07-10-2018, 11:34 AM
(07-10-2018, 09:47 AM)David Horn Wrote: the most intractable feature, and the biggest problem that this 4T will either amplify or solve, is the power we've given belief over demonstrable fact. The crash of 2008 should have been the example that finally get our attention enough to stop the practice, but it was, at most, a short hiccup on our way to doing it all again: wash, rinse, repeat. As a society, we're addicted to the Kool-Aid. Add to that the tribalism that makes changing minds an act of tribal treason, and the problem persists unabated. It's the basis for my belief that this 4T more likely to fail than not.
Nothing else can be addressed until this problem is solved. We can either advance or stagnate in place, and stagnation is the current winner.
All too often it is not so much obvious success that forces change -- but instead, spectacular failure. This time the (unlike the Crisis of 1940) spectacular failure will more likely appear near the end and be repudiated with huge realignments of politics, economics, and culture. This President can give us catastrophic war, civil unrest, or an economic meltdown to rival that of 1929-1932.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.