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Post by mainstreet on Aug 31, 2017 1:55:25 GMT
What Is Required to Like/Dislike Someone? Or, More Specifically, to Change One's Opinion?
Another disturbing trend I've noticed on social media is this concept...
(From here on out, all names used in these examples are fake. Names and genders are arbitrary. They can be switched at will without loss of integrity.)
Alice does a thing that Frank thinks is horrible, or that Frank has said was horrible in the past. Frank likes Alice. Frank says that he might not approve of what Alice did, but he's still completely on board with her and admires her! Alice's action hasn't changed Frank's opinion at all!
Conversely, Bob does a thing that Gertrude loves. Gertrude hates Bob. She says that what Bob did is an act, is not the real Bob, and is just trying to seem nice for people! Despite what Bob did, Gertrude still thinks Bob is a horrible person, and this hasn't changed her mind one bit!
To me, this is a problem. Now, I'm not saying that good people don't make mistakes, or that bad people don't do good things -- either seriously or cynically. And in isolation, the above short stories are not a problem. It's a problem because with the given set of action and prior opinion, the result is this story... almost all the time.
So. If we're talking about Carolyn, and you don't like her, and I want to say something good about her... maybe I need to slow down. Maybe I need to first say "What would it take to get you to change your opinion about Carolyn" Because if the answer's "nothing", why waste my breath (or keyboard, as the case may be.)
It's the same if we're going to talk about Doug. If you like him a lot, and I want to talk about something horrible he did, do I need to, likewise, slow down? "What would it take to get your to change your opinion about Doug?" Again, the answer might be "nothing" and I'll be wasting my time.
To be sure, I think it's actually quite rare that a person can't be moved against someone. It does, occasionally, exist. (To our sorrow, in likely the most dangerous of circumstances.) But the other one is a difficult nut to crack. Once you decide Carolyn is a horrible person, what can I, or anyone, do about that?
I'm not sure I have the answer to this. But it's something we need to think of. Is there a point in which someone is irredeemable?
I realize that I am apparently conflating two different topics. Until this point, it hasn't mattered, but we now do need to tease this out. Instead of Carolyn, let's talk about Sally and Todd.
Sally is someone you know personally. You might interact with her regularly, or just occasionally. Nonetheless, she is a part of your life for whatever reason. Her actions affect you on a personal level.
Todd is someone you don't know personally. He is fairly famous, or at least has some sort of renown within his field. You've never met him, or only met him briefly. He almost certainly has no clue who you are.
It's very tempting to say that these are two different answers. It's quite possible that because of Todd's fame, he has a much greater worldwide influence than Sally does, especially if he's someone like a politician. On the other hand, he can't personally hurt you in the way Sally can.
Sally is irredeemable, presumably, when she does something morally repulsive in a way that causes a serious and compelling harm to you or someone you care about. That is to say, while you might dislike her, until this happens your opinion of her can be changed.
I think we try to hold Todd to some other standard than this, and I'm not sure we should. Remember, we're talking about when a person is irredeemable, when no amount of good can offset the bad they have done. Now, with influence, there are more ways to accomplish this harm, but it is still harder to reach you in general.
I would like to invite discussion on this in particular, because this is definitely one without an easy solution, other than to invoke greater effort to be cognizant of our own opinions.
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Post by mainstreet on Sept 25, 2017 22:19:31 GMT
Interpretations of Patriotism, and the Question of its Virtue
(Before I begin, comment: This post is very American-centric, at least at first. I apologize to my global audience. But this needs to be said, and you might be able to translate and find relevant thoughts.)
Due to recent events surrounding the President and the NFL, we now have a discussion about what the flag means, how to respect it, and so forth.
This discussion is dumb for three main reasons, two of which I will mention in brief, the last of which I will discuss in great detail.
First, these protests are not intended to be disrespectful to anything. If you're so insecure that you need a piece of cloth to have some mythical status of respect to feel good about your country, you have serious issues. This is a protest about the racially unjust society we have created. That's the discussion we *should* be having. (Philando Castile. Eric Garner. Sandra Bland. Trayvon Martin. John Crawford. Tamir Rice. Need I go on?)
Second, protesting is explicitly permitted in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. It's also one of the most mild protests we have seen, in that nothing is really being disrupted. There is a US Flag Code discussing how the flag should be treated. However, it also declares that it is advisory and has no penalties. Court cases involving the flag code are almost always referred to the First Amendment. (Also, if you have flag clothing, or flag plates, or other such things, you're hypocritical to complain now.)
Third, what does it actually mean to be patriotic? I sort of hinted at this back in reason number one, but that's more accurately a statement of intent. What does it mean to be a patriot? In general, most people think of it as pride in and support for, or perhaps love for, one's country.
In general, this is a good thing. It's not a good thing, however, when it blinds you to the problems it has. When you love something, you strive to *make it better*.
The flag means what you want it to mean. Nothing more and nothing less. To me, it represents our country and the ideals our country has put forth to the world. While we often fall short of those ideals, they remain a goal to strive for.
In my mind, there's nothing patriotic about grand proclamations to the flag. Because once they're over, they're over.
There's often a lot of linking between support for the military, or rather, as we often call it, the "troops". (This is actually an interesting point. Supporting the "military" means you support the actions our military takes. If you don't, fine. But supporting "the troops" means you support the actual men and women that are serving your country. Failure to do that... well, now you're disrespecting a whole group of individuals, a group that puts their lives on the line for your safety and freedom. And that, of course, is a MUCH bigger issue on a personal level to many people, especially those with family members in the military, because now you're disrespecting someone's spouse, or sibling, or child, etc. The fact that these are often conflated is... interesting.)
I do/did not personally serve in the military. However, I have a grandfather who served in the US Navy, two grandparents who served in the Marines, and my father works for the Department of Defense in a civilian capacity. I respect the brave men and women who serve, and have a (probably insignificant) manner of understanding with regards to them.
What is the best way we can honor their sacrifices? What is the thing we can "do for our country," as Kennedy would say? It certainly isn't anything to do with the flag... No one put their lives on the line for a piece of fabric. They put their lives on the line for the millions of people they leave behind; for their security and freedom, and possibly as well for the ideals that our country represents.
We make it better. We vote; every election. We participate in the democratic process. As we consider issues and candidates, we ask ourselves: is our consideration in line with the true ideals of what it means to be an American?
When things are good, we should support them. When things are bad -- when our government does bad things -- we should oppose them.
It is our obligation to understand our own history and how that shapes what we can and should do as a nation. It is not possible to understand who we are and where we came from without accepting the great evils our country has done. We must never allow them to happen again. But that is not sufficient. We must take responsibility for it. We cannot change the past, but we can engage our future actions with an understanding that our claims to our privileges are born of conquest and blood, and that it is precisely that blood that has made our society unequal.
To take on the mantle of "patriot" is to do so with a clear head. It is to accept the greatness of our ideals but also the faults of our history. It is to praise the positive actions we take as a nation and to condemn its negatives. In doing so, we seek to maximize the positive and minimize the negative.
(The Constitution itself was not perfect when created. It has been amended 27 times, and has what is fast becoming evident are two quite massive holes right now, with proposed amendments for them.)
Even so, there are many that hesitate to claim the mantle, that are not willing to say patriotism is a good thing in any respect.
And I can't blame them either!
It actually causes a huge amount of problems in the world. Or more specifically, the fact that we are in this inconsistent state, where the economy has globalized but the political world insists on keeping these entities called "nations". People fight over borders, over territory, over rights, over ideas... ignoring the basic fact that we are all humans, and are all affected by the same issues. Wherever you go, there are people hoarding wealth, trying to preserve it. There are people struggling to survive. There are people living in areas affected by natural disasters. Those natural disasters may be happening with enhanced frequency due to climate change.
Borders more or less don't exist for the wealthy. They can throw money at a problem and gain entry wherever they please. I see freedom of travel as more or less a human right. Which is not to say that everyone should automatically be able to go anywhere, but that your mobility should not be restricted inherently by your money. (I am not arguing that travel should be free, but rather, that it should be always *possible* with normal economic effort, which as I mentioned, it is not.) I would thus like to see borders go away. I would like to see us become a single world, a single people. I would like to see us be able to resolve our differences peacefully as equals, and I would like to see us have a unified, but indexed set of laws, so that a company cannot exploit labor in one area, exploit markets in another area, and scoop the difference as pure profit.
So with this in mind, I totally understand and respect those that reject the notion of patriotism entirely. Because why should we have countries at all? And I don't disagree.
But for now, we *do* have countries, and thus, I seek to make mine the best possible. As mentioned in my introduction post, I can hold different thoughts at different levels of my mind. This is a perfect example of this. I want to improve my country. But I'd rather not have countries. And this is fine.
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Post by mainstreet on Oct 2, 2017 3:31:03 GMT
A Wider Look at American Football
(Yes, again, American-centric. Our culture is... somewhat unique. Most notably, I will use the word "football" a lot in this post. It refers to American football from now on. I don't want to get bogged down in words.)
