in the future.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:09:42 AM by CaptainCapsase

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#139429: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:02:54 AM

[up][up]While libertarians are often inconsistent on this point, they generally want a government strong enough to prevent force or fraud (at least, that's the Objectivist formulation). (They also imagine that the people can win a revolution against such a government if it does any more than that, but this is libertarian logic at work.)

The problem with a negative-freedoms country is that it doesn't satisfy the physical needs of the working class, and that their response will be to break out the hammers and sickles once we hit the next Great Depression. (Hey, if any of you Communists are reading this, you need to vote Libertarian!) Milton Friedman's answer to that was a minimum basic income, but if you go with that, you've essentially veered into territory where you might as well run as a Democrat.

[up]There are a couple of caveats to that. One being that the group within Dunbar's limit needs to be interdependent on one another, and another being that such a group will develop its own strong, idiosyncratic mores that tend to exclude anyone who doesn't fit in. Even for a tribal community, you've got to ensure a filtering system for toxic memes.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:05:48 AM by Ramidel

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#139430: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:13:23 AM

[up] That to is another issue that I would argue can be overcome by technology. The fundamentals of human behavior (most likely) prevent the sort of ideal communalist society of left libertarianism from being achieved in the present day, but "human nature", unlike for example gravity, is not some immutable law of nature.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#139431: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:14:01 AM

[up] We are talking about human society now, not in some hypothetical future when we've conquered scarcity and tribalism. We don't have any assurance that we'll ever reach that point, especially not if we keep on the path we're going, where candidates like Trump are taken seriously next to candidates like Clinton and most people seem to regard facts as up for debate.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:15:17 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#139432: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:17:16 AM

[up] When we're talking about "fundamental" problems with ideologies, I don't think it's fair to use such a narrow timeframe as "now."

edited 21st Sep '16 7:17:57 AM by CaptainCapsase

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#139433: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:20:02 AM

I refer back to David Brin's famous speech on libertarianism, wherein he chastises the members of the crowd who call for the abolition of regulation now, since human society is clearly not mature enough yet to handle pure negative freedoms. Rather, he calls for democratic socialism as a transitional period to guide humanity to the point where we can relax the controls. He says that any Libertarian who is intellectually honest about their ideology should vote Democrat. Not Republican, because they stand for the opposite of progress towards liberty; and not "Libertarian", because it's a garbage vote; its only value is to help Republicans win elections.

[down] Never mind that forcing people to become better via technology is so thoroughly against Libertarian ideals that it should get one excommunicated.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:22:28 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#139434: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:20:20 AM

[up][up] I will say that I remain skeptical that you would be able to get everyone to agree to the application of such technology, and to force it on people would be...unethical, to say the least.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:20:51 AM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!
NoName999 Since: May, 2011
#139435: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:23:07 AM

And at the end of the day American libertarians are just Republicans who want to smoke pot.

There's a reason they shout "State Rights."

KarkatTheDalek Not as angry as the name would suggest. from Somwhere in Time/Space Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: You're a beautiful woman, probably
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
#139436: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:26:11 AM

I mean, Johnson does seem to be legimately socially liberal - it's just that a lot of American libertarians...aren't.

Oh God! Natural light!
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#139437: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:30:24 AM

Many of them want the "freedom" to hang black people, or have sex with children, or any of a number of other horrendous things. You can't balance that out with the freedom to smoke pot. Some things are so deplorable that they cannot be allowed, period. There isn't an acceptable level of black-hanging that you can tolerate in the name of liberty.

More to the point, as long as Johnson and his party are willing to let such people wave the flag, they have no legitimacy in my eyes. It's like Jill Stein embracing anti-vaxxers. Sorry, nope.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:34:07 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#139438: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:41:48 AM

I would like to note that the Putin-sympathizer's attempt to compare Ukraine and Cuba fails on a number of levels—the most notable being that the US has not recently staged a referendum within Cuba and used it as an excuse to invade and annex parts of the country.

Fact is, the Castro brothers have been left in relative peace since the end of the Cold War, and even at its height, the Americans never invaded the country themselves.

