[benpenguin]

I don't believe I could be persuaded that enlightened dictatorship could accomplish those goals for a number of reasons, and it would depend what the "anarchy" you are referring to would look like. I think genuine democratic systems are the best possible form of social organization from a practical and moral perspective.

Assume you are correct that democracy will eventually bring humanity to these goals. However, the grim reality is that a large portion of wars and conflicts are created by those who claim to be pursuing freedom and democracy - they might be lying, or they might be genuine freedom fighting heroes. It doesn't matter. Wars are carried on with young men chanting freedom and firing AKs to "enemies of freedom" from half-trucks.

Do you believe that the ends justify these means?

[Daktoria]

I don't believe I could be persuaded that enlightened dictatorship could accomplish those goals for a number of reasons, and it would depend what the "anarchy" you are referring to would look like. I think genuine democratic systems are the best possible form of social organization from a practical and moral perspective.

You should explain that practical and moral perspective one of these days.

That way, we understand what you think about social democracy.

[onemalehuman]

I think genuine democratic systems are the best possible form of social organization from a practical and moral perspective.

So, your thinking is the only way to keep things socialized is the status quo of applying scientific theory and spiritual philosophies as wings of a bird/civilization in flight or rails of trained perceptions ignoring the obvious to being self contained in a single moment where nothing here remains the same except for the barriers limits of self containment to universal balancing working the same way all the time adapting is successful each lifetime passing through.

character matters most when denying characteristics within the limits of energy cannot be created or destroyed as everything changes in details presently.

Science sells a Big Bang theory, what contracted to become expanding all the time to an ever expanding universe of possibilities as long as nobody understands how and why arguing over rank of details to what, where, when, and whom rules the who's created by theory and theology character matters and social identity is everything to protect with one's lifetime sacrificed to keep the idea really governing each generation passing through the current situation exactly as conceived, physically, without metaphors and metaphysical maybes it is something else but what is taking place now.

Follow a standard or write the standards everyone else follows by law. Cannot think of any other way tyranny rules the heart and soul of humanity every generations bodies mind vocabualry arts added without exception so far taking sides of honoring science or spirituality, church or state of mind passed down generations through academia directing social discourse through media oputlet re-enforcement the educated subjective facts making aver lifetimes objective to save humanity, not rescue humans from being themselves tolive civilly as one species of male and female lifetimes each generation ancestry replaces their own ancestors or the DNA line of genetic continuation doesn't stay within the compounding total sum adding all the time.

Now what causes mental illnesses of multiple identities when one needs to play a different role for each social situation? Gee in plain sound blocking the vision of sight interpreting everything symbolically.

[Greysuit]

Politics tends to be the arena in which we project our emotional attachments and ethical preferences into the public sphere of discourse and action. We wrap our subjective views in rational-sounding sentences, just as an art critic might cloak his personal taste with intellectual-sounding statements. We do so to enable discussion.

Rationality in the scientific sense is tangential to politics. It comes in where politics ends, and technocracy starts. It comes in when the really difficult discussion over values terminates, and the issue becomes one of identifying the most effective means of accomplishing agreed-upon goals (from within an agreed-upon range of legitimate options).

I agree with you to an extent, but I think that the percentage of policy disputes that ultimately reduce solely to matters of differing moral or aesthetic values is perhaps smaller than you think. Furthermore, just because a political stance stems from 'feeling', doesn't mean that it makes no sense to evaluate the rationality of that stance. I have plenty of base, instinctive feelings that I interrupt with rationality and do so because I know that it is in my best interest. Humans are reward maximizers, we maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Instinctive programing that underlies human emotion is not guaranteed to maximize reward and sometimes can and should be undone or reduced by rational intervention.


==============================================================================================================================================

Yes, the means justify the ends because the means create the ends.

No, and that's almost the opposite of what I said.

What do you think disagreements hinge on?

Well, that specific disagreement probably hinges on different things for different people. To my analysis, a few people think they will be rich enough to shield themselves from any environmental fallout, while standing to profit more from continued greenhouse gas emissions than from not. Some people figure they will be dead by the time serious harm occurs. Some place zero importance on anything that happens n years into the future, even though they might still be alive long after that (generally irrational). Some people think that other countries will continue to pollute anyways, and that emissions reduction will then only harm those that enact it. And finally, especially in specific countries, you have a large group of people that simply doubt the science behind climate change predictions (irrational and dumb). Some of these, to my estimation, are fairly rational, while others are not.

I'm not sure if you understand politics then.

It's impossible to know in advance of experience whether or not someone else is a selfish psychopath. Therefore, it's rational to be paranoid in pursuing policies which strictly advocate self-interest. Anyone who refuses to pursue strict self-interest is interpreted as deserving to be trampled over for not understanding this and expecting others to make themselves vulnerable against psychopaths. In turn, everyone earns respect for participating in political conflict as a worthy adversary. Besides, no champion wants to risk falling through the cracks back down to the populace, so the political establishment cooperates on both sides to keep itself afloat above previous opponents.

Firstly, your non-technical use of the word psychopath is bad form and also somewhat vague. Secondly, the concept of 'deserving' is philosophically problematic, and, if I were going to roll with it (which I wouldn't) I wouldn't agree that naive people deserve to be 'trampled'. In any case, what you mostly seem to be doing here is kind of approximating the prisoner's dilemma in a roundabout way--or to paraphrase you, 'we cant know if people will have a proclivity for cooperation, so just assume they wont and follow the best option that's left'. National and state/provincial politics in a democratic country (which, I assume is implicitly the page we are on, as opposed to, say, workplace 'politics') does not work without cooperation, except for those that wield an extremely disproportionate quantity of power. Sure, some policy may not benefit everyone, but if it benefits you and it has a chance of passing, then very likely either 1) you are very privileged, and/or 2) it benefits many people and thus is best understood as a form of cooperation.

