Political compass for the21st century

[Eric the Green]

I don't get your placement of Lefebvre. I don't know much about him, but according to wikipedia:

"Henri Lefebvre (/ləˈfɛvrə/ lə-FEV-rə, French: [ɑ̃ʁi ləfɛvʁ]; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of social space, and for his work on dialectics, alienation, and criticism of Stalinism, existentialism, and structuralism. In his prolific career, Lefebvre wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Lefebvre

[Eric the Green]

(10-24-2019, 04:24 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-24-2019, 06:17 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(03-23-2019, 11:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: As I explained, the free market fundamentalists, which rule the Republican Party today, and have ever since Reagan at least, are very close to fascism, because they enable the corporate elite to rule without any oversight or regulation from the people through their government. Government by the people protects liberty. Government is not necessarily a problem, as the Reaganoids have falsely claimed and still claim.

Reagan could be somewhere between pro-market Individualism and some form of Traditionalism, he called himself a conservative for some reason.

He called himself accurately. He was a very extreme, right-wing conservative in all ways. If he is seen as more moderate now, it's only because the right-wing has become even more extreme.

Quote:Actual libertarians are not really fond of Reagan, though they might prefer him to someone like Obama.
https://mises.org/library/myths-reaganomics
https://mises.org/library/sad-legacy-ronald-reagan-0

I'm not a libertarian, since I prefer "compassionate capitalism" to both market fundamentalism and socialism. I'm more with Obama on economic policy, but more with Bush on culture and war on terror. I don't like Reagan as a man, and I don't agree with his worship of money, but still he deserves some credit for defeating the USSR. I wouldn't call him a fascist, after all he didn't send his opponents to concentration camps. Left-wing activism was quite popular in the US in the 80s.

I wouldn't call Reagan a fascist either. But I didn't want to give him any credit for "defeating" the USSR. Their system was stagnant, and so Gorbachev opened it up. Stalinism does not work, so their rulers must eventually allow more freedom. This happened in China and Vietnam too. But typically they allow more economic than actual political freedom. Gorbachev was unique and wonderful, but he was succeeded by Yeltsin, who was incompetent, and then Putin, who has just returned Russia to what it was before Gorbachev, but without the socialist trappings and slogans.

Quote:

Quote:If you say Corbyn supports Putin and Hamas, I need to see actual quotes from him. BTW, people who oppose the genocide being committed by Israel against its neighbors today do not necessarily support Muslim terrorists either.

According to Mr Corbyn, Hamas works for peace and social justice. An actual quote:
The idea that an organisation that is dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people, and bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region, should be labelled as a terrorist organisation by the British government, is really a big, big historical mistake.
https://ukmediawatch.org/2015/06/16/guar...eftwinger/

As for Russia, it seems he wants to be neutral in the struggle between Putin and Russia's western neighbours. He believes Putin's actions in the Ukraine were provoked by the Ukrainian government wanting to join NATO. I'd argue it count as supporting the tyrant in practice.

What genocide in Israel??? It's a lie spread by Arab nationalists and islamists. Look at the facts:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/...ry559.html
(scroll to Table 1. Palestinian population is steadily growing)

More recent data:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographi...statistics

Where are the deaths caused by alleged genocide?

You are quoting a pro-Israel site, and I don't see Corbyn quotes on there from my reading of it.

In the quote you posted (without the source), Corbyn did not mention Hamas. The Palestinians do deserve self-determination and statehood, don't they?

I'm sure Putin's actions in Ukraine were provoked by Ukraine wanting to join NATO, and that the Ukraine rebels genuinely identify with Russia. That does not make what Putin is doing in Ukraine right, in my opinion. The people should determine their own nationality, not have it determined by a Russian invasion which Putin denies making. I don't disagree that Putin is dangerous and wants to restore the Russian Empire. If Corbyn does not see that, then I would not agree with him.

The Israeli genocide against the Palestinians could not be more clear. They regularly shoot and kill them just for demonstrating. They have invaded and bombed Gaza many times and blockade it in order to starve them to death. Thousands have died. They steal land and water in the West Bank and impose restrictions on them there. Netanyahu is just another thug like Putin. This is all common knowledge. I do not support Israel as long as it elects thugs like Bibi. They need to switch their direction back toward what it was before Bibi, and be willing to make peace and not assert their right to all of Palestine as Bibi does.

As I noted above, I am not in favor of Muslim terrorists either, and their Islamic State was horrific compared to Israel.

Quote:

Quote:Democratic socialism which still allows a balance of free enterprise and state regulation and ownership is not anywhere near the bottom of the political circle, or anywhere near communism or fascism.

Are there any real-life examples of such democratic socialism? A balance of free enterprise and state-run enterprise is found in most democracies all over the world. What do you think is missing?

As Bernie points out, the Scandivanian countries fit as examples of this model. No country is perfect, because humans aren't. In the USA, far too much latitude has been given since Reagan to the "free" (corporate) market. Much the same applies to the UK since Thatcher. But I don't distinguish between Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy in this statement.

I prefer to make two different circles. The political compass is fine for political ideas, and I developed the philosophers wheel for philosophical ideas. Whether God exists or not, and thus the basis for a theocracy, is a philosophical question, as well as what free market fundamentalists and communists may share in rationalist self-interest or materialism in general.

http://philosopherswheel.com/#The%20Phil...'s%20Wheel

You seem to combine the two, which is a somewhat different and more difficult project.

[pbrower2a]

(03-23-2019, 11:40 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-23-2019, 08:59 PM)Hintergrund Wrote:

(03-08-2019, 04:41 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-01-2019, 11:12 PM)

Quote:pbrower2a Wrote:

It could be the next Idealist generation that has some recognition of X for leaving behind a better world than they inherited, and for not demanding too much to make the world good for the new Idealists. 