So, a lot has happened recently. We know a lot more about concussions and the high potential of football to cause brain injury over a long period of time. We know that the NFL hasn't done much about this and tends to ignore this problem. It's a serious danger.
We know that the NFL's personal conduct policy is garbage and tends to be arbitrary. Fines for wearing the wrong color shoelaces, harsher suspensions for drug use then for beating your wife. It's garbage.
The NFL is a multi-billion dollar organization. It's arguably the most competitive league in the world. In no other league is the potential maintained to go up and down the standings rapidly. In this way, it's the epitome of sports. It's also a league that has in a way felt too large, showing that they don't care about their fans or about much else really.
The NFL claims to care about its image, yet they blacklist Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the national anthem -- then turn around and do so en masse. (Granted, this is likely because our big fat "President" opened his big fat mouth and expressed his rabid hatred for the NFL.) They do little to stop the aforementioned problems, and engage to cover them up. They also show a total lack of concern for actually having fans. (To explain that last statement, I will simply say three words: "Los Angeles Chargers". Fuck Dean Spanos.)
As a result of all this, some people have claimed that the NFL needs to end. There are problems with this, and the situation is even more complicated than it looks.
I'm well aware of the problems the NFL has. Here's the thing though, every one of these problems is one of two things. Most likely, it's indicative of a larger problem in our culture as Americans in some way, and thus not really a problem that ending the NFL will fix. Also probable, it's a problem that is traceable to a single individual. In many cases, it's actually both of these.
I'll work backwards. Let's discuss the worst commissioner in American sports history. Roger Goodell. Roger Goodell has been the man that has turned the NFL into a multi-million to a multi-billion dollar industry. He gets a lot of credit for this, especially from ownership.
He deserves NONE of the credit for this. It can't be overstated that he became commissioner during a time of ever-increasing media saturation. *All* the major sports leagues have shot way up in value with national or even global media attention. Yes, he made the NFL a ton of money through massive media contracts. But ANYONE could have done this! This is free money here!
All he's actually done is allowed the NFL to have all of the aforementioned problems and done very little to solve much of anything. At best, he's maintained a system that allows the competitive balance to be maintained... but I am unsure of any innovations done to the game that actually ensure this. The rules changes have been okay, but he's not directly responsible for that and anyone could've made the same or similar changes and got the same or similar effects.
I'll talk about the personal conduct issue. This concept that players are getting back on the field after doing horrible things, such as engaging in domestic abuse. There are three important points here. First, Roger Goodell sets the suspensions and the like -- this is a leadership failure. He's the problem. Second, we should not have the sports world become a court system. Due process should apply, there are a lot of times when no one's even charged, and the media demands the proverbial head on a platter. No.
What's that you say? But the courts are biased and it's hard for abusers to get justice? (Third) This is true, but it's not the NFL's problem. That's a wider problem in our society that we absolutely should fix. You can't play in the NFL from jail. Fix the process itself so that it can work correctly. If convictions should happen, then convict and put people behind bars.
I've covered the protests in the previous post, I'm not going there again.
Fuck Dean Spanos. I've said it before, I'll say it again. But this is also very much weak leadership from Roger Goodell. Goodell decides on giving Spanos a one-year window to make a decision, basically pressuring him to make a move. San Diego needed more time. Goodell muffed this one. We will shortly be on a trend against stadiums for billionaires. They can pay for them themselves. This is a good trend, and I'm going to say that this problem will work itself out in the long run.
Alright, now that the small stuff, such as it is, has gotten out of the way... let's address the large issue: brain damage.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it. This is a problem. But why it is a problem? Certainly, part of it is Goodell being Goodell here and suppressing research and stuff. (Have I mentioned how horrible a commissioner Roger Goodell is?) But really this is more fundamental. Not just to football. But to society as a whole. I'm not even going to say American society, though I believe that most of the developed world has moved a bit beyond this. But only a bit.
Brain damage, in this context, comes from the multitude of concussions and sub-concussive hits brought about by a long career of playing football, starting from a young age. You have lots of people hitting each other at high speeds, repeatedly, every day. (Practice hits are not as punishing as game hits, but they are still hits.)
Football, at its core, is an expression of violence. I'm going to step back from the NFL specifically here, and just look at the sport as a whole. It's one of the more violent sports, and probably is the most violent of team sports. So why do people engage in it?
Let's go to high school. It's a place I'm very familiar with, being a substitute teacher in high schools across San Diego. Most football players get their start here. Some start younger (which is on the decline: I think the eventual trend is going to be that only flag football is played before high school, and because of this issue, I agree with this completely). Now, there is the consideration of the path of success, to be sure. The NFL makes a lot of money, as do its players. But realistically, most high school players aren't going to the NFL or even sniffing it. About 5% of players will play another organized down after high school -- whether that's in community college, NAIA, or NCAA -- and I am probably being generous here. While it is true that even 4 years is enough to potentially cause brain damage, all the evidence so far indicates that the most serious cases are in the long run. Which is logical. But you still need that dream of the NFL intact to have a thriving high school football game. If there's no NFL, the best athletes will concentrate on other sports.
That doesn't sound so bad... Well, no. But.
Our society has a desire for young men -- precisely these high schoolers -- to express 'toughness', essentially to prove themselves 'Men'. I find this toxic in the extreme and a terrible thing. I will quickly declare that fixing this problem should be a goal down the road for society. However, sweeping social change is extremely difficult and I am reluctant to simply say "let's do this" and leave it at that. It certainly won't be quick. So let's accept that it exists for the moment and consider what this means.
Toughness is often expressed through violence. Football provides a relatively safe outlet for that. You're hitting someone in a controlled way. Yes, it's dangerous in the sense of what we talked about above. But what would an alternative be? Frankly, it's very easy for many young men to find themselves getting into trouble on the streets, especially in our inner cities. Every high school football program fully functioning is anywhere from 60 to 150 teenagers not causing trouble on the streets. Because they're at football practice. Or they're done with football practice, and all the frustrations in their life have been acted out and left on the field. Or they're studying, because they need to do so to maintain eligibility so they can keep playing. (Yes, they should study for its own sake, because an education is important, but that doesn't always happen, and the details for that are well outside the scope of this post.)
Without football, I see a lot of kids finding other outlets for violence. I see a lot of teenagers finding themselves in a bad place in life.
Yes, we might be better without football and without all the other social problems that we have that lead towards these issues. But that's a tall order, and we cannot simply wave a magic wand.
The stability of football as a sport depends on a thriving NFL. The NFL is in serious trouble, because of everything we've talked about. But I think it should be saved, not destroyed.
What should be done?
First, fire Roger Goodell. He's awful and makes everything worse.
Second, implement a personal conduct policy that eases up on harmless fun and lets entertainment shine. Keep a perspective of equity with more serious concerns. Produce and maintain a culture of respect for humanity and for people's rights.
Third, fix the college game at the NCAA-FBS level. No more "team goes undefeated and has no chance to be champion". Actually having a fair league right below the NFL puts pressure for quality behavior.
Fourth, invest it and engage in improving helmets. Surely, the tech must exist, or at least be capable of existing, to help reduce rotational forces to the head. It won't be perfect, but every little bit helps. The VICIS helmet is a step in the right direction. Let's find a way to make it affordable, then implement it. Then keep working on it.
Fifth, as implied above, let's stop youth tackle football. Start tackle football in high school. The young ones can still have fun with flag football, and that gets us a little more brain development before the hits start coming.
Sixth, put the Chargers where they belong. SAN DIEGO. (Okay, okay, that won't solve any problem here. I don't care. Do it anyway.)
As a long term goal, fix the social problems that are *actually* behind these issues that are claimed in football. Then maybe we can look in other directions. But then, maybe when we do these social changes, we won't need to -- they will come naturally as a factor of it. With less desire for toughness and violence, football might be less desired on its own.
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Post by mainstreet on Dec 1, 2017 4:41:08 GMT
Connecting Thought Processes, Attempted Relationships, Harassment, and Other Problems
There has been a huge wave of potential change occurring in society at this time. Finally, people are waking up, and speaking up, and men that engage in sexually inappropriate behavior towards women are getting punished for it, especially if they abuse their power to do so.
This is unequivocably a good thing.
But it made me wonder. This feels almost too widespread to make sense at first glance. And yet, consistently, it showed to be correct.
This told me that there must be a fundamental disconnect in our own thought processes that cause problems in how we react to people we are attracted to.
I would like to propose one possible chain of causality. It may be that simply understanding that this chain exists may be enough for men to realize it, and stop it.
Background/Source: I myself am male, and largely heterosexual. I will be looking at things from this lens. Obviously this is not the whole of the male experience, but it is the most relevant to the current discussion.
Let's look at some basic principles that we take for granted in society.
