Possible explanation for Liberalism

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TM
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14 Apr 2012, 8:21 am

Declension wrote:

TM wrote:

We like to think we are different but we're not, the appearance only exists because the immediate needs for the most part are satisfied. Put 20 people in a Lord of the Flies situation and we're back 2000 years pretty quickly.

This is old Christian propaganda. It just isn't true.

Quote:

Luis Urzúa (54), the shift foreman who immediately recognized the gravity of the situation and the difficulty of any rescue attempt. He gathered the men in a secure "refuge" then organized them and their meager resources to cope with a long-term survival situation.[50][51] Just after the incident, he led three men to scout the tunnel. After confirming the situation, he made detailed maps of the area to aid the rescue effort. He directed the underground aspects of the rescue operation and coordinated closely with engineers on the surface over the teleconference links.[52][53]
Florencio Ávalos (31), second in command of the group, assisted Urzúa organizing the men. Because of his experience, physical fitness and emotional stability, he was selected as the first miner to ride the rescue capsule to the surface in case of complications during the 15 minute ascent in the claustrophobic shaft. Naturally shy, he served as the camera operator for videos sent up to the miner's families. He was trapped along with his younger brother Renan.[53]
Yonni Barrios (50), became the medic of the trapped miners, monitoring their health, giving vaccinations, and providing detailed medical reports to the team of doctors on the surface. His fellow miners jokingly referred to him as "Dr. House", an American TV medical drama character.[34][51]
Mario Gómez (63), the eldest miner, became the religious leader of the group, organizing a chapel with a shrine containing statues of saints as well as aiding counseling efforts by psychologists on the surface.[51][53]
José Henríquez (54), a preacher and a miner for 33 years, he served as the miners' pastor and organized daily prayers.[53]
Mario Sepúlveda (40), served as the energetic host of the miner's video journals that were sent to the surface to reassure the world that they were doing well. The local media dubbed him "Super Mario" after the Super Mario Bros. video game for his energy, wit and humor.[53][54][55]
Ariel Ticona (29), served as the group's communications specialist, maintaining the underground portion of the telephone and videoconferencing systems sent down by the surface team.[53]

TM wrote:

I'm against a majority tyranny for many reasons, the primary one being that if you want to find the median IQ of a group, you take the IQ of the person with the lowest IQ and divide it among the whole group. Groupthink not only makes people more stupid, it also marginalizes the true number ones amongst us, just about every innovation we've seen is the result of one person's vision. I'm anti-democracy, I don't think voting should be a right, I think it should be a privilege that people need to earn by among other things taking a political aptitude test and an IQ test. I'm a fan of a meritocracy where the abilities of a person decides social standing, not merely being a person.

People like you are enemies of the Enlightenment, not defenders of it. You are a barbarian, not an elite intellectual.

You picked a questionable example , I did say "Lord of the Flies" situation right, not "People trapped in a situation that is externally monitored, where all their basic needs are met and where cooperation aligns with the best interest of each individual". A "Lord of the Flies" situation is when cooperation is not aligned with the best interest of the individual or subgroups within the group. A Lord of the Flies situation, would be something like you and me trapped somewhere with no external incentive to modify our behavior, with food supplies that are adequate for one of us to live, but questionable in quantity for the two of us both to live.

Your second reply is the exact reason why your collectivist stance is morally abhorrent because you are in support of squashing the people who disagree with you. It's a "If you do not agree with my opinion, which according to my moral compass is better than yours, then you are a barbarian" stance whereas my stance is "I may not like your opinion, your morals or any of your values, but I'll let you have them provided that you do not try to force them on me through whatever means you deem needed and acceptable by your moral standard." The Enlightenment was about peoples rights vis a vis a State or controlling power, the very same rights collectivists such as yourself try to marginalize at every point.

Its funny how leftist collectivists behave like Christians just with a different religion.

Declension
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14 Apr 2012, 8:25 am

TM wrote:

you are in support of squashing the people who disagree with you

Ha, ha! Is funny joke!