Xers haven't done much yet to clean up the problems of this saeculum.

Because the older generations still have the money and the power to prevent that. Especially the Silents wouldn't like it if the Xers threw their elaborated rules (and loopholes) on the garbage dump of history. - Many prominent Boomers are idiots, narcissists and fanatics, but if they could do what they wanted, they would rip apart everything, even if they're warned that they'll hurt themselves. - Silents don't want to hurt anyone, especially not themselves, and they have the knowledge to push the right buttons.

Xers have enabled the problems of this saeculum to continue too, and are part of the group with the money and power to prevent their solution. They are by and large the managers of the dominant corporate system today, and do nothing to curtail its abuses. Much more than Boomers did at their age, they have bowed down to the neo-liberal Reaganoids and support free market fundamentalism, which is the leading source of our saeculum's problems. Some Boomers at least remain vigilant idealists and activists, while other Boomers do continue to uphold their own wealth and position and resist change and succumb to fanaticism. But Boomers overall are certainly no more idiots and fanatics than Xers are, and what Xers lack in Boomer narcissism, they make up for in their own cynicism and their "oh whatever" lack of vision.

One of the hallmarks of Reactive reality is that they cannot get away with what Idealists could get away with easily. X not part of the economic elites have been burned badly, and if they endorse Corporate reality out of fear of getting fired, they can grope safely -- to their children. Figure that this is part of the X influence upon Millennial kids now growing up. 

X may not get away with monopolistic concentrations of industry, and those who get huge compensation as administrators may be subjected to severe taxation on what looks like easy money to which few others have access. 

So figure that the next Saeculum will have high taxes on extreme incomes. Such will foster competition because high taxes on bloated, vertically -integrated behemoths and bureaucratic elites within them will foster competitive, smaller organizations that serve local needs and cannot lavish funds upon right-wing pols. The Lost started small businesses in great numbers, but the Silent preferred to join giant organizations as administrators; if the Silent formed businesses, then those were largely professional practices that give owners predictable high incomes from the start but do not expand in employment.

[pbrower2a]

(10-24-2019, 08:57 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Pbrower - do you think Plato's Republic would be a theocracy?

1. The ancient Greek city-states, with polytheistic religion as part of the dominant culture, were not theocracies. Sparta may have resembled a modern fascist state in its militarism, hierarchy, and civic nationalism, but it was no theocracy. The gods themselves struggled for power atop Olympus much as politicians did in Athens, where Plato lived. See also the Norse, whose gods had much the same struggles as did the Norse politicians in what seems even more democratic than Classical Greece. (A paradox: much of the democratic heritage in England and in turn America comes from Norse practice in the Danelaw than from theories from Continental Europe other than Scandinavia). Pagans do not make effective hierachs.

2. All great political theorists reflect the milieu in which they live, even if Karl Marx.  Marx' historical view could have hardly have formed except in a Prussian city with Roman ruins (Trier), some waning influence of feudal structure, and recent memories of revolutionary excitement from neighboring France that became mass disgust, and then as a partial pariah as a "Jew" even if he was irreligious. 

3. Plato seemed to little mention the gods, and did not show a marked preference that one god take over on Olympus. The Philosopher King, an incorruptible man of great wisdom, was the ideal. Monotheistic cultures seem the only real theocracies. Tibet may have had its hierarchy of priests, but those priests were exempt from the delights and powers of capitalism.

[pbrower2a]

(03-23-2019, 11:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: ... Most libertarians cannot see that big business is a problem if left to itself. It and not the state puts competitors out of business, as the most greedy boss corners the market. The state alone can protect competition, and end collusion, with anti-trust laws. Libertarians are against the taxes and regulations that keep business from doing wrong, which they do if left to their "free" own devices. Money-grubbing bosses should not be trusted, but libertarians trust them. They can only see the government as a problem; not business.

At a certain point of corporate dominance, enterprises are free and people are in chains. The freedom to monopolize or to transform people into serfs is the foundation of tyranny through the economic order. One serves the elite without any show of disobedience or one starves. Starvation can be as lethal as a hanging - except that it is slower and more painful and degrading. 

Quote:As I explained, the free market fundamentalists, which rule the Republican Party today, and have ever since Reagan at least, are very close to fascism, because they enable the corporate elite to rule without any oversight or regulation from the people through their government. Government by the people protects liberty. Government is not necessarily a problem, as the Reaganoids have falsely claimed and still claim. Free markets are not freedom; left to themselves, they are just bosses and tyrants, and they squelch competition and rip off consumers, workers, the environment and the economy with their financial games. Free enterprise without regulation is an oxymoron; it doesn't exist, despite libertarian slogans and ideals. That doesn't mean that a state-owned and run economy is any better. But the fascists like Hitler and Mussolini allowed big business to stay in business and flourish, and that boosted their war machine, as it still boosts ours in the USA. There's where state and business come together; the fascist corporate state which libertarians want. And the fascists permitted lots of gun ownership by citizens too, contrary to the nonsense perpetrated by the gun fanatics today who say they took guns away from people.

Monopolization and vertical integration both cause the disappearance of competition among elites, but those elites find competition among the proles for survival an end in itself -- a grim contest to determine who will suffer the most for the least. For all but the elites that might as well be a jungle in which all others are enemies seeking the same small share of the means of survival. 