Furthermore, when everyone's a psychopath, everyone has the same feelings, so feelings become valuable insight in determining appropriate policy.

This statement is ridiculous.

Can you explain how altruism is self-interested?

Altruism is self-interested because many people feel good when they help others and feel bad when they hurt others. Thus, altruism is just a way of achieving favorable internal states. I have a hard time imagining that you aren't plenty familiar with that idea. Is it that you think altruism for selfish reasons is not altruism? If so, I think you know what I meant.

My point is irrationality isn't as separate as you think.

When everyone's irrational, adhering to the irrational becomes rational. It's like the operation of a religious cult. If you don't follow mystical lies, then you become a social outcast.

In politics, these lies correspond with psychopathy as previously described.

Again, we're talking about political beliefs, not public image. Going along with a cult doesn't mean you suddenly start believing their dogma. Hypothetically, if that cult had an anonymous ballot where members were able to participate in a binding vote on cult policy, then there would be no reason (at least not one that would map to what we are really talking about) not to vote according to your true beliefs, even though you still have to participate in the charade. As far as I can tell, effectively what you are saying is that you (or some person) profess a certain ideology because your friends, family, coworkers, employer, or whoever would have less favorable attitudes towards you if you followed what you think actually leads to better policy.

I'm talking about how international finance mediates multiculturalism with environmentalism by calculating the operation of supply chains around the world.

What is this multiculturalism/environmentalism dichotomy and why do you think it is so relevant as to mention it twice? What exactly do you mean by 'calculating the operation of supply chains'? Supply chains, especially global ones, are distributed systems. No single person, or even organization, plans or manages the whole thing. But you know that. In any case, this is all tangential.

International finance's goals are mediated by consumer sovereignty. Nike can't sell sneakers for $1,000 a pair because nobody would buy them.

So what? What does that have to do with, say, putting the CEO of Nike in charge of corporate tax rates, workplace safety standards, or environmental regulations?

[MisterSamArcher]

I hope this conversation is revived in the near-future. I have considered contributing to the 'argument', however seeing the most recent post I decided against the idea. That being said, to answer the question of "How certain are you of your political beliefs?" I can assure you that I'm very-much unsure. This, though, I see as beneficial to my learning and fundamental development as a person. To purposelessly define yourself as 'A' or 'B' does nobody any good, less the ideological cause!

[nucklepunche]

I consider myself to be a hardcore pragmatist above all else. My politics if anything are in constant evolution though I have settled on a basis lately.

I became interested in politics in opposition to the Bush administration's social and foreign policies. I wanted desperately to defeat his reelection so I was a Democrat by default. I considered myself to be a "liberal" but I cared more about social and foreign policy than I did about economics. I was willing to go along with the crowd on that but my views were not strong. After Bush won reelection I gave up on politics for a while and became a misanthrope. Even though I lived in a blue state I grew up in a small, conservative city filled with suburbanite soccer moms, social conservatives, and surrounded by hicks in the outlying areas. Bush was popular in my community and I came to view these people as idiots and felt like America was a lost cause filled with these types of people.

In the time after I began to reassess my positions. Libertarians offered the staunchest civil liberties position so I became a Libertarian. I felt like the Democratic Party was hopeless. Through libertarian organizations I "educated" myself (or propagandized) about economics and adopted a typical libertarian economic ideology. I voted libertarian in 2008.

After a while I got tired of the cult like mentality of libertarians. It became about ideological dogma and weird lifestyles like survivalism and for a while a lot of libertarians attached themselves to the Tea Party, which disgusted me. I kind of lost interest in politics again.

After a while I got interested again. I began drifting ideologically. Eventually I decided that I was a pragmatist. I couldn't let ideology become set in stone because times change and you learn new things. I became more economical and data driven.

As of right now I am sort of a moderate liberal and a supporter of moderately regulated capitalism, Keynesian economics, etc. I break from the left when they promote various uneconomical hobby horses (living wage laws, protectionism, rent control etc.) but overall I do believe government has a role to play in regulating the market and providing a safety net. So I'm on the center-left but reject the excesses of the far left. I sometimes call myself a "sane liberal" to differentiate myself from people to like Michael Moore etc.

I guess overall what I care about most is about facts and reality. I think most of the facts on the ground point to the narrative of the center to center left being most reflective of objective reality, as well as the policy prescriptions they choose. I think the right as a whole (particularlily in the US) is grounded too much in anti-intellectualism, 30 second sound bites, tax pledges, and rigid social conservatism and in a sense one could say I don't so much side with the center-left as I reject the Republican Party, Fox News view of the world. I am a man primarily of the center but I believe that in the USA you more or less have two choices: one is to join with a broad coalition consisting of the center, center-left, and left or to join with a broad coalition consisting of the extreme social right and uncompromising economic libertarians, which to me is a non-starter. You are either in one of those two groups broadly or you are out of "the game" so to speak, and to me no sane person could join the American right.

In a nutshell my views are this: the right is wrong, the left is stupid.

The right is a wholesale bunch of nutters and hold many morally repugnant position. The left is well meaning but I grow tired of the inane utopianism, political correctness, and flirtations with socialism of many on the center-left. In a sense I think the left can be reformed, and the right must be held at bay.