You don't want me to be allowed to vote for a party that represents what I want out of the state, but I want you to be allowed to vote for a party that represents what you want out of the state. Clearly, I am squashing you.

ruveyn
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14 Apr 2012, 8:38 am

Declension wrote:

I personally think that history is a testament to the idea that man is perfectible. We used to all be cavemen, if you remember. Now we spend our free time discussing political philosophy with people living on the other side of the world using a vast information network.

The material conditions of human existence can be improved, but through all of that humans still remain what they are. We are constitutionally selfish, egotistical and individualistic. We favor our own children over the children of others. In an either-or situations most of the time we favor our own well being. There are some notable exceptions to this, but it is not wise to rely on the altruism of others.

Social tinkering may constrain our activities but it will never alter the inherent nature of human beings.

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14 Apr 2012, 8:52 am

Declension wrote:

I'm impressed!

That's actually a pretty good summary of what I believe. You know your enemy very well.

.

I don't consider the liberal mindset an enemy thing. I think liberals should not be in charge of our society, but they add a leaven of humanity and gentleness to the roughness of human existence. Kinder, gentler people have their uses. But they should not be in charge of society nor lead armies in war. Put a liberal in charge of a charity, but not in command of our troops.

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TM
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14 Apr 2012, 9:02 am

Declension wrote:

TM wrote:

you are in support of squashing the people who disagree with you

I'm in favor of you being able to vote for any party you like provided that you can prove that you are competent to make that decision. It never struck you as quite absurd that you need a license to own a gun or to drive, but can vote without any sort of requirement placed on you?

Ancalagon
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14 Apr 2012, 9:22 am

Declension wrote:

Your example doesn't support your point. 'Cavemen' is an inaccurate picture, but the difference between ancient man and modern man (if there is any) is obscured by the differences in our circumstances. If they had our wealth and our technology, why wouldn't they spend their free time (a foreign concept for most of them) talking about political philosophy over the internet?

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Declension
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14 Apr 2012, 10:06 am

TM wrote:

You should be careful what you wish for. You can't get a licence to drive if you do not believe in the road rules. If anybody is "incompetent to vote", it's people who don't believe in democracy.

Ancalagon wrote:

If they had our wealth and our technology, why wouldn't they spend their free time (a foreign concept for most of them) talking about political philosophy over the internet?

That's an unfair question. I am saying that people are different to how they once were, but I am not denying that wealth and technology are the cause. We are not a new species, but children adapt to a new world, and turn out differently as a result.

Ancalagon
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14 Apr 2012, 10:21 am

Declension wrote:

Ancalagon wrote:

If they had our wealth and our technology, why wouldn't they spend their free time (a foreign concept for most of them) talking about political philosophy over the internet?

What's unfair about it? Having a lot of nice things and being good are two different things.

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TM
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14 Apr 2012, 10:52 am

Declension wrote:

TM wrote:

You should be careful what you wish for. You can't get a licence to drive if you do not believe in the road rules. If anybody is "incompetent to vote", it's people who don't believe in democracy.

In all fairness, I did believe in democracy, then I got to know people, realized that I wouldn't trust most of them to run a lemonade stand and honestly wonder how they get dressed in the morning without strangling themselves while tying their shoes. As I said, I think that in order to vote you should have a baseline competency in politics, the foundation of democracy is unlike any other form of government because its the only form that requires its participants to educate themselves about politics.

Most "bad" things that have happened due to democratic governments have happened due to unenlightened voters. Hitler came to power because a large part of disillusioned voters were not well educated and knowledgeable enough to see through his fiery rhetoric (Not argumentum ad Hitlerum/Godwin's law because its actually relevant). The debt situation in the PIIGS countries came about because voters didn't have the knowledge and insight to realize that "Hey, we can't afford to pay for everything this guy is promising to give us". The situation in the US today stems from about 40% of the population voting against their interests.