But at least the jungle has its virtues. Death by tiger is a horrible end, but at least the tiger is most likely to kill the sick, lame, inattentive, or reckless prey. Tigers do not enforce a hierarchy of servile deer. Human hierarchies of all kinds demand complete deference and servility, and those hierarchies enforce control with tortures more horrible than swift death.    
, 

Quote:But this is the chief argument in politics today. The Reaganoids and the Trumpists continue to put forward the false meme that liberty means free enterprise and guns, and that businessmen are job creators. They are not; they are job destroyers. But lots of people who like Reagan, Bush and our fake president of today are only interested in dismantling the administrative state, so that they can continue to allow mass shootings and the pollution of our world in the name of freedom. No, neo-liberalism is false freedom. Today the authority and the elite are the wealthy oligarchs in corporate board rooms and at the Republican red-stater conventions who listen to Steve Bannon and racists like Yaronopolis or whatever the fuck his name is. Today the Republican neo-liberals have bowed down before and aligned themselves with the fascist slogans of racism emanating from the Trumpists and their fanatical, violent followers shouting Nazi slogans. Just like industrial Germany acquiesed in Hitler's regime because of all the money they made manufacturing the tools of conquest.

They believe in free enterprise -- enterprise free to exploit and humiliate people at will. Businesses are not so much job-creators as they are job-danglers; at their worst they want unemployed people competing for jobs that people already have. With guns -- the Hard Right acts as if people who are victims of or are loved ones of those who die due to gun violence need to recognize the need of such sacrifices to the real god of profits-first, people-far-down-the-line America: Almighty Mammon. 

Donald Trump, let us hope, is as far as it goes -- and that he will fail. We need competition among our elites if we are to have freedom. As a People, we will need to re-establish the rationality and human decency that underpin a free society capable of bringing prosperity to us all.     

Quote:... Democratic socialism which still allows a balance of free enterprise and state regulation and ownership is not anywhere near the bottom of the political circle, or anywhere near communism or fascism.

We may never attain one socialist idea of a state-run economy responsible to the People, but we can disabuse ourselves of the idea that crony capitalism achieves anything other than the gain and indulgence of economic elites. Maybe we will fair best -- and the possibility of achievement is essential -- a social-market economy in which capitalism can innovate in ways that improve the lives of most of us.  The public-public partnership in which the government takes the risks and the monopolistic profiteers extract the profit as gravy is a bad idea.

[Bill the Piper]

(10-24-2019, 04:50 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't get your placement of Lefebvre. I don't know much about him, but according to wikipedia:

"Henri Lefebvre (/ləˈfɛvrə/ lə-FEV-rə, French: [ɑ̃ʁi ləfɛvʁ]; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of social space, and for his work on dialectics, alienation, and criticism of Stalinism, existentialism, and structuralism. In his prolific career, Lefebvre wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Lefebvre

I didn't know this one, but my theocrat is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Lefebvre

Henri with his "Stalinism, existentialism and structuralism" would be a cross between Communism and Inclusivism.

Scandinavian countries would be near the centre, but slightly tilted in the same direction, somewhere closer to Corbyn than Einstein because of their emphasis on the working class and economic issues in general. Maybe Olaf Palme would be a good representative of this political tradition.

Quote:Reagan called himself accurately. He was a very extreme, right-wing conservative in all ways. If he is seen as more moderate now, it's only because the right-wing has become even more extreme.

Looking from a purely American POV it is true, because he conserved the "rugged capitalism" of the settlers of American frontier. But my compass attempts to take a broader view. In Britain, the title of extreme conservatives belongs to the High Tories who want to conserve some aspects of feudalism. A Romanian member of Personality Cafe pointed that East European conservatives prefer a more communitarian social order, in line with different ideals of Orthodoxy.

In general theocracy and capitalism don't blend well, the market results in constant changes which disrupt the "righteous" way of living favoured by theocrats. They can coexist, but not without tension. Capitalism is also Hollywood, and theocrats hate its frivolity.

[Bill the Piper]

(10-24-2019, 05:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Whether God exists or not, and thus the basis for a theocracy, is a philosophical question, as well as what free market fundamentalists and communists may share in rationalist self-interest or materialism in general.

I redefined theocracy as a government focused on enforcing personal righteousness. This makes it possible to include extreme environmentalists who want us to starve ourselves to "save the planet". They are like traditional theocrats in all aspects save belief in a Sky Father. Some of them consider the Earth to be a literal deity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaianism
Certainly these extreme Greens don't blend well with the Purple Inclusivity meme or with Red Workers' Movement. According to Michael Crichton:
The religion of environmentalism is a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths. There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative religious beliefs. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith. Facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them

Quote:The Israeli genocide against the Palestinians could not be more clear.  They regularly shoot and kill them just for demonstrating. They have invaded and bombed Gaza many times and blockade it in order to starve them to death. Thousands have died. They steal land and water in the West Bank and impose restrictions on them there. Netanyahu is just another thug like Putin. This is all common knowledge. I do not support Israel as long as it elects thugs like Bibi. They need to switch their direction back toward what it was before Bibi, and be willing to make peace and not assert their right to all of Palestine as Bibi does.

It would be the world's most incompetent genocide, if the group Israel allegedly wants to exterminate is still extant after 70 years. Gaza is now free from any Israeli settlers, Hamas has absolute power there. How does it use this power? Instead of focusing on its subjects' well-being, it prioritises endless resistance. If the conditions in Gaza and the West Bank were as atrocious as pro-Palestine activists want us to believe, the inhabitants would leave these places for another Arab country like Jordan.

After 70 years of "peace process", do we need another saeculum to say it has failed? The ideal outcome would be of course both Israelites and Palestinians starting to identify as global citizens. Secular citizens of Israel are certainly closer to this ideal than Hamas and Fatah thugs. BTW, Palestinian ethnic identity didn't exist before 1948, the people considered themselves just Arabs. It was invented to make it possible to claim that fighting against Israel is fighting for "national liberation". I think democracy is more important than ethnic self-determination. Israel gives its Arab citizens the right to vote, if all Arabs accepted Israeli citizenship back in 1948 these would never be any "Palestinian people".

