Asininedrivel
caviar connoisseur
Interesting (and cool) appraisal. Does beg the question of how many eggs and berries need to be smashed though, and will the resulting tasty pie be worth it?
EDIT: Speiling bad
Trump..... (The Sophistry Thread)
- Thread starter John U
- Start date
EDIT: Speiling bad
golden path
Banned
slippy
Likes Bikes and Dirt
This is all well and good until an aggressive nation that doesn't share your utopian dream decides to get all expansivist. Then your daisy chain wilts in their nuclear sunshine. There's an unfortunate thing called reality that will always thwart your plan for a planetary group hug. Breaking eggs and smashing berries when the kitchen is closed is a waste of simple foods. #realistnotpessimist
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
Fucking hippies.....me
srsly - people who give a shit about other people, and the planet as a living system.
Doesn't matter what previous job - you want the CEO who talks to the homeless dude at the shops and tries to figure out their story and help them out in a way that makes sense to the homeless dude, the cop who could have ticketed teenagers for smoking bongs in the skatepark but sat with them and tried to understand what circumstances led them to smoking bongs in the skatepark instead. The chippy who sees that you're struggling with a home project and whacks a few nails in for you, the truck driver who picks up hitchhikers and makes sure they get places safely, the lawyer who does pro bono cases to make sure orang-utans have places to live, the coal miner who can see that their industry has a limited future and works toward gearing themselves and their workmates for a different future career, the software engineer who gives their code away for free because it'll make people's lives easier.
In general, people with integrity, empathy and who can see further than an election cycle and their own hip pocket. Think José Mujica:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/13/uruguay-president-jose-mujica
If I could rewrite the system tomorrow, 'politician', and 'lobbyist' would cease to be a career and 'head of state' would be a nonexistent job. We'd have expert-in-field, up-to-date advisors heading public service departments, a method for calling on industry experts which don't involve exchange of cash, and rolling 'citizen jury' to decide on legislation. 'head of state' would be a person from the current citizen jury decided by consensus (or something like that). The basic rules of decision making would be - what gives us clean air, what gives us clean water, and what makes the world liveable for our grandchildren's grandchildren? With vastly less weight assigned to those who won't have to live with the impact of their decisions - which is basically the reverse of now.
Wow. that was more complete - I meant to stop at line 1...
I want pie real bad.
Utopia doesn't need to be weak.
Asininedrivel
caviar connoisseur
Realism is the only political theory that actually works imo. And the reason it works is because it's the only one that doesn't view humanity and society through some idealistic rose-tinted prism of flowers and cuddles. Instead it views humanity as a squabbling, selfish, anarchic mess that needs a Governing entity (which we will call a nation for convenience) to unify and control it.
bikeyoulongtime
Likes Dirt
This is true.
The way I see it, by the time we're all ready to adopt anything like my idealist system either:
- some nuclear nutbag will have already pushed the button and the world is recovering, or
- people just got sick of all the paranoid bullshit and stopped worrying.
It's hard work living in fear of what might happen. Look at Steve Bannon - he's like Darth Vader without the helmet, always worrying about shit and being paranoid. Must be stressful. Hard to maintain all that rage and worry.
Here is the problem - we're actually not innately squabbling and selfish until we're taught to be. Western society exists in colonialist mode, and hasn't updated itself in centuries, so we're taught to be afraid of everything, to not trust the 'other', and so on. Our whole system is essentially still designed to be at war all the time. Any surprise that this impacts our view of ourselves?
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..., which is what is opening the door for populists like Hanson, etc.
Whilst I agree in principle, in practice I think the popularity of Sanders would say differently. He played identity politics and was also a populist to a large degree. If he ran against Trump there may well have been quite a different outcome.
And realism raises its ugly head.
Ugly but true.
Not when you're the person responsible for making the hard calls.
Or so I'd assume.
Asininedrivel
caviar connoisseur
I think if you look at the caring, sharing 1990s (or pre September 11) I think the world was in a state of relative contentment. Sure Rwanda and the Balkans bled themselves out in an orgy of fratricide, but at least we tried to help in Somalia and East Timor, probably the last examples of wars being escalated for entirely altruistic reasons.
We were certainly nowhere near as pathetically afraid of everything as we are now.
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
Help in East Timor? You've not paid much attention to that one.
bikeyoulongtime
Likes Dirt
...that's entirely up to us
It's a new kind of pie, or at least one we haven't baked in eons. We have no idea how it'll turn out. Plus we might burn a couple trying.What's the alternative? A nice safe paranoid existence on endless stale bread and dog turd sangers.
Asininedrivel
caviar connoisseur
Viewing it within the context of the 1990s timeframe yes I'd still claim we helped.
Not so much since.
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
Except that part where we stole their gas reserves, heavily interfered with their new political system (potentially including assassinations), and blessed them with an economy that fucked.
Sure we pissed off the Indonesian militias from our moral high horse. Oddly we have no interest in doing similar in response to the (supposed) west Papua genocide.
There's some serious argument out there that we stumbled into East Timorese independence in the 90s and that it was not a coherent policy to shape proceedings towards a vote. I have no idea either way but the argument was not easily dismissed when paired with the evidence. It's open source, I can't recall the researcher or university but it's podcasted on iTunesU and elsewhere.
Regards the assertion by bikeyoulongtime that the West is stuck in a colonialist mindset and the implication that this is where realism comes from - this begs the question that the non-colonialist countries do not have a realist approach to international affairs. And I do not think that the case has been made there, and I'd argue quite the opposite. One merely needs to look at the Warring States period in China and many of the other periods of fracture there. One only needs to look at the exploits of Ghangis Khan, the Ottoman, the Assyrians and multitudes of other empire builders to identify a realist world outside of the Western colonialist experience.
Kind of.. One nation polled 4 percent nationally last fed election and was clobbered in WA. If the far right was on the charge it should have been reflected somewhat in wa even though it's outside qld.
I reckon Pauline gets far too much media coverage for a 4 percenter.
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
Bit like a broken record with PM's isn't it.. Will the real Julia please stand up...!
Turnballs has been such a colossal let down. But still better than abbott any day of the week.
She is intimidating in the flesh, that stare is like a glass cutter.
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
Toe cutter?
pink poodle
気が狂っている男
Pretty sure it is similar to the main villain from Razorback.