What do you believe that most people of your political creed don't?
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I was taught when I was young that if you have discovered a cool new thing, it's not wrong for other people to want to do that thing too. I vote we move to a new term, "cultural plagiarism," which more clearly relates to e.g. a white person stealing a black musician's work (as opposed to covering it and giving credit and royalties, which should be fine!)
In the spirit of my post, I'm glad you see a disparity in the term cultural appropriation like I do.
In the spirit of clarifying what I mean, cultural appropriation is using elements of another culture. What you described is exploitative, is very serious, and not what I'm referring to.
But I appreciate your input all the same.
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Like, all my friends are leftists. When we talk about politics, they sound like leftists, they say leftist things, and espouse leftist values. My friends are all leftists because my friends' friends are leftists and I make friends with my friends' friends.
Regarding "settler," I think it's a motte-and-bailey tactic you're using. The motte -- the easily defensible position -- is that settler refers to people who are bigoted. The bailey -- the hard to defend position, but which is easily equivocated for the motte -- is that it refers to any non-indigenous person. The reason I see this equivocation is because in my mind, a settler does not stop being a settler simply because they turn into an ally for indigenous people. Settlerdom is a property of a person that depends only on their geographic location and ancestry, not their philosophy.
I don't deny that it's a useful verbal weapon against bigots. I would merely like it to be well-understood that a verbal weapon is what it is intended to be.
Like, all my friends are leftists. When we talk about politics, they sound like leftists, they say leftist things, and espouse leftist values. My friends are all leftists because my friends' friends are leftists and I make friends with my friends' friends.
Why would you think this would be in some way representative? It's just your friend network.
Regarding "settler," I think it's a motte-and-bailey tactic you're using. The motte -- the easily defensible position -- is that settler refers to people who are bigoted. The bailey -- the hard to defend position, but which is easily equivocated for the motte -- is that it refers to any non-indigenous person. [...]
You're wrong in your attempt to identify a fallacy and are doing your own one at the same time (straw man). I have explained at least twice that being a settler is a psychology derived from settler colonialism. Someone else suggested that you read Sakai. Have you done so before trying to contradict and lecture? Have you asked questions about a topic that is clearly new to you?
You keep belaboring this straw man that it means anyone non-indigenous. I think I was pretty clear on this, so can you explain why you are pretending otherwise?
I don't deny that it's a useful verbal weapon against bigots. I would merely like it to be well-understood that a verbal weapon is what it is intended to be.
I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
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But only in a kind of theoretical sense. They think the status quo is best for everyone, but it's really only best for them. What is a more centrist sentiment than "our system may not be perfect, but it's the best there is"? See Dr. King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" for an eloquent condemnation of "moderates".
But only in a kind of theoretical sense. They think the status quo is best for everyone, but it’s really only best for them.
You'll have to elaborate/defend that statement. I think you're just imposing your own perspective/worldview without facts in evidence.
What is a more centrist sentiment than “our system may not be perfect, but it’s the best there is”?
That would be said by Leftists about a Leftist-bias system, or Rightists about a Rightist-bias system. What you described is not just in the domain of the Centrist. There are many "systems" that groups of humans gather around, and each system may look very different from other systems.
See Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” for an eloquent condemnation of “moderates”.
I have not read this, so apologies if I get this wrong, but I will judge this sentence based on the overall message of your comment reply.
Being a moderate does not mean settling for whatever no matter what, no matter how harmful it is. Its about trying to have a consensus that most/all can live with, in how we run our society and how we act towards each other.
For example, if everybody agreed on Leftism, then should the middle of the Leftism population be condemmed (as they would now be the Centrists of Leftism)? Or Centrists of Rightism?
If human history teaches us anything, governing from the fridge/edges never works out well for everybody else.
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My intuition for a person's overall moral value is something like the integral of their experiences so far multiplied by their expected future QALYs. This fits my intuition of why it's okay to kill a zygote, and it's also morally abominable to, say, slightly shorten the lifespan of somebody (especially someone already on the brink of death), or to, erm, put someone out of their misery in some cases.
I'm not terribly moved by single-celled organisms that can "learn." It's not hard to find examples of simple things which most people wouldn't consider "alive," but "learn." For instance, a block of metal can "learn" -- it responds differently based on past stresses. Or "memory foam." You could argue that a river "learns," since it can find its way around obstacles and then double down on that path. Obviously, computers "learn." Here, we mean "learn" to refer to responding differently based on what's happened to it over time, rather than the subjective conscious feeling of gaining experience.