Netanyahu is certainly a Nationalist, in general modern Judaism has moved into the Brown zone except for the theocratic Orthodox minority who actually believes in the God of the Torah. But its relatively benign variety of Brown compared to Fatah's or Syria's.

[Eric the Green]

(10-27-2019, 07:10 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(10-24-2019, 05:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Whether God exists or not, and thus the basis for a theocracy, is a philosophical question, as well as what free market fundamentalists and communists may share in rationalist self-interest or materialism in general.

I redefined theocracy as a government focused on enforcing personal righteousness. This makes it possible to include extreme environmentalists who want us to starve ourselves to "save the planet". They are like traditional theocrats in all aspects save belief in a Sky Father. Some of them consider the Earth to be a literal deity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaianism
Certainly these extreme Greens don't blend well with the Purple Inclusivity meme or with Red Workers' Movement. According to Michael Crichton:
The religion of environmentalism is a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths. There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative religious beliefs. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith. Facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them

Count me one of the Greens.

But on all surveys, I am found on the Left, and so are all Greens, and I am of course a Green, and am on the Left, not the Right, so it doesn't seem to fit your system. All counter-culturalists and inclusivists are green.

Sustainability is an absolute requirement if we are to survive. It's what the word means. It means survival into the future, not just today. We will indeed all starve unless ecology and economy become one and the same, because the Earth, our Divine Mother, is certainly our source of life and prosperity.

So while I don't think we need to starve ourselves to save the planet, and divinity is not restricted to the Earth, but is present in All, I do think we have fallen from grace through eating from the tree of knowledge. Reason and intellect alone, unrestrained and enthroned, is toxic. It is dangerous if used to destroy. Crichton has it right in portraying us, and science agrees with us. We have developed technology and industry, and its pollution does threaten us. We need salvation from our sinful ways indeed. These are indeed facts, which I often try to recount for the climate science deniers and others who refuse to admit the facts. It is a very practical "religion" that advises us to deal with the scientific facts and change our way of life, or we will face many catastrophes, which are well under way. We face them here in CA as we write.

"Sin" means mistake. We all make mistakes, so it's not a matter of moralistic judgement and eternal damnation, but of correcting our errors. Whether this sinful way means total doom is not clear to me, but certainly, the only thing we need to give up is to stop allowing a few CEOs to continue to despoil the planet for their own profit. That is the ONLY price of our "salvation" in this "religion." Changing our source of energy and regulating pollution is very doable, without any inconvenience at all except to those CEOs. Should we continue to burn fossil fuels and forests just so they can continue to be rich? I think that is too high a price to pay for failing to change our ways. And it's on the ballot. Voting for Trump and Republicans is to vote for catastrophe. Voting Democratic or Green is to vote for sustainability and for the Earth, which is the source of so much that we need and love, including our very lives. Without Nature, we not only starve, but we lose much of the value of life. There is no alternative to this planet.

Climate science denial and all its excuses and myths is certainly a candidate for being considered a theocratic religion. It's main justification is enabled by the free market philosophy and ideology, and deniers are also found among fundamentalist Christians who think only God can change the climate.

Quote:

Quote:The Israeli genocide against the Palestinians could not be more clear.  They regularly shoot and kill them just for demonstrating. They have invaded and bombed Gaza many times and blockade it in order to starve them to death. Thousands have died. They steal land and water in the West Bank and impose restrictions on them there. Netanyahu is just another thug like Putin. This is all common knowledge. I do not support Israel as long as it elects thugs like Bibi. They need to switch their direction back toward what it was before Bibi, and be willing to make peace and not assert their right to all of Palestine as Bibi does.

It would be the world's most incompetent genocide, if the group Israel allegedly wants to exterminate is still extant after 70 years. Gaza is now free from any Israeli settlers, Hamas has absolute power there. How does it use this power? Instead of focusing on its subjects' well-being, it prioritises endless resistance. If the conditions in Gaza and the West Bank were as atrocious as pro-Palestine activists want us to believe, the inhabitants would leave these places for another Arab country like Jordan.

After 70 years of "peace process", do we need another saeculum to say it has failed? The ideal outcome would be of course both Israelites and Palestinians starting to identify as global citizens. Secular citizens of Israel are certainly closer to this ideal than Hamas and Fatah thugs. BTW, Palestinian ethnic identity didn't exist before 1948, the people considered themselves just Arabs. It was invented to make it possible to claim that fighting against Israel is fighting for "national liberation". I think democracy is more important than ethnic self-determination. Israel gives its Arab citizens the right to vote, if all Arabs accepted Israeli citizenship back in 1948 these would never be any "Palestinian people".

Netanyahu is certainly a Nationalist, in general modern Judaism has moved into the Brown zone except for the theocratic Orthodox minority who actually believes in the God of the Torah. But its relatively benign variety of Brown compared to Fatah's or Syria's.

The peace process has failed because of Israel. Israel is a genocidal state. It has exterminated thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and stolen lands from the West Bank. Netanyahu is a thug no better than Erdogen, although I would not rate him so low as Assad or the Islamic State demons. On the scale of today's tyrants, Putin would be somewhere between the former two and the latter two.

Arabs who live in Israel face a lot of discrimination, and under Netanyahu democracy in Israel is threatened. Israel evicted the Palestinian Arabs from their homes in 1948 and has confiscated and demolished many of their homes on the West Bank since 1967. It is up to Israel to choose peace and self-determination for themselves and their neighbors, and to stop fighting against them. Hamas is not blameless either, but the harm they impose is miniscule compared to what the Israelis can and do inflict on Gaza. Hamas needs to come to terms with the reality, but it can't do that under the current regime.

Racism in Israel against Arabs:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/isr...60871.html
Arab 2nd class citizenship in Israel:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pre...-1.6878243

There are many Arab states. You can't demand that the Arabs be all part of one state. A two state solution would be best, because the Isrealis consider Israel to be a Jewish state. They can't allow Arabs to outvote them. If you want a one state solution, then you have to accept that it would be an Arab majority state.