Thoughtcrime does not exist. One should not be punished on the basis of what goes on internally inside one's head. Period, no exceptions. This is a pretty basic principle in our society. People are allowed to think whatever they want. We judge things done, not things considered. Everyone has thoughts about doing things that, to actually do, would be crimes, without doing them. Since there are no exemptions, sexual attraction cannot be held exempt. Thus, objectification inside my own head, without doing anything about it outside my head whatsoever, can't be wrong.
Honesty is a generally good policy. Lying is not a good idea. We even have aphorisms against lying by omission. We take being honest and direct about our emotional states as generally being intrinsically good. So, if we feel a certain way about someone, it's good to share it and not hide it, right?
Well, no. Not at all. We already accept this, understanding such concepts as lying in the interests of safety.
There is a big difference between thinking about one's attraction and actually acting on it. It is not okay to make someone feel uncomfortable or objectified just to satisfy yourself.
I have sexual desires for individuals all the time. I act on them privately, in a way that does not make the people uncomfortable. "Ignorance is bliss" may be trite, but it's absolutely true here. No one wants to feel like an object -- what someone is actually thinking is immaterial. If someone asks, I make an effort to be generic and as respectful as possible.
This is distinct, of course, from actually attempting to advance into a relationship. For this, there are a few things that are important for men such as myself to consider.
First, put yourself in the woman's shoes. And I mean really think about it. Think about what the other person is likely to know about you. Don't assume they know everything good and nothing bad. You do not get to assume your own desirability. Consider consequences before you act.
Second, acknowledge and recognize the work people put into relationships. There's another chain of thought here that applies to this, in fact. You see men touching women, even in sexually suggestive or permissive ways, in real life, all the time, and the women don't necessarily complain. But that does not mean that that's a standard. It generally means one of three things, none of which imply you have permission to do any of it with anyone.
1) It's not, in fact, that she doesn't want to complain. Yes, it very well can be an abusive situation. Don't be a dick. Really. This is probably more common than I wish it was, but I'm going to say anyway that this is the 2nd most likely of the three options. 2) This is incredibly rare, but occasionally, it really is that way -- where the woman just randomly doesn't have the problem with it. Frankly, this is only distinct from number one either by sheer dumb luck from the man, or other cues that you might not see right away. (For instance, if she gave an explicit verbal request for it.) 3) Most commonly, it's because they've been in a relationship for a considerable amount of time, and have put in the work to that relationship for where they trust each other, and they have gained an understanding that allows for signs of consent that are clear to each other but would not be to someone outside their relationship. This frequently takes months if not years to build. This relationship has progressed so many stages beyond where you're at with a generic acquaintance or friend of yours that this shouldn't even be mentioned as a baseline.
Important to note here: unless you have legitimate concern with evidence that this is the first situation, and you want to help remove her from that situation (and NOT, I might add, to do it yourself) -- it's none of your business which of these it is! In none of these cases is this behavior indicative of how you can act with someone without explicit consent.
Third, consider your purpose in your situation. If you are at work, and the other person is at work, you are there to work. Time and place matters. Professionalism matters. There are times in which it might be appropriate to even ask. There are times when it is not.
Fourth, consider the inherent power dynamic. This is what we most frequently see as a manifestation of these problems. If you have the power to affect someone's life in a significant way, it is extremely dubious whether consent is a meaningful term. Go back to the first request here.
Fifth, understand that anything that is public, is completely public. Social media makes this even more true than ever before, but it has really always been such. If you demean someone, it has a high probability of getting back to them. You may think what you want, but don't say things behind people's backs that you wouldn't say to their faces, after considering all of the above.
I do have one request for women. I know, you shouldn't really have to deal with this. But.
My request is this: Be clear and explicit about when things are uncomfortable and/or unacceptable to you. At the same time, don't consider someone automatically evil just because a comment is made -- there's a reasonable chance that someone has not figured out that what they did is wrong. Let them know, and make it an issue if it continues, but give them a chance to correct their behavior. Every situation is different. (I am not saying that *anything* should be forgivable. But there is that first step that is just over the line... people should get a chance to step back from it.)
On the flip side for this: Men: If the above thing happens to you, please stop. She didn't ask you to move to someone else. She's telling you that what you're doing is wrong, period. Just stop. Listen to the actual words said. If you're making someone uncomfortable, it's highly probable that that's the case in general with whatever just happened, unless it's specifically stated that it's not. But regardless, respect what people say. No means no.
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Post by mainstreet on Dec 26, 2017 1:01:13 GMT
You Get What You Pay For: Education
Individuals on the Right like to complain about our educational system. I get that, I like to complain about it too. But the complaints issued by the Right often don't make sense.
Put simply, I often hear two things: 1) Teachers are overpaid 2) Teachers are bad at their jobs
But for both of these to be true... well, they can't both be true, in a capitalist system. It's basic capitalism that you get what you pay for.
So one of the following statements MUST be true:
1) Either the above 1 or 2 is incorrect 2) Capitalism is a bad system, at least when it comes to discussing education
There are various aspects that might well hold for 2, but it's somewhat irrelevant. The actual relevancy of 2 is not distinct from the core idea of capitalism itself. We are discussing teacher pay right now. Even if we fixed some of the other capitalist elements of the system, this is core capitalism in a way that we cannot possibly change as long as the rest of our society maintains capitalism. (There might well be benefits to that, but that's definitely far outside the scope of this discussion. As such, I will presume we are not removing capitalism as a social point.) Ergo, number 2 doesn't make sense. I doubt anyone on the Right is going to press this point with me, capitalism is a quite sacred notion.
Therefore we have now concluded that both overpayment and poor quality CANNOT be true, in the aggregate, per the rules of basic capitalism. (Individual exceptions might exist, but the aggregate definitely needs to follow basic rules.)
So now that we have teased out the implausibility of these simultaneously being true, I will ask people to pick a side...
Now that it has been picked, I will tell you if you picked wrong.
If you chose either as true, you are wrong, though you are less wrong if you picked #2.
Yes, there are a lot of bad teachers around. I'm a substitute. I see a lot of bad classrooms. But I also see a lot of great classrooms.
Yes, the current rate of teacher pay allows for some good teachers, but it also means there will be lots of bad ones here. Why?
Because teachers are dramatically underpaid.
This is often hard for people to grasp, because they insist on looking at an individual classroom for an aggregate problem. Of course, doubling a bad teacher's salary is not going to make them suddenly a good teacher. That's not the point. That's not how the "you get what you pay for" principle works.
What it does is make the job more attractive, to attract greater talent. That bad teacher will find themselves without a job, in the long run, because someone better will be more willing to do this job, because it now pays competitively compared to whatever else they were doing, taking into account the difficulties of the job as well. Increasing pay means increasing the desirability of the job. (To be sure, there are other things that can be done to increase the desirability of teaching jobs, but all of them require the same thing: increase funding!)
(But... but what about the union? You can't fire that bad teacher...)
No. Stop. Stop thinking about that one classroom. Stop applying an aggregate problem to an individual. You are correct, that bad teacher will continue to get paid. For now. But the *next* bad teacher to come along *won't get the job in the first place* now that there is more competition for the position! And this will propagate. Eventually, a generation of bad teachers will retire, and it will be the good teachers that are left, continuing to work in the field because it is *better*, it is *more competitive* than it used to be, and thus *more worth it* to stay in the field.
(Cynically, until the good teaching becomes taken for granted, then we start complaining about "overpaid" teachers, then fix the problem by cutting salaries, which lowers competitiveness, which means talent will be lost to other competitive fields of industry... and we're back to square one.)
Now, I am aware of another objection that is going to pop up here: that it's simply that funding needs to be more "efficient", and that the problem is that there is wasteful spending and we just need to clean things up. There's a problem with this, though. Well, two main problems. Let's address them.
First, you're basically implying that the vast majority of district administrations spend wastefully. I think this is unlikely to be true, simply because that implies a lot of people that are very bad at their job. Or, that themselves are overpaid, but again, pay = talent. Money management skills matter and are not free. And in practice, cutting administrator salaries to something that is still a living wage but not top payments... on top of gutting talent, would also just not save that much in the long run, even if we assumed there was no increased inefficiency due to poor talent. However, if this is true... where are all these people learning this? It's possible the system is self-perpetuating, but at least a part of it has to come from society itself. Look inward.