As to the notion that Russia is inevitably going to regain its superpower status, that's pretty damn unlikely. The Russian military, for all the modernization efforts, has struggled to suppress internal problems like Chechnya. I'm not exactly quaking in my boots here.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#139439: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:48:42 AM

@Karkat: Nobody is forcing you to use the various innovations of modernity. Virtually all people do, for obviously reasons. I don't think the adoption of technology will be the problem as much as ensuring it is used in a responsible fashion.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:49:01 AM by CaptainCapsase

nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#139440: Sep 21st 2016 at 7:52:26 AM

I am extremely skeptical of the power of technology to moderate a human nature that's been evolved for thousands of years to handle small, close-knit communities. The great communicative technology of our time, the internet, has also brought out some of the worse sides in humanity. GIFT is a thing. Unless we're talking about Star Trek, post-scarcity level of technology, I'm not sure you'll be able to change human nature that much.

edited 21st Sep '16 7:54:19 AM by nightwyrm_zero

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#139441: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:00:19 AM

What I'm alluding to is the fact that the underlying variables that dictate human behavior; genetics being one of the biggest factors, are not physical limitations so as much as societal and technological limitations. As someone in a relevant field (molecular biology), I can tell you that the technological part of that limitation will very likely be overcome within a century or two.

edited 21st Sep '16 8:02:59 AM by CaptainCapsase

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#139442: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:02:58 AM

I think that until we can actually develop homo superior, we should focus on politics as they apply to the current iteration of the African hominid that makes up our society.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#139443: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:04:39 AM

[up] This. It's pointless to speculate on future!humanity when there is no reliable evidence that we're ever going to get there. If we are, it'll most likely have to be shoving past the recumbent, insensately stubborn bodies of tens of millions of Real Housewives addicts.

edited 21st Sep '16 8:05:48 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Perian Since: Jun, 2016
#139444: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:06:43 AM

Does the Democratic Party "always know what's best for the American people"? No, of course not. But 1) with the primary, they're not choosing for "the American people", they're choosing for the Democratic party (ie, who the Democrats will send to the general election) and as I mentioned above, I think the party apparatus deserves some say in the candidate that that apparatus will be supporting.

Imagine that the Republican Party used superdelegates but is taken over by Trump and his people. That way superdelegates can be used to prevent a moderate such as Kasich from getting the nomination as well. As you mention in your post, the superdelegate system can be used for legitimate as well as bullshit reasons, and as it is used right now, it simply favors the candidate who is liked by the party establishment the most. And I'd argue that this is a large problem, because, in fact, the parties do choose for the American people, since the Republican and the Democrat candidates are de facto the only viable alternatives in a general election. If other candidates would be able to compete with them, I would have much less of a problem with the idea that parties should have a big influence in deciding who is going to be their nominee.

On the subject of the superdelegate system being subject to "abuse" to prevent a candidate like Sanders from getting the nomination — I'm honestly not sure what you mean by that. Sanders lost by literally every way you can look at the race; superdelegates had nothing to do with it.

That's why I said "a candidate like Sanders" - I'm concerned that the system could prevent such a future candidate from getting the nomination over a candidate who is preferred by the party's establishment, even if they won a majority of pledged delegates.

Regarding the point of asking superdelegates who they support, what's wrong with that? If you're suggesting that it causes problems because it makes it seem like one candidate has a lead over another early on in the process, then the whole staggered primary schedule is a much bigger problem to worry about.

You answered the question already, but this was exactly how the superdelegates were a factor in Clinton's victory during the primaries: they made Clinton's lead appear insurmountable before the primaries had even started. If Sanders had won the pledged delegates, I don't think there would have been any justifiable reason for the superdelegates to vote for Clinton. Therefore they shouldn't state before the primaries have started who they are going to vote for, if they are still able to change their mind (and their numbers certainly shouldn't be reported in the media together with pledged delegates). In other words, I don't think they should give an unfair advantage to the party's favourite. As for the primary schedule, I would certainly be in favour of having all primaries on the same day, but that's a separate issue.

Hey look, there's the "more democratic" thing!