Netanyahu is certainly a theocrat, because his basis for conquering and destroying Arab Palestine is found in the Bible. I've heard him say so.

You have a 5 category system, and that's fine if that's your concept. I just don't think it can be a circle, and there's not much inter-relation that I can see between the various sectors or their placements in your diagram, and there's no clear left vs. right paradigm in it. Many folks don't think that polarity is valid anymore, and that's probably a valid point; but I still do. Survey results on the political compass still show a predominant preference along what is actually the left-right spectrum (lower left vs. upper right on the political compass)

[Eric the Green]

In what is certainly the most famous essay ever written about religion and the environment, the historian Lynn White Jr. argued that medieval JudeoChristian ideas were at The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis (White, 1967). Citing passages in the Bible that separate God from nature and grant humanity dominion over all, White wrote: "Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen." He also opined that much, if not most, environmental degradation is directly traceable to Christianity's radical anthropocentrism (White, 1967: 1205).
Recent research seems to confirm White's rather bleak assessment of the relationship between Christian beliefs and environmental attitudes. University
of Cincinnati political scientist Matthew B. Arbuckle and Georgetown University public policy expert David M. Konisky recently reported (forthcoming) that American Christians, as a whole, have lower levels of environmental concern than do non-Christians (Jews, people of other faiths, and nonbelievers). Arbuckle and Konisky also found, tellingly, that the higher the level of religious commitment (as measured by self-reports of religion's personal importance, frequency of religious service attendance, and frequency of prayer), the lower the level of environmental concern.....

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10....0215599789

This 2014 report concludes (link below) what you might not think – they find there is ‘no significant relationship between frequency of spiritual experiences and beliefs about the reality and causes of climate change’. The strongest indicator as to whether you accept the science of climate change is still your political affiliation, with the Tea Party strongly at the denial end and Democrats better represented in the science end of the spectrum.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

65% of Democrats surveyed accept the reality of climate change, 22% of Republicans do and 23% of Tea Party members do.
A full 53% of Tea Partiers deny the reality of climate change.
White evangelical Protestants are more likely than other religious groups to be climate change deniers.
Americans who report higher frequency of spiritual experiences are more likely to be more concerned about climate change.

https://climateaccess.org/resource/belie...d-religion

[Bill the Piper]

(10-27-2019, 10:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But on all surveys, I am found on the Left, and so are all Greens, and I am of course a Green, and am on the Left, not the Right, so it doesn't seem to fit your system. All counter-culturalists and inclusivists are green.

Sustainability is an absolute requirement if we are to survive. It's what the word means. It means survival into the future, not just today.

You obfuscate a lot by erasing the boundary between reasonable and mystical or fanatical aspects of environmentalism. The former are just common sense, the latter are theocracy. Or maybe Gaiacracy, if my inner wordsmith is allowed to have a little fun.

BTW my extropian ideals are also a form of personal righteousness, so I'm also... Blue-leaning though I prefer to think of myself as remaining within the centre.

Quote:We will indeed all starve unless ecology and economy become one and the same, because the Earth, our Divine Mother, is certainly our source of life and prosperity.

"We will indeed all starve unless theology and economy become one and the same, because Jesus, our Divine Father, is certainly our source of life and prosperity." Doesn't sound like something Jerry Falwell could say? Now you probably start seeing why I see parallels between theocrats and radical greens.

Quote:the higher the level of religious commitment (as measured by self-reports of religion's personal importance, frequency of religious service attendance, and frequency of prayer), the lower the level of environmental concern.....

It confirms my reasoning. Some fear the Last Judgement and the wrath of Jesus, others fear global environmental apocalypse and the wrath of Gaia. Both stem from similar emotional impulses.

Quote:The peace process has failed because of Israel.

The French and the Brits have pulled out of Africa in the 1960s. Did the nationalist regimes there become peaceful democrats? I'm quite sure Fatah and Hamas would remain thuggish autocrats without Israel.

Quote:Arabs who live in Israel face a lot of discrimination, and under Netanyahu democracy in Israel is threatened. Israel evicted the Palestinian Arabs from their homes in 1948 and has confiscated and demolished many of their homes on the West Bank since 1967. It is up to Israel to choose peace and self-determination for themselves and their neighbors, and to stop fighting against them. Hamas is not blameless either, but the harm they impose is miniscule compared to what the Israelis can and do inflict on Gaza. Hamas needs to come to terms with the reality, but it can't do that under the current regime.

Racism in Israel against Arabs:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/isr...60871.html
Arab 2nd class citizenship in Israel:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pre...-1.6878243

Democracy in America is also under threat, not surprising during a 4T. I believe both American and Israeli democratic culture is strong enough to withhold it.

I see there is racism in Israel, but the racism in Arab countries is much worse. Remember most Jews living in Arab countries were also expelled. If Jewish racism is flu, then Arab racism is cholera. We should get rid of cholera first, then we'll debate how to get rid of flu.

I'm not preaching whataboutism, every Israeli Jew should re-examine eir attitude to minorities and stop looking down on non-violent minority members.

Japan also experienced a devastating defeat in the 1940s, a nuclear disaster. They got over it and are now one of world's most modernized societies. Cannot the Arabs got over the creation of Israel and focused on modernizing themselves? How long should the struggle go on before they admit defeat? Will it be still going on in 2048? 2148?

Quote:There are many Arab states. You can't demand that the Arabs be all part of one state.

Why should people in the 21st century identify by labels such as Jew, Arab, British, Irish, Polish etc. rather than being just global citizens? If we have to, why should we invent sub-ethnic identities like Palestinian instead of using broader, more inclusive terms like Arab?