Second, frankly, I find most people that make this claim to have no idea what goes into running anything, let alone a school. I'm not going to claim *I* have particularly great knowledge of what goes into running a school... but as a substitute teacher, I'm on a lot of campuses. I know better than most people that haven't stepped on a campus for anything but to rant at their child's teacher, or possibly go to a football game, since they graduated high school. People see the funding that goes in, see the education that comes out, and think that there's overpayment for what they're getting, simply because they imagine the costs, and forget far too many of them. This, then, is perceived as an inefficiency, a gap in what they should be getting, versus what they are. In reality no such gap exists, they simply underestimate costs. It's not just teachers and administrators. It's maintenance stuff, security staff, counselors, other medical operations, other classified staff, building upkeep and construction, energy costs (going down a bit with the move to solar, but still expensive), costs of maintaining programs, and some classrooms cost more than others (Science is expensive, so is music and art). Not to mention that we haven't even gotten into how children have different needs and how costs for special education services, English learning support, and so many other little differences drastically impact the costs as well. (Especially when charter schools suck "good" students away but fail to recruit these students with different needs, increasing the percentage of funding that has to go to support these children. Remember the funding structures do not know what students a school has, just how many, and where it's located.) And I'm not even going to claim I've covered everything, because I know I haven't!
(If you went for overpaid instead of the quality issue, well, you're just wrong. There is a quality problem, but it's not one caused by teachers per se.)
Respect education. Fund education. That's the only way to make it better. Yes, it really is that simple.
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Post by mainstreet on Mar 11, 2018 17:59:30 GMT
More Relationships, or Lack Thereof, Thoughts: Dynamics of Resentment
Alternative Title: Why We Need to Stop Telling Individuals They Are Important or Special, Especially Young White Men
Whenever there's an episode of violence perpetrated by an alt-right crazy, people often ask "Why", as in "Why are they doing this?" A lot of claims are made about how they're disenchanted, and also how they're led to a form of disrespecting women.
I think the problem is a much deeper root than I've seen anyone in media be willing to give it credit. As I mentioned in the AT, this is actually a problem of initial belief in one's own importance. And this is not limited to these crazies, either. This is a more fundamental problem; the alt-right crazies are really just a symptom, and more specifically, they're the people that haven't properly grappled with and correctly handled their problem. Yes, you can create support structures to make it more likely they'll handle it like most people. Or, why not just prevent the issue in the first place?
I will explain how I come to this conclusion.
First, I want to remind people that I create universes and characters. While I'm not particularly good at translating them into actual writing, they still exist in my head. Essentially what I have done is taken knowledge I have gleaned from news sources and internet discussions about thought patterns, examined my own experiences and thought patterns, and then translated that into what I believe is a disturbing possibility.
Second, while I am in relationships right now, in a sense, they are not sexual relationships, for reasons I won't get into here. Thus I clarify that while I have relationships, as is well known, I am not currently engaged in any relationships that engage in sex. While these same relationships flag that I am not strictly straight per se, from a sexual perspective my base desires as a male still tends towards desiring women. Since we are trying to look at a specific type of individual, I find it most useful to focus on my heterosexual desires for this post.
So, even though this is not technically correct, it is useful to, and my mind can easily, approximate and generate a heterosexual male that is not actually in any relationships, and one that has also accepted our cultural hegemony of monogamy (even though I don't actually do this).
I write the above paragraphs to make it clear that when I discuss the dark things I consider and where my mind goes, I don't actually believe these things are true, or that I actually accept the thought patterns I am going to show you as valid or acceptable to act upon. I am going to explain the primitive in a way that doesn't necessarily consider the feelings of anyone else. Civilization is, of course, highly dependent upon these considerations, and thus we have why these are bad. Women are people, the primitive brain doesn't quite get that.
When an attractive* woman walks by, my brain is attracted, and specifically, it desires sex with this woman, or at least it enjoys the thought of the possibility of it. When I then realize she has a boyfriend (thanks to him walking with her or meeting her and obvious signals ensue, and such), my brain is disappointed as it realizes there's competition for her, and one that is actually far ahead in such competition. My brain starts to begin assessing the competition, "What does he have that I don't?" or even better "What do I have that he doesn't, that would allow me to change this situation?" When it's obvious that the boyfriend is more obviously desirable himself in some way (through body, wealth, or some other such status), the brain will generally privately concede the competition**. When it's unclear if there are substantial differences, the brain resents the choice the woman has made a bit, but will likely console itself with the knowledge that there's another around somewhere. When the brain convinces itself that it's the "superior", now it gets offended at the situation, seeing a woman it desires responding to what it sees as a clearly inferior male and ignoring him. No matter what, the primitive brain does not like the implication that other men are engaging in possible sexual relationships and they are not, though this last case is the worst to it.
When said boyfriend doesn't show up... and I'll extend this further, for simplicity, and just say that we know the woman we've found is single... the brain will attempt to start a relationship. When it gets rejected, that is, when she turns me down, the brain essentially is forced to say that she has declared me unworthy of her attentions. (This is how the brain will operate even if that is not even remotely true or relevant.) This generates insecurities, and the brain will either lower its opinion of itself, or it will engage in a sour grapes tactic on its opinion of the woman. If this happens enough, generalization becomes possible.
Moreover, we teach every child that they are special and important and can do anything! In short, we are training brains from a young age to think of themselves as the most important person. This is relevant, because especially if reinforced by social privileges of your group (especially applicable to white men), it means you see yourself as the most attractive person. People talk up each other's good qualities to their faces and say bad things about each other behind their backs, especially to children. What you get out of this is that most people have a view of themselves that is more positive than reality, and have a view of others that is more negative than reality. The truth, as usual, would lie in the middle.
So we have this duality here: We are told that we are better than we are, and the actions of those around us indicate that we are worse than we are, especially when it comes to relationships for people that don't have one. This is where that deeper resentment seeps in, where people start to think the problem doesn't lie with themselves, but with the women that reject them in favor of (what their brain sees as a) inferior men. (The inferiority dynamic gets even uglier when a racial component is added -- if you yourself are desirable, especially if you've convinced yourself you're the most desirable, then those that look less like you might well be correlated into being less so.)
While it is true that no one owes anyone a relationship, and actual relationships are far more complicated and dependent on a multitude of factors, the primitive side of the brain doesn't really grasp this. It only understands hierarchy, essentially. If another man has a relationship and I don't, he's either superior or something is wrong. Thus, my brain wants to believe it is superior, but the information I am receiving tells my brain otherwise. This is not acceptable to the brain, and it starts to get more desperate to fix this problem.
Obviously, none of what the brain really just thought here is true when we actually reflect and consider that those around us are actual people, but that is not the point. The brain thinks what it will. You can't really stop it from doing such -- what you actually stop is allowing yourself to act upon those thoughts, to validate them. Thoughts are rejected all the time. Don't believe me? Gullible is written on the ceiling. ...whether you looked or not, you thought something then invalidated it. But people aren't discussing this, in part because the thoughts are awful. Thoughtcrime doesn't exist, but there is this tendency to attack people that verbalize the issues they have. So they don't discuss them where they might be attacked. (Even despite all my careful disclaimers here, I could still see people conveniently forgetting about them and attacking me over this. Which is why this post, and all the posts where I discuss gender dynamics, are hard to write, because I know my thoughts are different from the conventional.)
I don't believe that it's particularly common for "alt-right" men that have a problem with respecting women to start out as "All woman are <negative things>, men are better, blah blah". It's "I'm pretty good, why is no one interested?" which then becomes insecurities and/or sour grapes. Well, it's because you're not good, or at least not as good as you think you are. Work on self-improvement. These men are unlikely to start with "women should submit to men" as they say, but it starts as "There should be a woman that can belong to ME". And then the Internet and its echo chambers start. A lot of people have the same issue and it coalesces into this -- remember, they're not discussing these issues they have where they might be attacked for it.
(In middle school, I asked exactly 2 girls out. Neither accepted. They were the two most attractive girls in the school by far. I asked about a dozen out in high school, never had anyone accept, and again, I was asking pretty much the most attractive girls on campus. I had an over-inflated sense of my importance and belief in superiority. Without the anchors of my other relationships, and/or without a very firm grounding in the rights of women to make their own decisions, this is a dark path that could possibly have happened to me, as well. I'll note that a couple of girls actually asked me out in high school, and I rejected them, again, generally out of arrogance and belief that I could do better. While, yes, we can write this off to being in a weird place in high school... the people we are analyzing here are often in or just out of high school as well.)
I am not saying that conventional responses such as ramming it down men's throats that you're not owed a relationship can't work or that we shouldn't do it, but... it feels like we're attempting to apply patches when the (virtual) virus has already come through and rampaged the brain. I think the better solution is to start from childhood, especially towards those that society as a whole teaches are privileged, and tell them that no, they are not perfect little boys that can do anything they want ever. Hard work can help you achieve goals, but everyone else wants to achieve theirs, too. Realistically it's not possible for everyone to achieve their dream life. Achieving any life at all requires other people, and it's important people cooperate and collaborate to attain their goals, and everyone else has just as much right to achieve their goals as you do. No, you're not important, except to you. People that care about you do so because they choose to.
(To be clear, I am not saying conventional responses and solutions are bad. I am saying I think this should also happen.)