I meant that you can look at the latest events - Trump's nomination, Brexit, the far right rising in Europe -, conclude that there's a problem with democracy, solve this problem by making the political system more oligarchical and call it a day. Or you could try to solve the underlying problems that led to these events, including (among many other things) racism in society and politicians appealing to racist sentiment in order to win votes, economic anxiety, general distrust of the political system, low voter education, media propaganda etc. The latter solution seems much more sustainable to me - even if the Republicans had prevented Trump's nomination with superdelegates, the sentiment that led to his rise would not have gone away: if anything, it might have become even worse.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#139445: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:07:54 AM

[up][up] If we aren't considering the possibility of the distant future, we risk opportunities to better ourselves as a society passing us by.

edited 21st Sep '16 8:08:25 AM by CaptainCapsase

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#139446: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:10:49 AM

[up] To even consider bettering ourselves for the future, we have to prevent the current situation from devolving to a state in which the future is very likely to suck unequivocally. This means we vote for Clinton now because she's the only practical hope we have to achieve a future state in which we can reach for your utopia.

[up][up] Look, I'm going to be blunt here. Superdelegates are a smokescreen. They didn't meaningfully affect the outcome of the primary, nor have they in recent memory. So focusing on them as an example of how the Democratic Party is "undemocratic" is chasing at windmills. It's a deliberate part of the distraction engine that is running with the specific intent of making Hillary Clinton look like an illegitimate candidate so that Donald Trump will win and "teach those corrupt Democrats a lesson or two".

It's entirely a kindergarten "I didn't get everything I wanted so now you have to suffer too" mentality. It has no place in our political system if we want to pretend to anyone that we have any future as a nation that is not run by lunatics like Donald Trump.

edited 21st Sep '16 8:13:00 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#139447: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:11:55 AM

[up] I'm more or less in agreement, but that being said, people can focus on more than one thing at a time. Just because I enjoy discussing things that won't be relevant for decades, doesn't mean that I don't have any thoughts about the present day. It's just that, particularly in this election, there's very little in the way of nuance. One candidate has no idea what they're doing, the other is a fairly typical and very veteran politician.

edited 21st Sep '16 8:17:49 AM by CaptainCapsase

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#139448: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:15:48 AM

More to the point, planning for this stuff is meaningless until we actually have the science with which to make plans. Until then, what we get is science fiction - interesting but not of immediate use.

Is it worth researching nuclear fusion and trying to get it into a marketable power-generating form? Absolutely. Should we plan our future economy on the assumption that we have a functioning fusion plant? Not until we've had a demonstration and know the cost to the kilowatt-hour. If you plan your society based on unfounded assumptions, you get the Soviet agricultural system.

(It's also hard to have a straight discussion when you have no idea what final form this hypothetical humanity would take. I guarantee Fighteer, myself and you would all have very different ideas.)

edited 21st Sep '16 8:16:54 AM by Ramidel

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#139449: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:15:57 AM

[up][up]We need veteran politicians. They're the ones who know how to get things accomplished via compromise and statesmanship. We absolutely do not need "revolutionary leaders" who will tear things down and set everyone against each other. That's what the Republican Party has been doing for the past eight years and it's worked out so very well.

One of the critical problems facing the Democratic Party is a lack of up-and-coming leaders who are clearly aiming for the White House and have sufficient veterancy not to fumble around like amateurs in the process. Barack Obama was a remarkable exception, and has been a remarkable President, but we can't count on another version of him coming out of the woodwork to rescue the party in 2020 or 2024.

Sanders, for all that he had an infectious message, turned out to be a Get Off My Lawn type when push came to shove.

edited 21st Sep '16 8:19:24 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#139450: Sep 21st 2016 at 8:19:36 AM

We need veteran politicians combined with young turks. I'm not thrilled with "business as usual" either - there are a great many policies and groups in place that are in place because of insulation from elected public pressure. (That's how the CIA and NSA get away with continuing to fight the Cold War - because you can't get to a position where you can shine a light into the organizations without having a vested interest in protecting their secrets.)

Perhaps George Soros should run for President. tongue

edited 21st Sep '16 8:20:58 AM by Ramidel


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