Quote:You have a 5 category system, and that's fine if that's your concept. I just don't think it can be a circle, and there's not much inter-relation that I can see between the various sectors or their placements in your diagram, and there's no clear left vs. right paradigm in it. Many folks don't think that polarity is valid anymore, and that's probably a valid point; but I still do. Survey results on the political compass still show a predominant preference along what is actually the left-right spectrum (lower left vs. upper right on the political compass)

Broadly, Yellow and Blue are Right, Purple and Red are Left and Brown can be both. Putin is a right-wing nationalist, but Saddam was a lefty. "Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party". A lot of 1960s nationalist movements were left-leaning, including the IRA and ETA.

But I also see parallels between the attitudes found on Left and the Right. Just like some Leftists excuse Arab thugs, Trumpers excuse Putin. Some Leftists think we should restrain ourselves in name of the environment just like some Christians want to refrain from conspicuous consumption because it offends Jesus.

[Eric the Green]

(10-31-2019, 08:59 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(10-27-2019, 10:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But on all surveys, I am found on the Left, and so are all Greens, and I am of course a Green, and am on the Left, not the Right, so it doesn't seem to fit your system. All counter-culturalists and inclusivists are green.

Sustainability is an absolute requirement if we are to survive. It's what the word means. It means survival into the future, not just today.

You obfuscate a lot by erasing the boundary between reasonable and mystical or fanatical aspects of environmentalism. The former are just common sense, the latter are theocracy. Or maybe Gaiacracy, if my inner wordsmith is allowed to have a little fun.

Any cause or interest can be taken to fanatical extremes. I guess that we might not agree where the "boundary" is. And of course I think "mystical" is not only just fine, it's the cat's meow

Quote:

Quote:We will indeed all starve unless ecology and economy become one and the same, because the Earth, our Divine Mother, is certainly our source of life and prosperity.

"We will indeed all starve unless theology and economy become one and the same, because Jesus, our Divine Father, is certainly our source of life and prosperity." Doesn't sound like something Jerry Falwell could say? Now you probably start seeing why I see parallels between theocrats and radical greens.

I would not say I have crossed your boundary.

Quote:

Quote:the higher the level of religious commitment (as measured by self-reports of religion's personal importance, frequency of religious service attendance, and frequency of prayer), the lower the level of environmental concern.....

It confirms my reasoning. Some fear the Last Judgement and the wrath of Jesus, others fear global environmental apocalypse and the wrath of Gaia. Both stem from similar emotional impulses.

Maybe you missed the point of my quotes? It's the anti-environmentalists who are the religious fanatics, according to the facts.

Quote:

Quote:The peace process has failed because of Israel.

The French and the Brits have pulled out of Africa in the 1960s. Did the nationalist regimes there become peaceful democrats? I'm quite sure Fatah and Hamas would remain thuggish autocrats without Israel.

The regimes in Africa of today were not organized to defeat the French and British. Fatah and Hamas were organized to defeat Israel. And these are not the same people. Unwarranted conclusion. Israel cannot blame Hamas for the horrible way it treats the people of Gaza, or the extreme advantage it has over them. Today, some of the regimes of Africa are better. So are the Palestinians of the West Bank, who have done their best to try to get along and create peace, while Israel continues to steal their land and confine them.

Quote:Democracy in America is also under threat, not surprising during a 4T. I believe both American and Israeli democratic culture is strong enough to withhold it.

We can hope

Quote:I see there is racism in Israel, but the racism in Arab countries is much worse. Remember most Jews living in Arab countries were also expelled. If Jewish racism is flu, then Arab racism is cholera. We should get rid of cholera first, then we'll debate how to get rid of flu.

Only after the creation of Israel, which they abhorred. Before that, those two religions got along better than Christians ever had with anyone else.

Quote:I'm not preaching whataboutism, every Israeli Jew should re-examine their attitude to minorities and stop looking down on non-violent minority members.

Japan also experienced a devastating defeat in the 1940s, a nuclear disaster. They got over it and are now one of world's most modernized societies. Cannot the Arabs got over the creation of Israel and focused on modernizing themselves? How long should the struggle go on before they admit defeat? Will it be still going on in 2048? 2148?

Probably, because Israel stubbornly believes it has a right to all Palestinian land, and holds back the Arabs in that land with its oppression and theft. The circumstances are different. After conquering Japan, after Japan attacked it, the USA remodeled it, and then soon left. Israel was not attacked by Palestine (it was vice versa; the Jews came and took over THEIR land and expelled them from it), Israel never left Palestine, and Israel has not remodeled Palestine but just subdued it. Israel today believes it has the right to mistreat any people it pleases, because of how bad Jews were treated in the past. Japan didn't have that attitude after 1945.

Quote:

Quote:There are many Arab states. You can't demand that the Arabs be all part of one state.

Why should people in the 21st century identify by labels such as Jew, Arab, British, Irish, Polish etc. rather than being just global citizens? If we have to, why should we invent sub-ethnic identities like Palestinian instead of using broader, more inclusive terms like Arab?

I agree, but it's tough for most people even in the USA to realize this, or even people on this forum. It's harder when you are being oppressed by another nation that steals your land and blockades your coast and borders.

Quote:

Quote:You have a 5 category system, and that's fine if that's your concept. I just don't think it can be a circle, and there's not much inter-relation that I can see between the various sectors or their placements in your diagram, and there's no clear left vs. right paradigm in it. Many folks don't think that polarity is valid anymore, and that's probably a valid point; but I still do. Survey results on the political compass still show a predominant preference along what is actually the left-right spectrum (lower left vs. upper right on the political compass)

Broadly, Yellow and Blue are Right, Purple and Red are Left and Brown can be both. Putin is a right-wing nationalist, but Saddam was a lefty. "Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party". A lot of 1960s nationalist movements were left-leaning, including the IRA and ETA.