I was most curious to see answers to this section.
Is consciousness different from the ability to experience? If they are different what separates them, and why is consciousness the one that gets moral weight? If they are the same then how do you count feelings? Is it measured in real time or felt time? Do psychedelics that slow time make a person more morally valuable in that moment? If it is real time, then why can you disregard felt time?
I have a few answers I can kinda infer:
You likely think consciousness and the ability to experience are the same. You measure those feelings in real time so 1 year is the same for any organism.More importantly onto the other axis:
Did you mean derivative of their experiences so far? (I assume by time) That would give experience rate. Integral by time would get the total. I think you wanted to end with rate*QALYs = moral value. The big question for me is: how do you personally estimate something's experience rate?Given your previous hierarchy of humans near the top and neurons not making the cut, I assume you belive space has fundamental building blocks that can't be made smaller. Therefore it is possible to compare the amount of possible interaction in each system.
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I am very very very left wing, BUT I can get really annoyed with a lot of those "on my side" advocating for the most idealist of all idealism, as if it's a contest. Feels like a competition of "who's the bestest and mostest leftist of all". You scare people away and - not justifying it - but I get why some people get upset with "the left" because of this...
I am very very very left wing, but
Everytime I see someone say this I know without a shadow of a doubt that they're a centrist liberal.
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Like, all my friends are leftists. When we talk about politics, they sound like leftists, they say leftist things, and espouse leftist values. My friends are all leftists because my friends' friends are leftists and I make friends with my friends' friends.
Why would you think this would be in some way representative? It's just your friend network.
Regarding "settler," I think it's a motte-and-bailey tactic you're using. The motte -- the easily defensible position -- is that settler refers to people who are bigoted. The bailey -- the hard to defend position, but which is easily equivocated for the motte -- is that it refers to any non-indigenous person. [...]
You're wrong in your attempt to identify a fallacy and are doing your own one at the same time (straw man). I have explained at least twice that being a settler is a psychology derived from settler colonialism. Someone else suggested that you read Sakai. Have you done so before trying to contradict and lecture? Have you asked questions about a topic that is clearly new to you?
You keep belaboring this straw man that it means anyone non-indigenous. I think I was pretty clear on this, so can you explain why you are pretending otherwise?
I don't deny that it's a useful verbal weapon against bigots. I would merely like it to be well-understood that a verbal weapon is what it is intended to be.
I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
Why would you think this would be in some way representative? It’s just your friend network.
I think it's representative of my friend network. Perhaps I misunderstood what you were asking. This was a response to "how many leftists do you know?"
No I have not read Sakai yet. This topic is not new to me, I just disagree with you. But very well, I am glad that we have reached the mutual agreement that it is not an appropriate word for non-indigenous people in general, which was my original point that you responded to:
Reading this reminded me about another unpopular opinion: I think “settler” and “colonizer” are poor terms for non-indigenous people broadly.
As I see it, it turns out we both agree. I misunderstood your initial response to that statement as one that was intending to be a counterargument. So, sorry -- I really didn't mean to straw man you; I legitimately misunderstood what your point was.
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But only in a kind of theoretical sense. They think the status quo is best for everyone, but it’s really only best for them.
You'll have to elaborate/defend that statement. I think you're just imposing your own perspective/worldview without facts in evidence.
What is a more centrist sentiment than “our system may not be perfect, but it’s the best there is”?
That would be said by Leftists about a Leftist-bias system, or Rightists about a Rightist-bias system. What you described is not just in the domain of the Centrist. There are many "systems" that groups of humans gather around, and each system may look very different from other systems.
See Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” for an eloquent condemnation of “moderates”.
I have not read this, so apologies if I get this wrong, but I will judge this sentence based on the overall message of your comment reply.
Being a moderate does not mean settling for whatever no matter what, no matter how harmful it is. Its about trying to have a consensus that most/all can live with, in how we run our society and how we act towards each other.
For example, if everybody agreed on Leftism, then should the middle of the Leftism population be condemmed (as they would now be the Centrists of Leftism)? Or Centrists of Rightism?
If human history teaches us anything, governing from the fridge/edges never works out well for everybody else.