Your "You can't get a license to drive if you don't believe in road rules" thing, I have a license and I think a lot of the road rules are bs, I still follow what they say. I don't believe in democracy, but I still know everything there is to know about it and how it works. Belief has nothing to do with it.

ruveyn
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14 Apr 2012, 12:04 pm

Declension wrote:

Please review the history of the 20th century. Observe how Germany, the Land of Bethoven, Schiller and Goethe became a horror. Hitler and his buddied abolished the Enlightenment for a 12 year period.

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14 Apr 2012, 7:45 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Hitler and his buddies abolished the Enlightenment for a 12 year period.

I'm aware. We should not be complacent. The goodness of humanity is not strictly increasing, but if we work hard at it, it might become arbitrarily large in the limit.

TM wrote:

Hitler came to power because a large part of disillusioned voters were not well educated and knowledgeable enough to see through his fiery rhetoric

That's not an argument against democracy, it's an argument for quality public education! Whose side are you on, here? :lol:

It's funny that you would bring up Hitler, because it's generally agreed that one of the bad things which Hitler did was to undermine democracy. That was a bad thing. Democracy is a good thing.

Ancalagon wrote:

What's unfair about it?

It's misleading to picture a caveman, give him free time, knowledge, and technology, and watch to see if he starts posting on Wrong Planet. By the time you have managed to get him to understand the new concepts (and it's possible that he just wouldn't get it), you have changed him into a different person.

Last edited by Declension on 14 Apr 2012, 11:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ancalagon
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14 Apr 2012, 10:57 pm

Declension wrote:

TM wrote:

What's unfair about it?

(That was actually me, BTW)

I don't see anything misleading about it. Sure people can change. Take a primitive human (caveman is not an accurate way of saying it) and put him in modern society and educate him, and he'll be different. Take a modern human and take away every material or societal support, and he'll also be different.

I don't think humans have changed substantially since the invention of writing.

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14 Apr 2012, 11:05 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Declension wrote:

Yup Hitler did do those things he was quite the opprutiunist as well taken advantage of everything he could to obtain complete politcal power.

TM
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15 Apr 2012, 3:39 am

Declension wrote:

TM wrote:

Hitler came to power because a large part of disillusioned voters were not well educated and knowledgeable enough to see through his fiery rhetoric

That's not an argument against democracy, it's an argument for quality public education! Whose side are you on, here? :lol:

It's funny that you would bring up Hitler, because it's generally agreed that one of the bad things which Hitler did was to undermine democracy. That was a bad thing. Democracy is a good thing.

It's an argument that uneducated people should not be allowed to vote until they have been educated by said public education system.

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15 Apr 2012, 7:44 am

Ok, going through the mess:
1) Being on the left is a legitimate political ideology. It doesn't strictly entail human perfectability, although liberals are more likely to express the idea.
2) Democracy isn't a basic human value. Period. Past societies didn't worship it. The Enlightenment tradition wasn't about democracy worship AT ALL, it was about a regard for equal rights and good governance, and this can be found in the US founder's having cynicism towards democracy, and the idea of an Enlightened monarch. And yeah, frankly, any day of the week, I'd rather have a society governed well, where I and those I care about can flourish and live out our values, rather than having a democracy. In fact, if I had the former, I wouldn't find much reason to care how it came to be. This isn't barbaric, it's just that a cult of democracy is some form of modern insanity, it belongs to the Progressive movement, not the Enlightenment, and yeah, nobody cares about being ruled over and tyrannized by their fanatical neighbors.
3) There are diminishing marginal returns to investments in education. Some people will not care. Some people will study and later forget. Many people prioritize identity above a focus on correctness. IQs vary, and lower IQ people will always exist. The list of issues goes on and on, and it's such that if a person prioritizes good governance above all else, a cheaper investment would be disincentizing certain voters, incentizing certain voters or preventing certain people from voting, than they would from education system investments.
4) As for Hitler, I think he's really most condemned for committing acts of genocide and starting a war. Frankly, many people at the time admired the fascist system for being so well-run, so I don't think abolishing democracy is really considered the top problem we have with Hitler or even close.

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15 Apr 2012, 8:07 am

I don't think humans are selfish . They just think they are.

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