*I said attractive woman, but I don't have to think the woman particularly attractive in any traditional sense to desire them for the relevant purpose here, just attractive "enough", at the moment, for this all to apply. It should also be noted that I'm using attractive -- throughout this post -- as a catchall term. It's not just the physical, though that's a big part of it, especially for one that is largely unknown. For someone that's single, the brain will accept more or less anyone that it's not turned off by as an improvement. Someone in a relationship might even still go through this process, but it would require someone that is considerably more attractive than their current girlfriend. (Though ideally, when in a relationship, one *does* come to see their girlfriend as the ultimate in attractiveness, but that is not always the reality. Our brain has both the desire to do this, as well as, contrarily, to make a point of not doing this. I'm not sure I have the words to explain this properly.)
**And actually, if the woman is someone only moderately attractive by the brain, someone else that is clearly "superior" might also get some resentment from the brain because it believes that the other male is dating beneath him and thus making it harder on more ordinary people. But this is a bit of a sidebar.
PS: The female brain also appears to me to play a lot of the same comparisons and such, but there are two key differences. First, the long history of violence against women, meaning that in addition to desirability assessments, threat assessments need to be constantly made as well. Second, the lack of gender privilege in society making it a bit less likely for women to over-inflate their desirability -- and may in fact under-inflate thanks to society holding up women with professionally-maintained bodies as a standard, which is silly and a thing already covered in a previous post. (This lack of privilege of course also applies to most of those that are non-conforming to their assignment at birth in any way.) (I also concede that I could be wrong, not myself being a woman, but this belief comes from discussing the matter with a handful of different women, so I'm not just pulling this out of my butt.)
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Post by mainstreet on Mar 17, 2018 3:53:52 GMT
One and/or Many?
(Beginning disclaimer: Of course there are exceptions. I speak in the aggregate.)
The nature of human relationships is such that there are two competing desires within us. These desires are natural and primitive, but they lurk within us.
First, humans desire to have lots of partners. This is hardwired through evolution in that having more partners = more children with a wider gene pool = more chance of genetic success. While this is typically stronger in men than in women, because women are still limited through their own body in how many children they can have, discussions have led me to believe this desire is still present in women and thus in most individuals. (Those that are nonbinary are unlikely to form an aggregate in which any claims on this topic can be made.)
Second, humans desire to have their partner(s) be exclusive to themselves. Exclusive to you = more time spent with you = more care for your children = healthier children = more chance of genetic success. This appears to me to be equally strong regardless of gender.
(For the rest of this post, human names will appear. One can likely switch genders without loss of generality, though this is written in a way reflective of my own sexuality.)
Significantly, notice how these desires are not reciprocal nor do they offer reciprocation. That is, my desire for Alice to be my partner and mine alone makes no return promise that I will stay exclusive to Alice. In fact, doing so runs contradictory to my other equal desire to have lots of partners. Similarly, Alice wants me to be exclusive to her.
We declare our intent to satisfy the exclusivity desire of our partner with a marriage (or lesser exclusive relationship bond, usually nonetheless a precursor to a marriage).
We could also declare our intent to satisfy the multiples desire by declaring the relationship open. This does, however, mean that neither of our exclusivity desires can be satisfied, and thus would only be considered if we assume the multiples desire is more important than the exclusivity desire, not at all a safe assumption. Alice's relationships with Bob and Dave, and mine with Charlotte and Erika, certainly offend each other's exclusivity desires.
So the question remains, how are both desires satisfied? We've shown that there isn't an apparent way for this to happen. Except, there sort of is.
To satisfy both desires, the information needs to stop being equally distributed. I declare an exclusive relationship with Alice. I get into relationships with Charlotte and Erika anyway, but I don't tell her. Since she's exclusive to me, and I have multiple partners, both my desires are met. As far as she's aware, her exclusivity desire is being met, unless she has reasons to get suspicious. I don't know this, but her desire for multiples is also met as she's seeing Bob and Dave on the side as well. This would violate my exclusivity desire if I knew about it, but unless I get suspicious, I don't, so I think it's fine.
The way both desires are met, therefore, is cheating. This, I think, is why cheating is so popular, because it's the only way for everyone to convince themselves both primitive relationship desires are being met.
That being said, it is fairly simple to construct a relationship structure in which one person does have both desires met. If Alice, Charlotte, and Erika are all in relationships with me that are exclusive to me, even if they are aware of each other and allow it, I have both desires met. Of course, they get neither desire met this way. This structure only works (meaning, there is no resentment, and likely cheating anyway) if these primitive desires are simply not high priorities for them -- normally an evolutionary weakness. (Evolutionary strength and weakness is less meaningful for intelligent species than for others, but that is a post in itself.) In antiquity, it was not at all uncommon for men to force these structures upon women, using such force to guarantee their personal desires at everyone else's expense (indeed, a philosophy which can, in general terms, sum up the reason for a great deal of the evil in our world). Ideally, our society has moved beyond such oppression (though there are many places in the world where it has not).
The exclusivity desire itself can probably be artificially muted simply by having everyone involved living together anyway -- the desire is ultimately to protect time and care investments, and you would still get the full benefits of this even with everyone living together. As such, I think a stable polyamorous network *can* work without individuals involved feeling like their desires are going unfulfilled.
The partnership desire can possibly be artificially muted through roleplay -- change yourself enough to fool the primitive side of your partner's brain that it's a new partner while the intelligent side is well aware of who they are with (and vice versa, for your partner fooling your brain).
This is a case without an easy answer, and I didn't write this to give one. I wrote this to present ideas, to bring to light the hidden desires within our mind, to force people to realize that they exist, and hopefully, to promote constructive discussion between partners and potential partners on the realities of their situation as humans and how to deal with them.
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Post by mainstreet on Jun 27, 2018 20:34:22 GMT
Polarizing Is Not Bad
Many people have started to bemoan the increasing polarization of politics throughout the world, and specifically in the United States. I will focus on the US specifically for the rest of this post.
Additionally, people have decried a degradation of civility, especially in the past week. This seems to be a reaction to the treatment a senior member of the Administration received from a restaurant and the reactions here. It is important to note, of course, that a person's character causing them to be denied a place in a single restaurant is a far different scale from the systematic oppression of an entire marginalized people, a distinction lost on many on the Right.
People worry that this is going to create a climate in which people are incapable of interacting with people of differing views on the other side. Newsflash, we're already there.
Here's the thing. This is no longer common politics. This is no longer normality. This is nothing less than the base values we stand for, and the soul of the country itself.
To put it another way: In order to have a civil discussion with a person, I would have to accept that someone is worthy of having that respect. In the abstract, your first impulse would be to respect everyone. But, that's not actually possible. There are several cases where I cannot mutually respect individuals and/or institutions core to our nation. Let's examine.
One can't both respect children and a President that would put children in cages.
One cannot simultaneously respect the Constitution of the United States, and members of a Party who support all of the following bodies: a Senate that fails to fulfill its constitutionally-mandated duty to give Judge Merrick Garland an up or down vote, a President that has been in consistent violation of the Emoluments Clause of Article II from day one, an Administration that routinely violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (and possibly the 8th as well) with its treatment of immigrants -- many of whom are legal asylum-seekers, a President that ignores his duty to protect the country from its enemies -- state-sponsored actors that have actively attacked and are continuing to engage in actions against the United States -- and instead makes up fake enemies in the form of people of the wrong skin color.
One can't both respect the notion of law and order in our society, as well as a Congress that continually conspires with the President to destabilize the FBI and active criminal investigations.
One cannot respect my friends in the LGBT community and also respect people, such as the Vice President, that want to take away their rights because of who they are. The same applies, frankly, for people of color, and for women.
Thus, an individual that supports and respects the current leadership of the Republican Party, including the President, are telling me they don't respect law and order, they don't respect minorities of all types, they don't respect children, and they don't respect the Constitution. Why, exactly, should I be respectful... "civil"... to someone like that? We share no values, and these people are a menace to the United States.
The only alternative to polarizing, then, is the toleration of this evil.
Yes, we are polarizing. Because a choice has to be made. I've made mine.
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Post by mainstreet on Jul 12, 2018 3:39:59 GMT
The Incompatibility of Right-Wing Fundamentalism with Democracy Also: What RW Fundamentalism Actually Wants Also: How the 45th President Exemplifies This Perfectly
I am going to speak of a problem from a uniquely American perspective, because that is both what I am familiar with and what is most pressing on my mind. However, before I begin I wish to make it clear that I do not believe this is actually a uniquely American problem, this is a problem wherever conservative religious fundamentalism holds sway, especially where the mainstream religion is the same or similar. (Recall that Islam and Christianity are both branches of the same tree, ultimately.)
It has long been an accepted principle in the mainstream of American society that while liberals and conservative disagree on policy, they fundamentally have the same desires and core values that have shaped America from its founding, and most notably, the principle of democracy. Those paying attention have noticed that this claim is actually quite dubious and has been for a longer time than most realize. Let's examine.