But I also see parallels between the attitudes found on Left and the Right. Just like some Leftists excuse Arab thugs, Trumpers excuse Putin. Some Leftists think we should restrain ourselves in name of the environment just like some Christians want to refrain from conspicuous consumption because it offends Jesus.

Best of luck with your studies and categories. It's fun to find some order in apparent chaos.

I have a bit of trouble though with saying Yellow is Right and then putting it at the top

[Bill the Piper]

(11-02-2019, 12:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Maybe you missed the point of my quotes? It's the anti-environmentalists who are the religious fanatics, according to the facts.

The evangelicals are indeed religious fanatics and anti-environmentalists, but I've never met one. I'm more interested in transhumanist and space enthusiast opposition to Earth worship.

Maybe someday a super-civilization will recreate Holy Mother Earth in all her pristine glory. How do you like this idea?

Quote:

Quote:Japan also experienced a devastating defeat in the 1940s, a nuclear disaster. They got over it and are now one of world's most modernized societies. Cannot the Arabs got over the creation of Israel and focused on modernizing themselves? How long should the struggle go on before they admit defeat? Will it be still going on in 2048? 2148?

Probably, because Israel stubbornly believes it has a right to all Palestinian land, and holds back the Arabs in that land with its oppression and theft.

Any conquered population eventually assimilates like the ancient Britons conquered by the Anglo-Saxons or migrates away, like the Caucasian tribes conquered by the Russians escaped to the Middle East. Virtually noone sacrifices his life to avenge a disaster that happened centuries ago.

I suspects even Palestinian Arabs my age (born in the 80s and 90s) would find the "disaster" of 1948 a remote, uninspiring event, if they weren't indoctrinated by Palestinian nationalists at school. The sort of struggle their textbooks preach would really appeal to most hardcore alt-right members in America:
https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Confl...ews-472012

West Bank under Fatah is still rated not free by Freedom House:
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-.../west-bank

Quote:I have a bit of trouble though with saying Yellow is Right and then putting it at the top

The diagram should be tilted to that the boundary between Yellow and Purple is at the top. Also, I think I'll eliminate Stirner since he as a radically anti-social individualist is outside the 5 categories.

[Eric the Green]

(11-03-2019, 06:33 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(11-02-2019, 12:25 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Maybe you missed the point of my quotes? It's the anti-environmentalists who are the religious fanatics, according to the facts.

The evangelicals are indeed religious fanatics and anti-environmentalists, but I've never met one. I'm more interested in transhumanist and space enthusiast opposition to Earth worship.

Maybe someday a super-civilization will recreate Holy Mother Earth in all her pristine glory. How do you like this idea?

Who knows what we will be capable of someday. But we need to stop despoiling it now and not count on that.

Greens like me believe that the most significant goal of our time is to learn to live on Earth sustainably as one people now, and restore what we can. We put Earth among the highest priorities, at least. Transhumanists such as yourself have a different priority.

One thing I like to remind you guys of, however. There's very little land in our solar system. Mars is much smaller and could not accommodate the current Earth population, and that's about all there is. If your ambition is to go further, then we will have to break the light barrier. And if we could ever do that, the likelihood is that other ETs have already done that and visited us, as many observers say (but the idea is not admitted in mainstream science because it says the light barrier can't be broken). More than likely, any ability to break the light barrier which we achieve will have been reversed engineered from the ETs.

I see that I reminded you of this on a thread in The Future forum. You conveniently replied with the mainstream science view that the ETs have not visited us. That implies that you also have to discard that mainstream science view too, along with the mainstream science view that the light barrier cannot be broken.

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:Japan also experienced a devastating defeat in the 1940s, a nuclear disaster. They got over it and are now one of world's most modernized societies. Cannot the Arabs got over the creation of Israel and focused on modernizing themselves? How long should the struggle go on before they admit defeat? Will it be still going on in 2048? 2148?

Probably, because Israel stubbornly believes it has a right to all Palestinian land, and holds back the Arabs in that land with its oppression and theft.

Any conquered population eventually assimilates like the ancient Britons conquered by the Anglo-Saxons or migrates away, like the Caucasian tribes conquered by the Russians escaped to the Middle East. Virtually noone sacrifices his life to avenge a disaster that happened centuries ago.

And yet people in the Middle East fight to avenge disasters that happened millennia ago, including the Israelis.

Quote:I suspects even Palestinian Arabs my age (born in the 80s and 90s) would find the "disaster" of 1948 a remote, uninspiring event, if they weren't indoctrinated by Palestinian nationalists at school. The sort of struggle their textbooks preach would really appeal to most hardcore alt-right members in America:
https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Confl...ews-472012

West Bank under Fatah is still rated not free by Freedom House:
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-.../west-bank

Of course. The West Bank is subject to Israel.

Quote:

Quote:I have a bit of trouble though with saying Yellow is Right and then putting it at the top

The diagram should be tilted to that the boundary between Yellow and Purple is at the top. Also, I think I'll eliminate Stirner since he as a radically anti-social individualist is outside the 5 categories.

Good.

[Bill the Piper]

After a few tweaks:



I've followed Eric's advice and classified Greta the Green as an inclusivist, not a theocrat. There are indeed theocrat-like forms of environmentalism like the ideas of the terror group Earth First, but they are quite rare nowadays. They might come back during the 2T.

Millennial environmentalism looks like being focused on empathizing with Nature's plight and including it in our global civilization. A lot like the attitude they have to gays and earlier Inclusivists had to Blacks.

I also added Al Saud, the ultimate merger between theocracy and market.