~This~ ~comment~ ~is~ ~licensed~ ~under~ ~CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0~
You aren't exactly wrong in your first two quote-responses, I will give you that. "The Left" commonly answers the second with an idea called 'eternal revolution'. The idea being that we cannot stop improving, or become so lazy in our ways that we begin to ossify into a form over function society.
I urge you to read the letter. It will raise your consciousness a hundred times more than any conversation you'll have on Lemmy today.
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do you have plausible arguments for that that could be used to convince somebody of this that isn't already convinced?
Absolutely not.
Alas, I am but a blue collar shmuck without the patience to slog through theory nor the oratory skills to convincingly pass on what theory others share.
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You aren't exactly wrong in your first two quote-responses, I will give you that. "The Left" commonly answers the second with an idea called 'eternal revolution'. The idea being that we cannot stop improving, or become so lazy in our ways that we begin to ossify into a form over function society.
I urge you to read the letter. It will raise your consciousness a hundred times more than any conversation you'll have on Lemmy today.
I urge you to read the letter. It will raise your consciousness a hundred times more than any conversation you’ll have on Lemmy today.
I'll take a look.
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I was most curious to see answers to this section.
Is consciousness different from the ability to experience? If they are different what separates them, and why is consciousness the one that gets moral weight? If they are the same then how do you count feelings? Is it measured in real time or felt time? Do psychedelics that slow time make a person more morally valuable in that moment? If it is real time, then why can you disregard felt time?
I have a few answers I can kinda infer:
You likely think consciousness and the ability to experience are the same. You measure those feelings in real time so 1 year is the same for any organism.More importantly onto the other axis:
Did you mean derivative of their experiences so far? (I assume by time) That would give experience rate. Integral by time would get the total. I think you wanted to end with rate*QALYs = moral value. The big question for me is: how do you personally estimate something's experience rate?Given your previous hierarchy of humans near the top and neurons not making the cut, I assume you belive space has fundamental building blocks that can't be made smaller. Therefore it is possible to compare the amount of possible interaction in each system.
You measure those feelings in real time so 1 year is the same for any organism.
Well, I said "integral" in the vague gesture that things can have a greater or lesser amount of experience in a given amount of time. I suppose we are looking at different x axes?
I don't know how to estimate something's experience rate, but my intuition is that every creature whose lifespan is at least one year and is visible to the naked eye has about within a factor of an order of magnitude or two the same experience rate. I think children have a greater experience rate than adults because everything is new to them; as a result, someone's maximal moral value is biased toward the earlier end of their life, like their 20s or 30s.
I still don’t know why brains are different from a steel beam
This is all presupposing that consciousness exists at all. If not, then everything's moral value is 0. If it does, then I feel confident that steel beams don't have consciousness.
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In the spirit of my post, I'm glad you see a disparity in the term cultural appropriation like I do.
In the spirit of clarifying what I mean, cultural appropriation is using elements of another culture. What you described is exploitative, is very serious, and not what I'm referring to.
But I appreciate your input all the same.
I figured your objection to the term "cultural appropriation" is that people use it to refer to exploitative things as well as what I view as innocent things like a professional dancer who is white dancing to an anime song or something. That's why I proposed a new term, to help differentiate these things.
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You're assuming everybody has the same buying power. That is in reality not the case. If you remove 50% of the people, buying power only goes down by 10%.
No I'm not, I'm just not assuming immigrants have 0 buying power, which your post implicitly was, yes supply increases but demand also increases. Beyond that you get into the realms of having to do empirical research (which is hard).
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Mental health focused communities exascerbate their members' issues
Only when there's no professional playing a role. A self-help group with professional oversight is great.
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We can disagree a bit about the sacredness of life but I think we agree about oreseving nature. Yet I think national parks are both a good and a practical necessity. If the general public can’t get a taste of wilderness they will not value it, and will not protest its demise. So it’s a balancing act— in a perfect world sure have some very large untouched reserves, but if you care about any wilderness surviving then national parks are a must imho.
Just so. The periphery of the parks may be visited- a shared border between worlds where the most intrepid of both may briefly meet, but just as bears and raccoons are driven out of suburbs, so too should people be driven from the deeper parks.
As for the sanctity of life, it's more of a balancing in my eyes. No life should be valued so as to cause undue stress to survivors. But I suppose my rather callous attitude is anathema to most.
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You measure those feelings in real time so 1 year is the same for any organism.
Well, I said "integral" in the vague gesture that things can have a greater or lesser amount of experience in a given amount of time. I suppose we are looking at different x axes?