First, the liberal side: While not all liberals respect the core foundation of America for various reasons, those that do not generally do not have much influence in American politics whatsoever. People on this extreme would sometimes claim they are, and cite 2016 Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders as an example. This is wrong; the Senator has great respect for America and our democratic principles. Thus, we can conclude that the above claim is essentially true for the liberal side.
The conservative side is more complicated. There are basically two types of people in the Republican party. The first type are your conservative economic theorists who care largely about cutting their own taxes. Most of them are wealthy or have some sort of economic privilege. These people respect America and American democracy. For brevity of reference, I shall refer to these individuals as "ECs", short for Economic Conservatives, from here on out. ECs can be reasoned with, and you can have decent discussions with them. Some ECs are quite religious, but unlike the other type of conservative, they respect that we have the First Amendment in this country, and that not everyone has to agree on religious principles. This other type is commonly referred to as the Religious Right. They believe that they are God's chosen people, that they are expected to rule America, and that they are always right because they are following the will of God. For brevity, these will be "RRs". RRs cannot be reasoned with. You either follow their conception of God or you do not. They do not respect the core American value of democracy, and will ignore the writings of the Founding Fathers to insist that America is a "Christian Nation". The free exercise (of religion) clause in the First Amendment only is intended to apply to them and perhaps other types of Christians, in their eyes.
Ultimately, there are three groups in the United States, then: Liberals, ECs, and RRs. The Republican Party consists of both of these latter two, and typically, the ECs have had control of the Party sufficiently to prevent any serious degradation to our democracy in favor of religious fervor. However, with the rise of President Trump, the ECs now have zero seats in Congress, effectively. Granted, the President gave the ECs their precious tax cut, but now that they have it, they essentially don't dare step out of line.
The immediate objection I am going to get here is that I am implying that Trump is an RR, when he so clearly is no such thing. His character, in so many ways, is not reflective at all of what the RRs want, or at least claim to want. But there is something more going on here. I will explain how Trump fits into their ideologue in a bit, but first I need to step back a bit.
The Bible, as many religious texts do, declares that God's word is law (and also that the Bible itself is God's word). I'm going to ignore the inherent issues in this claim for the moment, because I am not interested in reality at the moment, but rather, what RRs believe reality to be. Thus, truth is immaterial at the moment.
When Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, it marked a notable transition in European History. Prior to this, the large civilizations in Europe had all had polytheistic religions. Yes, the tribes of Israel existed, but they were never of any serious importance to world events of antiquity prior to their effective annexation by Rome. The Greek democratic system (poor as it was by modern standards) and the Roman Republic (corrupt and highly exclusive, to be sure) were in sync with their religion. The Greeks and Romans had many gods and as such inherently had a murmuring of religious freedom. A worshipper of Zeus could hardly go out of his way to bash a worshipper of Demeter, for instance, because they were well aware of each others and ultimately respected each other and at least accepted the other deity's existence. This was no longer the case.
Even after the fall of Rome, what rose was the various Kingdoms of Europe, and over time, the supremacy of the Holy Roman Empire. Even after the fall of the vast Germanic kingdom by that name, the name lives on to this day as an alternative/archaic title for the Catholic Church. Power flowed from God to the Pope to the King to his feudal nobility. Religious freedom was practically nonexistent, especially prior to the Reformation. Jewish people existed but were heavily persecuted and forced into very unenviable positions (which is a direct correlation to certain modern-day persecution memes with regards to Jewish people, but I digress.)
Let me say that again: The Christian religion, when given full freedom to exert itself, does not run a democracy. It cannot. There is a single God, the sole authority of power. A democratic rabble might end up defying God. That cannot be. The Pope is his voice on Earth within the Catholic Church, and in other branches of Christianity this can be a little more nebulous. Even the Kings of the day generally had to submit to the authority of the Pope. Henry VIII managed to pull away, but that was really a sign of the breaking of the power of the Church as much as anything else. And in fact, we must note that Henry VIII in no way diminished the power of the religion itself, he instead turned that authority to himself. The Monarch of England is actually the Head of the Anglican Church: there is a reason "Defender of the Faith" is one of the first things mentioned in the titles of (current Queen) Elizabeth II.
Monotheistic religions and monarchies go hand in hand, especially when given the power to act on each other. This is true in the modern world: look at how Russian dictator Vladimir Putin makes things worse for many marginalized groups in his country precisely by reflecting upon the religious purity of Russia. But I'll come back to Vlad.
So, a fundamentalist group, one that believes that God's Word should be taken literally, is quite likely to desire a monarchial system. In fact, democracy is anathema to them. Because democracy might let people defy God's will. If the Liberals vote against them, defying God, that is unacceptable to God, and thus Liberals must not be allowed to have a position in politics. Thus, monarchy, with their own monarch.
So now we're back to, why Donald Trump? Donald Trump is not a Christian in the sense most RRs would claim it to be. And yet, the RR base continues to give him free passes, claiming his personal behaviors don't matter. In a way, they don't. There are a few reasons this is happening, some are simple, some are detailed, and I will do my best to dive in.
First, he gave them the rhetoric they wanted to hear, right away. For instance, "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best..." No, of course not. RRs are God's Chosen People -- and are, well, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, in the main, certainly not Mexican Catholics. Also, a "complete shutdown on Muslims from entering this country..." Again, RRs are God's Chosen, not Muslims, those people shouldn't be here.
Second, he quite simply was available. Elites among the RRs tried to latch onto Ted Cruz during the 2016 Presidential Campaign, but Ted Cruz is, well, Ted Cruz, and no one likes him. So, they just took their chance. They secured their own darling Mike Pence as VP, and took what they could get.
The next reason is a little more complicated, and for this, we have to understand a bit more about RR implicit theology here. I don't think any of them would ever admit what I am about to say is true, and it will seem odd, but I am confident in this, and will look at actual RR action patterns to back up my claim.
I'm specifically going to address the moral issues associated with Donald Trump, specifically his behavior towards women -- remarriages, affairs, sexual assault. These would seem to, in general, be things RR is against. But Trump is given a pass. Let's examine what RRs actually do with sexuality, though.
RRs generally claim sex outside of marriage is a sin. Yet, many RRs in power are caught doing this all the time and people just pretty much shrug it off in the vast majority of cases. Liberals like to call this hypocrisy "It's Okay if You're a Republican" (IOKIYAR), but this isn't actually quite correct. It's not enough to be a Republican here; in fact, that's a given to be worth a mention in their system. It's being someone in power.
The reason to ban sex outside of marriage is twofold: one, it encourages sex within marriage, and thus, reproductive chances. (Recall that marriage is between a man and a woman from the RR perspective.) Also, it controls women and forces them to marry. The "shotgun wedding" is a popular joke and is often framed as though the man is being forced to marry the woman, but the woman is being just as forced into that.
Let's look at abortions. Abortion is a sin until someone in power wants their mistress to have an abortion. IOKIYAR? Not really. Again, in power, or at least, in wealth, is the key term here. The common RRs aren't allowed to have abortions. (This is actually another end-run around democracy: creating more RRs to get more votes, and keep their mothers downtrodden to force the young ones into minimal life status so they just follow the RR crowd.)
Put simply, the rules they claim are the rules for the peasantry. Remember, power flows from God to the Head of the Church to the King to the nobles. This has two implications. First, as I hinted at above, sex is the privilege of the rich. The RRs implicitly believe that if you are sufficiently wealthy and/or powerful, as a male, sex is your God-given privilege. If you are a male who is not wealthy or powerful, or female at all, you should only be having sex for reproduction to further the cause of God.
Second, Donald Trump is the RRs King, and thus he does not need to follow the rules of commoners. Of course he's allowed to have women on the side, they should be honored to have been with the King. Of course he's allowed to remarry, surely you don't want the King to have some old hag as his wife, or worse, someone that's actually going to speak in a meaningful way, do you? Grabbing women by the pussy? Well, yeah, he's the King, that just shows how powerful he is that he gets away with that?
Consorting with Russia? Ah, now here's the fascinating one. Remember when I said Vlad uses religious fervor to marginalize people in Russia? In fact, the RRs have respected this about Putin for years, and have been warming up to him for sometime. He's also, like the Pope often was in medieval times, quite possibly the richest man in the world (with his shady organizations, I'm sure we only know about a fraction of his actual wealth.) So, in fact, Putin serves the role of the Holy Emperor for the evangelicals far better than (current Pope) Francis himself does. (The actual office of Pope is a Catholic position, and though RRs often do ally with American Catholics, they are *not* Catholic, vehemently so.)
So power flows from God to Holy Emperor Vladimir Putin to King Donald Trump to the wealthy donors and politicians that surround Trump. This is God's will. Trump violates the Constitution all he wants and the RRs don't care, because he's giving them the power structure they actually want: not a democracy, not one in which liberals have a voice. The Orwellian democratic trappings -- both Putin and Trump call themselves "Presidents" and hold elections, all controlled by Putin anyway -- simply provide a benign face to the United Nations who have claimed that democracy is more or less the only acceptable form of government. No one even needs to believe it in truth, just throw enough sand in faces to make action difficult. See: Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, People's Republic of China, etc.
