Election 2018

[Eric the Green]

(11-09-2018, 11:16 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(11-09-2018, 09:57 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'm not clear that Obama totally discredited the Democrats.  True, he did not exact revenge on the Wall Street crowd after the Bush 43 crash, he gave the Republicans a see saw flip passing Obamacare, and he didn't manage to really pass his legacy to Hillary in 2016.  We are more likely to see someone like Bernie, white, male and progressive.

I was thinking about Obama's bad foreign policy which led to Syria, Libya and Yemen turning into failed states, allowing the global jihad to resurge. The good policy would be either not to incite the Arab Spring riots, and to focus on making the most of Iraq and Afghanistan. So it seems we both dislike Obama, but for different reasons.

Business is what it is. I don't want to whitewash it. Money is not a cause of human misbehaviour, but its effect. There are two ways to get rid of it: one is improving human nature using biotechnology, so that new generations are more altruistic and idealistic, happy to spontaneously devote themselves to good of mankind (that's called gift economy). Another is to improve productivity so that the amount of human work required is very small and likely to be done without financial incentives (that's called post-scarcity). Both solutions are sci-fi at the moment. So we are stuck with using money.

I know what I say is against the zeitgeist of the 4T, but any leftist attempt to bind business with regulations or nationalise property (regardless of intents) has always resulted in lowering productivity, thus delaying the transition to post-scarcity. So, I'm not in favour of "exacting revenge on the Wall Street crowd".

They disobeyed the law, and should have paid the penalty any criminal would pay suitable to their crimes. Business of course needs to be regulated; the best balance between free market and social responsibility is the best policy.

Obama did not incite Arab Spring riots, and they were not riots. They were non-violent protests and revolutions, which often became violent after the tyrants attacked them. It's important to get history correct. Obama's mistake was to go to the opposite extreme from Bush. Balance is needed in foreign policy. There was no basis for Bush's aggressive and unprovoked attack on Iraq, and the attack on Afghanistan was poorly carried out and probably should have focused on capturing bin Laden and his cohorts. Obama on the other hand should have given more support earlier to the Syrian rebels, so that Russia would not have been able to come in and take over. Obama was too passive when it counted.

Obama's foreign policy did not create the Arab Spring Revolutions. The Libyans themselves rose up against their tyrant, inspired by the rebels in Tunisia and Egypt; and so did the Syrians and others. The majority of revolutions don't work out historically; tyrants are often too strong, and rebels can become tyrants in turn. The western allies helped the Libyans, but then the Libyans didn't want help after their victory, and they should have asked for it instead to stabilize their country. It's all on them, and remains so.

Genuine improvement in the human condition will not work from without inward; life by nature grows from within outward. The tech fixes alone will not work, just as facebook did not work to bring the nation and the world together, but drove it apart. Only greater discovery of the life force of growth and intelligence from within us expanding outward can restore and expand human abilities.