I don't know how to estimate something's experience rate, but my intuition is that every creature whose lifespan is at least one year and is visible to the naked eye has about within a factor of an order of magnitude or two the same experience rate. I think children have a greater experience rate than adults because everything is new to them; as a result, someone's maximal moral value is biased toward the earlier end of their life, like their 20s or 30s.
I still don’t know why brains are different from a steel beam
This is all presupposing that consciousness exists at all. If not, then everything's moral value is 0. If it does, then I feel confident that steel beams don't have consciousness.
Dang that last one is the most interesting to me. Also sorry for getting anal about the axis. I trust you knew what you were saying.
This is all presupposing that consciousness exists at all. If not, then everything's moral value is 0. If it does, then I feel confident that steel beams don't have consciousness.
So there is a moral hierarchy but you regard its source as only possibly existing and extremely nebulous. Given that foundation why do you stand by the validity of the hierarchy, and especially why do you say it is moral to do so?
Also I imagine that your difference in how you see the steel beam vs a brain is based on how much communication you've understood from each. Do you think our ability to understand something or someone is a reasonable way to build a moral framework? I think there are many pit falls to that approach personally, but I get its intuitive appeal.
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I'm far left, but I believe that any citizen should be allowed to own any gun.
For what it's worth, the far left (internationally) is traditionally pro-gun. I wouldn't know what positions are about any citizen and any gun, but I wouldn't be shocked either to hear a socialist advocate for it.
[...] The whole proletariat [i.e. worker class] must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois [i.e. owner class] democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising.
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Dang that last one is the most interesting to me. Also sorry for getting anal about the axis. I trust you knew what you were saying.
This is all presupposing that consciousness exists at all. If not, then everything's moral value is 0. If it does, then I feel confident that steel beams don't have consciousness.
So there is a moral hierarchy but you regard its source as only possibly existing and extremely nebulous. Given that foundation why do you stand by the validity of the hierarchy, and especially why do you say it is moral to do so?
Also I imagine that your difference in how you see the steel beam vs a brain is based on how much communication you've understood from each. Do you think our ability to understand something or someone is a reasonable way to build a moral framework? I think there are many pit falls to that approach personally, but I get its intuitive appeal.
The reason that I stand by the moral hierarchy despite the possibility that it doesn't exist at all is that I can only reason about morality under the assumption that consciousness exists. I don't know how to cause pain to a non-conscious being.
To give an analogy: suppose you find out that next year there's a 50% chance that the earth will be obliterated by some cosmic event -- is this a reason to stop caring about global warming? No, because in the event that the earth is spared, we still need to solve global warming.It is nebulous, but everything is nebulous at first until we learn more. I'm just trying to separate things that seem like pretty safe bets from things I'm less sure about. Steel beams not having consciousness seems like a safe bet. If it turns out that consciousness exists and works really really weirdly and steel beams do have consciousness, there's still no particularly good reason to believe that anything I could do to a steel beam matters to it, seeing as it lacks pain receptors.
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Leftism is unpopular by definition, especially to the privileged classes. Leftism seeks to upend the status quo, and loss aversion is a problem.
Not that efforts can't be made.
Leftism is unpopular by definition
This really depends how you define "leftism".
If you mean 'whichever side of politics is left of the population's center' then sure, it can't be a majority.
If you mean 'whichever side of politics is left of the political center' then that doesn't imply it's unpopular, and there's direct electoral evidence of 'left' parties achieving a majority government.
If you mean socialism and communism, they certainly aren't unpopular by definition. If anything, their definition makes them a mass movement of the proletariat, the vast majority of a post-industrial society.
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You still haven’t achieved that understanding. Ideology does not come about from ‘convincing’ or ‘swaying’ anyone. I once again suggest you to read Settlers to see why this thought process is flawed. I understand where you are coming from but the material precedes the immaterial
Ideology does not come about from ‘convincing’ or ‘swaying’ anyone.
Tell that to the propaganda model. False consciousness is a real barrier which can and has dominated material class interests.
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Why do you assert this? Based on what moral framework? Is it morally okay to abandon a baby to the elements after birth, in favour of the autonomy of those who would raise it?
I'm not going to engage with you on the topic of a women's right to choose, or the meaning of bodily autonomy. On the off chance you're not a troll, good luck with your research on this very well documented political debate.