And the RRs get their King, and the religious "freedom" to do as they please, and screw over all who disagree with them.
I conclude that this is the inevitable product of allowing people that do not believe in democracy to infiltrate democracy. The United States has separation of church and state as a founding principle, but fundamentalist monotheistic religion is incapable of accepting that, because that is against God's will.
This will be the case throughout the world. Allah's will reigns supreme in much of the Islamic world, and democracy is hard to find there. Many dictators in Africa and Latin America claim to be doing the work of the Christian God as well. The only majority Jewish state, Israel, continues to run a brutal near-genocide on the Palestinian people, religious freedom being hard to find there. I want to be clear: I am not saying all religious people are against democracy, I am not saying even that all Abrahamics are against democracy. I am, however, saying, that when religious groups take a right-wing fundamentalist approach, they must reject the notion that democracy is acceptable to them. I also claim that a religious group that is not fundamentalist, while it may still respect democracy, in doing so it makes the state a secular democracy with religious people in it, not a religious one. To wit: There is no such thing as a monotheistic religious democracy. When democracy thrives, it does so because secularism, and the separation of politics and religion, triumphs.
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Post by mainstreet on Dec 17, 2018 3:08:53 GMT
What Representation Actually Means
This is an attempt to make a coherent and nuanced response to the complaint by certain individuals that demands to engage in representation in media is causing quality to go down, because media feel the pressure to be liked and are shoehorning such characters in.
I'm going to first point out that this is correct, in a sense: Forcing a character to be a particular thing is not going to lead to good writing. It will make for stereotype and shallow characters. And it does seem like a lot of media production, in search of meeting popular representational benchmarks, does this. And this is a bad thing. Representation for representation's sake... isn't.
However, none of that invalidates the very necessary demand for representation itself.
But...
I know. At first glance, it sounds like I'm trying to have it both ways. That's because the thought process to begin with, on how representation works, is itself errant.
I feel like many writers go through the process of: Write a story, then go back and change things to hit representational benchmarks.
But you shouldn't need to do this. The point of representation is that it should be natural. It should be a case of this character just exists; this character is a part of the story, without needing to be forced into a particular way. The problem isn't that you just leave all the characters as, for example, white heterosexual cisgendered males, but... why is the thought process to create the story always doing that in the first place? Life is more than that.
If anything, this is the real point: Writers write about their experience. Media should focus on having a diverse writing cast from the ground up, and from there the stories will arise naturally. Yes, there is a place for games that don't meet the representational benchmarks per se, if the situation calls for it.
Demands for representation are not necessarily demanding that in every game/movie/show etc., rather it is a frustrated cry upon the entire industry simply to do it *more*.
And actually, I think we are getting better. Let's not let shoehorn clunkers, that do indeed suck, ruin it for the rest of us. We don't have to choose between artificial meeting of benchmarks and a lack of representation. Inclusion can be natural.
As a Dungeons and Dragons player, I have created characters for others' games, and my own campaign worlds with my own characters. I want to use this base to examine my own notion of representation. I'm going to note that across about 10 years of play, I've created exactly one transgender character in one of my campaigns. While worlds are vast, as a percentage of named human characters run in my campaigns, this isn't far off in terms of percentage. The character was there and I acknowledged the existence of a people by having them... but I most certainly did not go "and I want to include a trans character." I actually want to review my own thought process on this, as an example.
The character I was building was the eldest of four children of a powerful Baron. In this particular area, there was not definitive primogeniture, but the Baron could freely choose his own successor. The means by which he was doing so was a convoluted competition, one that our character here thought was barbaric and wanted no part of. They also, I note, had no particular interest in becoming the next Baron anyway. Why was that? Well, they weren't going to be having children of their own anyway, so it didn't really matter, and they didn't feel comfortable in high society anyway. Why not? Well, because they were in fact not actually male, despite being born with those parts, and they were very much not interested in using those parts.
Ah, there we go. See how that went? I didn't set out to create a trans character. I created her naturally, through just engaging in questions about... life. And I fundamentally acknowledge their existence, and can use that in my toolkit of character creation in general.
Ultimately, demands for representation, when expressed competently, are not "Please have X <minority type> characters". It's "Please have the diverse experiences of the human spirit available in designing your story. The rest will take care of itself once you have done this."
For those that can't or won't engage in this type of natural representation, artificial is all they have. Media companies should consider hiring someone else. But of course, such a thing needs to start ultimately at the top, with ownership.
This isn't as hard as it's made out to be. I don't consider myself a great writer, and I manage this feat with ease. But I live a life among a diverse group of people, so others might struggle more. But it behooves aspiring writers to at least try.
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Post by mainstreet on Feb 14, 2019 20:09:55 GMT
Pay Elected Officials. Seriously.
I've been seeing this meme going around the Internet lately, talking about how "If <certain thing> does/doesn't happen, Congress shouldn't be paid." It sounds like a good idea at first glance, they are not doing the basics of their job and thus haven't earned money.
This is actually a terrible idea for a great many reasons. It is in fact so terrible that I wonder if it was not started with a particular agenda in mind, which I will explain later. Now, I am going to write this post using the terminology as though we are talking about the United States Congress. But this applies, with translated terminology, to any elected office, especially a legislative office, in any democratic system.
First off, the first glance is simply wrong. It comes from a misunderstanding of what the job of a Congressperson is. Usually the things mentioned are "if the government shuts down" or "if the budget isn't passed" or "if they don't pass any laws". Like, the idea of the Congress is to do specific actions. No, the point of Congress is to represent the people. They are theoretically doing what they believe is the best representation for the people that put them in office. Whether this is actually attained is a moot point: the real point is that there is no obligation for Congress to do a specific thing.
Furthermore, the House is 435 members and the Senate is 100 members. It essentially takes 218 members of the House and 51 members of the Senate to pass a basic budget resolution, and 218 members of the House 60 Senators to pass anything more than that. A Congressperson might well be in favor of, and supportive of, some bill that would meet the supposed requirement set above, but the bill still fails. The proposal to not pay Congress would then be punishing someone who had done nothing wrong.
This, then, would encourage members of Congress to pass certain things to get their paycheck, irrelevant of whether it is actually in line with their duties of representation. But in fact, it's actually worse than that. Certain members of Congress are independently wealthy and don't need the Congressional paycheck, while others do. Thus this system would allow the wealthy Congresspeople to hold paychecks hostage and bully the less wealthy members into doing as they desire, even if they are in the minority.
In fact, this very fact makes me wonder if this meme is a scam perpetrated by wealthy and corporate interests as a means of ensuring Congress remains theirs, rather than belonging to the people as a whole as it is designed to be.
I now note that this applies to far more than just current payments. I have also recently seen a proposal to end Congressional pensions; again, this would make it more difficult for the less wealthy to stay in Congress without becoming beholden to lobbyists and other special interests. Someone needs to be able to enter Congress without feeling like their livelihood is dependent upon them taking any particular actions, including getting themselves re-elected: sometimes duty dictates one does something that might be unpopular in one's district.
Please, pay our elected officials. Let them have the financial security they need so they can focus on their job and doing their duty. That way, we know that those that pass things to screw us over are in fact evil rather than simply fighting for personal survival, as far too many people in the world have to do.
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Post by mainstreet on Jun 7, 2019 23:11:03 GMT
On Compromise and Living in Society
Life is full of trade-offs and compromises. It's necessary to function this way. Pick A or B... picking A means B won't happen, and picking B means A won't happen. We even have an aphorism for this: "You can't have your cake and eat it too."
And yet. At the same time, we claim to admire the people that "never compromise", that are "stand up individuals". We sometimes call cooperation and compromise as a sign of weakness.
In fact, this notion is dangerous. I actually suspect it causes many problems in unexpected ways.
Any time there is a conflict between two individuals (let's call them Alice and Bob), there are ultimately three possible results: either Alice gets what she wants, Bob gets what he wants, or some middle ground is found and both people get some, but not all, of what they want. This last option is either cooperation or compromise, depending on the situation.
But if society teaches us that "compromise is weakness", people will not see a difference between the situation in which the other person got everything, and the situation in which you both got something -- in either case, you are seen as the "weaker" party in the negotiation. Even if this is not true. I suspect this concept is in fact a contributing factor to abusive relationships -- people that are unable to see the difference between working with someone and giving them everything, especially in a culture where individuals (though especially men) are humiliated for any supposed weakness they may have. This system is incentivizing men to pay potentially great costs to get "everything", as the alternatives come with unwarranted extra costs.
And yet, compromise can be a major problem. Someone that compromises, in some circumstances, is doing a bad thing by doing so. So how do we resolve this?