[Bill the Piper]

(11-03-2019, 12:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: One thing I like to remind you guys of, however. There's very little land in our solar system. Mars is much smaller and could not accommodate the current Earth population, and that's about all there is. If your ambition is to go further, then we will have to break the light barrier. And if we could ever do that, the likelihood is that other ETs have already done that and visited us, as many observers say (but the idea is not admitted in mainstream science because it says the light barrier can't be broken). More than likely, any ability to break the light barrier which we achieve will have been reversed engineered from the ETs.

I see that I reminded you of this on a thread in The Future forum. You conveniently replied with the mainstream science view that the ETs have not visited us. That implies that you also have to discard that mainstream science view too, along with the mainstream science view that the light barrier cannot be broken.

You can create habitats inside asteroids. Such an environment wouldn't allow for an outdoorsy lifestyle, which is kind of sad, but might be overcome if you have lighting bright enough to power photosynthesis inside an asteroid. Possibly the energy will come from nuclear fusion, or even from something more speculative like dark matter/energy.

Once we have this kind of habitat engineering, you don't need FTL to travel to other star systems. Whole communities can travel inside an asteroid living there for generations, until they find a suitable Earth-like planet.

[Eric the Green]

(11-05-2019, 01:30 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(11-03-2019, 12:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: One thing I like to remind you guys of, however. There's very little land in our solar system. Mars is much smaller and could not accommodate the current Earth population, and that's about all there is. If your ambition is to go further, then we will have to break the light barrier. And if we could ever do that, the likelihood is that other ETs have already done that and visited us, as many observers say (but the idea is not admitted in mainstream science because it says the light barrier can't be broken). More than likely, any ability to break the light barrier which we achieve will have been reversed engineered from the ETs.

I see that I reminded you of this on a thread in The Future forum. You conveniently replied with the mainstream science view that the ETs have not visited us. That implies that you also have to discard that mainstream science view too, along with the mainstream science view that the light barrier cannot be broken.

You can create habitats inside asteroids. Such an environment wouldn't allow for an outdoorsy lifestyle, which is kind of sad, but might be overcome if you have lighting bright enough to power photosynthesis inside an asteroid. Possibly the energy will come from nuclear fusion, or even from something more speculative like dark matter/energy.

Once we have this kind of habitat engineering, you don't need FTL to travel to other star systems. Whole communities can travel inside an asteroid living there for generations, until they find a suitable Earth-like planet.

"until they find a suitable Earth-like planet"? Meaning, until they break the light barrier, which if possible at all means the observed ETs visits have really been happening, and so reverse engineering will occur, hence no need to live on asteroids; which I think would only be able to host a few hardy souls who don't care where they live. I don't think there is enough space on or inside asteroids to host a civilization capable or building nuclear fusion plants. It will take too many generations living in a huge spaceship traveling to a planet that may not turn out to be desirable. It all sounds very far fetched indeed to me, and it ignores how much our beautiful planet means to people, and how important it is to save and restore such an exceedingly rare location in this vast cosmos.

I say that the fact that the Earth and Moon appear to be the same size from Earth, that they bear the colors of the most precious and luminous metals in the universe (so that the ancients set their value according to the proportion of their orbits), and that this proportion is based on the sacred number 108, the number of the dodecahedron and the fibonacci proportion, bears unimpeachable witness to the rare value of Planet Earth, the blue marble of the cosmos.

Restoring and saving Earth "trumps" the adventure of space flight as our top priority in our times. We can investigate and research the possibilities of space travel, and we can send men and instruments out there. That's all fine. But we don't deserve, nor can we, move away until we master a sustainable and peaceful existence on Earth in which we care for all its people. We aren't ready to join the galactic federation until we reach maturity and respect the most valuable real estate in the galaxy, Planet Earth. That is our test now in this cycle of civilization. We learn to live together on Earth, or we die. That's the challenge for the next 400 years. Only then will migration to the far distant solar systems and galaxies be permitted for earthlings.

Again, the only barrier that stands in the way of restoring Earth is the convenience and wealth of a few fossil fuel company CEOs, and their political deniers and protectors in the Republican Party. THAT'S IT! That's not enough reason to justify killing off entire species and ecosystems.

Some of you virtual millennials need to take more time out and visit places in Nature, or just enjoy the air on a windy day in a local park. Get in touch with your own body more. Put down your phones and get out from behind your desktops and discover real life.

[Eric the Green]

(11-05-2019, 12:42 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote: After a few tweaks:



I've followed Eric's advice and classified Greta the Green as an inclusivist, not a theocrat. There are indeed theocrat-like forms of environmentalism like the ideas of the terror group Earth First, but they are quite rare nowadays. They might come back during the 2T.

Millennial environmentalism looks like being focused on empathizing with Nature's plight and including it in our global civilization. A lot like the attitude they have to gays and earlier Inclusivists had to Blacks.

I also added Al Saud, the ultimate merger between theocracy and market.

That does look a bit better

[Marypoza]

(11-05-2019, 05:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-05-2019, 12:42 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote: After a few tweaks:



I've followed Eric's advice and classified Greta the Green as an inclusivist, not a theocrat. There are indeed theocrat-like forms of environmentalism like the ideas of the terror group Earth First, but they are quite rare nowadays. They might come back during the 2T.

Millennial environmentalism looks like being focused on empathizing with Nature's plight and including it in our global civilization. A lot like the attitude they have to gays and earlier Inclusivists had to Blacks.

I also added Al Saud, the ultimate merger between theocracy and market.

That does look a bit better

-- where's Bernie? In the white with Roosevelt?

[Hintergrund]

So Gandhi was just a boring centrist?

[Hintergrund]

Your "compass" has five dimensions, but you want to depict it in two. It doesn't work like that.

Also, why stay at five? I've seen political tests with eight different axes. Why not make it an n-dimensional space, in which any combination is possible.

Where'd you put e.g. someone who's both radically against Global Warming and Islamism? I know that#s an uncommon combination, but that doesn't mean it was plain impossible.