It's important to draw a distinction between our core values and everything else. Someone should not compromise their core principles, the ideas and values that define them. (Of course, if for whatever reason those values are found wanting, a reassessment may need to happen, but this should not happen solely because of outside pressure, and is another issue entirely.) Beyond that, the reality is that we need to work in society. Everyone has needs and wants, and we need to respect that. Someone that is venerated for not compromising is probably more accurately someone that does not compromise their principles... it does not mean they aren't able to come to agreements -- but they are given the aura of being the "strong" person for this despite that.
Compromise in life is not weakness. Compromise of one's core principles may be. We need to understand this difference.
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Post by mainstreet on Jan 3, 2020 0:33:39 GMT
How Inconsistent Rule Enforcement Causes Larger Problems
There are two fairly basic facts about our society, that when taken together, appear to cause problems in more than just the obvious ways.
The first basic fact is widely accepted, non-controversial, and is indeed necessary to the functioning of society. Society has a set of rules that people agree to and, in general, abide by. Social consequences are engaged when these rules are broken. This is of course necessary to prevent total chaos, and is a natural component to the formation of a society. Fine.
The second basic fact is that For individuals who have some sort of dominance, power, or significance, the first fact does not always apply. Specifically, rule breaking does not have consequences, or at least not consequences that are as severe. This is a well-known major issue in society: people that have some sort of superior stats get away with things that they should not. So, the problem is obvious: society doesn't actually have the equality it claims to, and some people have the ability to do things others don't.
But what if I told you it was worse than that?
(For brevity, I will use the term "power" when I mean the various options above.) See, here's the other side of this problem, the less obvious side. It is obvious that someone that has power gets away with stuff... it is less obvious, but no less true, that someone that gets away with stuff has power.
Thus people break rules not solely out of necessity, ignorance, or contempt, as most people generally tend to believe. There is also the breaking of rules to assert power (or to test for the potential existence of power). And power is status, and as I have detailed many times here already, there is always a constant competition for status. This means that more rules that are broken than necessary, and this means that people are hurt unnecessarily.
Having a fair system for all is important not just for fairness' own sake, but also to maintain stability in the system as a whole.
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Post by mainstreet on Jan 21, 2020 2:45:58 GMT
The Paradox of Fairness
(Alternative Title: A Response to the Previous Post)
"Life isn't fair." It's an almost proverbial statement taken as fact. One that people are told whenever they complain about something that just happened that wasn't fair to them.
And yet, we praise fairness as a virtue. So we're simultaneously fair... and not fair.
Why can we not choose one? Ultimately, it's because most people get the short end of the "fair" stick most of the time. Especially younger in life, as children are generally not respected to have agency -- so it's a step that most people go through regardless of any privilege they might have. The privilege, then, is simply when things start being less unfair to the individual.
There are fundamentally two major forces at work in the basics of human society: the desire for cooperation, and the desire for competition.
Cooperation is productive, it builds up society. Cooperation allows people to achieve things together. People want to cooperate to achieve these things.
Competition is fundamentally destructive, it is the willingness to benefit yourself at the expense of others. Competition pushes people to become greater than they would without it. People want to compete not only to measure themselves against each other, but also to celebrate the act of trying itself. Sometimes a little destruction is necessary to create something new.
The reason "pure" communism -- complete and total equality -- doesn't work beyond paper is the fact that human nature isn't going to fundamentally change to remove this competitive drive. The system devolves into abuse of the commons quite quickly.
Similarly, the reason "pure" capitalism -- complete allowance of business to do what it wants -- fails beyond paper is that there is no incentive to cooperate and innovation becomes limited as people are taken out of the process of providing more than the most monotonous of inputs. The system devolves into plutocracy quite quickly.
Before these economic systems were constructed, in general society engaged in strict hierarchies. These were the height of unfair. But it's actually not much different from the pure capitalistic approach: one rises by stepping on the backs of those around them, or by inheritance from an ancestor who had stepped on the backs of those around them. The stepping was typically militaristic rather than economic in nature, but happened nonetheless.
And yet, without these same hierarchies there is little that can enforce protection of the commons.
Democratic political regimes attempt to solve this problem by selecting specific individuals who are charged with engaging in these protective activities. But they don't get to do so for long before they are replaced. Constantly shifting winds average to no wind, in the end.
Hierarchy has its uses. It also has its abuses, and it is most certainly not "fair". But do we truly value fair? We accept unfairness all the time. The fairness may as well be cake.
Certainly, it is silly to accept that a hierarchy based on inheritance actually contains any sort of real difference among individuals. An honest system acknowledges that the only reason for the hierarchy is a consistent and coherent vision to preserve the commons, and that having *a* vision is more important than the specifics as to what that vision is.
After all, no matter how entrenched a group in power is, if the vision is truly without merit, the weight of history shows that it will not survive.
Ultimately within any system I value honesty above all else. If people understand why a system is the way it is, that itself is immensely valuable. Lies invite inherent rot.
Since a truly "fair" system wouldn't be stable, and indeed most people don't actually seek fairness -- there would be far more respect for the ideas and opinions of our youth if we did -- I can only included that fairness is not, in fact, a critical value of society. But maybe, being honest about what is unfair and why we don't need perfect fairness would be helpful.
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Post by mainstreet on Apr 15, 2020 3:08:55 GMT
Wealth and Loyalty
(Alternative Title: Why the Modern Wealthy Businessowner Class is the Worst) (Alternative Title: A Very Abbreviated History of the Meaning of Rich)
Let's go back some time in history, before the invention of most forms of fast travel, when the fastest way of going from place to place was on a horse.
In these times, with few exceptions, the wealthiest individuals were those that had done as part of what is often called the "landed aristocracy". But what does this mean? Yes, it often means inherited wealth, but obviously it has not been inherited since the dawn of time. How did it become wealth?
Somewhere back in history, a group banded together for mutual assistance and protection. This group had some way of choosing who should be ultimately in charge and making the decisions. I'm not going to sugarcoat; undoubtedly it was on physical and/or tactical strength/superiority. And certainly, along the line, inherited individuals did not necessarily need to maintain that superiority themselves; people simply over time got used to that family being in charge, and that family would often have (underhanded) tactics to ensure it.
So, okay, we have a family who has inherited wealth because their ancestor forced a bunch of people to answer to them and they have lived off that dominance ever since. They have some sort of central home -- for the sake of brevity and familiarity, I will call this a "castle". Our castle need not meet a technical/historical definition of an actual castle, merely an abstraction to present the idea.
This castle controls the land around it. The people living on the land pay taxes and the family benefits. Fundamentally, power lay in the hands of what amounted to a governmental/military authority, and with it, the wealth.
But what happens if something goes wrong? If another force from outside invades, ruins the crops around them, destroys parts of the castle or just kills a lot of the people that the family claims wealth from? With enough of this, that family is financially ruined. They are effectively done as a member of the aristocracy, even if they had personally survived. Maybe they would find a place elsewhere/nearby where they are of use and can maintain a good standard of living, but their time of being in power and truly controlling wealth... is over.
Now let's contrast this. Let's look at a modern family of wealth. As in the previous era, they likely inherited their wealth. But economic mobility is greater -- some people got their wealth through business or because one's ancestors did.
I am not going to, in this post, discuss the ethical implications of using business to acquire wealth. I actually have similar problems to it as I do to the case above, but I will defer my discussion of this, as this point can be conceded without relevance to my actual point here.
But now, in our modern world, we can hop from nation to nation in a heartbeat. The richest individuals' wealth comes not from the governmental power of a small population, but rather, from the business transactions worldwide. Often these transactions are in the "stock market", an eternal spiral of investment that while theoretically all can participate in, in practice is almost entirely controlled by this class of individuals. So what happens if a lot of people die, if the nation they live in crumbles around them?
Well... nothing. They simply shrug, move their wealth to another country (not that it was there in the first place because of how international economics works and the notion of a "tax haven"), and continue to live.
So what's my point here?
Fundamentally, while rich people in both the ancient era and modern era can and are abusive to the people, at the end of the day, the aristocrats of old had to protect their people to protect themselves. So they did, in fact, protect their people and cared for them at least just enough to continue to profit off them. They could not simply move their operation elsewhere. They were loyal to their people and their land because they had no other choice. A modern plutocrat has no loyalty, no reason to care about the land of their birth or residence, it is all the same resources to exploit. So we have no reason to trust such individuals or believe they will be loyal to our ideals and our people. (In other words, to our nation.)
The fact that many people fail to make the distinction between traditional and modern senses of "rich" is highly dangerous. Common people presume a sense of gratitude or loyalty for its own sake that does not exist among the modern rich. Indeed, such a thing never existed; it had the illusion of existing because aristocrats were required to show such to maintain their wealth, and if we had had fast travel and the ability to simply transfer wealth easily, they likely would not have either. This expectation of regular people that wealthy interests will care about them or their nation, or that they need to do so, must end. What's good for us is definitely not also good for them, nor does it have any reason to be.
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