ndawg

Just to put a slightly different spin on a take that I completely agree with, I wonder if these people have plenty of cognitive flexibility, it's just been subverted. For example, I've noticed that they'll happily adjust from believing that COVID vaccination was dangerous one day, to believing that Trump should get credit for the vaccination the next. I think for most of us, cognitive flexibility is used to help us adjust our understanding and mindset when faced with our own errors as well as the constant stream of subtle changes in the world around us. Our brains experience all sorts of pleasant neurotransmitters when we exercise that cognitive flexibility, refine our understanding, and consequently know that we're now better equipped to meet reality that before. On the other hand, people who have no capacity to recognize their own errors and are unable to perceive those subtle changes in the world around them -- like the gradual shift in ideology of a political party -- don't ever experience the minor ecstasy of learning more about themselves and the world around them. Perhaps their supply of cognitive flexibility, starved of its natural relationship with our capacity to learn and grow, seeks something else to cling to... and ultimately transforms into a misshapen reflex that formulates the rationalizations needed to prevent reality from disrupting the flow of neurotransmitter cocktails that we all experience by agreeing to meet reality as grown-ups.

Yes or no, do you think it's obvious to all of us that you're deflecting with this question?

I’ll be honest I never could find her GBOT

On that level, I see the analogy. If the right wingers who irrationally hate AOC had the self awareness of Steve Martin's character, they'd realize their hatred of her is merely a defense mechanism to avoid realizing that they aren't good people.

I'm a tad southwest of New Liberal Party.

This. There's a particular brand of gullibility rooted in cynicism that the right wing seems particularly susceptible to. They frequently lay out these really flimsy blanket assumptions like, "all politicians are corrupt, ambitious narcissists, and to think otherwise is to be naive." Sure, nobody is perfect, but some people clearly possess a personality disposition that drives them towards a life of service, and probability guarantees that some of them will have the talent to actually earn success the hard way. To suggest that type of person doesn't exist is mathematically absurd. And this kind of person is that last type of individual that these right wingers ever want to acknowledge, because they haven't themselves ever faced what psychologists call "the facts of life" -- they are small minded fools who look at everyone who is smarter and/or more attractive than them and reassure themselves, "well, at least I'm a better person than they are." Accepting that AOC is genuine and well-intentioned is beyond their capacity, so they vilify her instinctively.

This is true, but at the same time, it has to be acknowledged that evangelical churches are basically molding generations of people into scientifically illiterate, uncurious dunces who present a real threat to civilized society.

If you could take the human id and distill it down to unbridled impulses of pure, naked self-interest, and then work backwards to justify those impulses with a sort of word salad of quasi-Christian nonsense, you'd have this guy's religion.

Anyone else catch the Chalkdust Torture right before commercial break? Phuck we might be good this year.

Now you're demonstrating actual illiteracy, too.

It takes a profound degree of statistical illiteracy to reduce managing a pandemic down to a single "problem."

Hah, thanks. I'm a few fingers in to some bourbon, and just couldn't resist the impulse to vent. I have such a hard time coping with the fact that our political discourse constantly gets edited down into something that fits within our tiny attention collective span, and as a result we experience a constant barrage of what amounts to essentially mini-marketing campaigns designed to trigger the same tired emotional impulses. immadashellandimnotgonnatakeitanymore.gif

There's something about the discussion of critical race theory that really bothers me, which seems so obvious that I hope I'm not just regurgitating a tired point that's been made before -- but damned if it isn't remarkable how quickly "CRT" has become an acronym. Our shitty political theater has managed to assimilate the entire life's work of a small number of individuals, stripped it of all context, and rebranded it as a new hot-topic-of-the-day. With amazing (and diabolical) efficiency. Now, Americans are arguing about what something called "CRT" means, instead of the truth about our country's relationship with racism that is fucking ongoing. This weakness in human psychology is ancient. See Lao Tzu, "the way that can be named isn't the unchanging way" -- we fixate on terms themselves without any comprehension of the entire universe of knowledge and ideas that they're referring to. You're arguing that conservatives have effectively countered an attempt to advance "CRT" as an agenda, but I'll argue you're not giving them enough credit for their cunning and depravity. Conservatives are more than happy to prop "CRT" as a strawman that justifies any amount of opposition. Wanna teach that the KKK wasn't so bad after all? Sure, it's the logical counter to the radical communist "CRT." There has been absolutely zero concerted effort by the political left to advance something called "CRT." The political left has been trying for decades to teach our racial past (and present!) more honestly -- a good thing, for anyone who isn't a racist shitbag -- which can now be recast by the right as advancing "CRT." This is nothing more than appropriating terminology from a narrow field of academic study to reframe the public debate.

If the voter ID is "successful," what outcome will be able to observe that indicates its success? Same question for the digital passport.

All the conservatives who were any good at trolling the libs have too much pride to remain associated with this band of unimaginative nihilists. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, we're not just down to the bottom of the barrel, we're no longer even in the same universe as barrels.

If a child loves something, they strive to model it. When a grown up loves something, they strive to make it better.

What I find hilarious is that people I know who contribute the most to America's actual greatness are all highly critical of it, and the people I know who are enamored by its imaginary greatness provide nothing of value to it whatsoever.

I think you're reading in to my perspective a bit more than I intended to convey. I chose Henry Ford because I think he is a classic exemplar of the American "rags-to-riches" story. He's part of our established pantheon of heroic businesspeople and, while the real person was very flawed (as Sydney mentioned), he really did make incredibly significant discoveries in mass production that made a huge impact on human civilization. Capitalism is what it is. It's one aspect of a much larger system that is our society as a whole. I think there's a positive role for capitalism in a healthy society, but ours is not as healthy as it once was. We're still better at it than a lot of third world countries, but much of our present success is more coasting off of inertia built by previous generations than it is fueled by any present day exceptionalism. Getting back on track will involve rooting out the "takers" and elevating more of the "makers," and a lot of the successful POC entrepreneurs are indeed leading the way. I did not offer "making it" as a shorthand for American capitalism, for what it is worth... it's more of an "ersatz" (as you say) mimicry of entrepeneurship that doesn't have the self awareness to realize it ain't the real thing. I swear, if I see one more Youtube video compelling me to "smash the subscribe button" ... but I digress. By the way, individualism is not necessarily an asset under capitalism. It certainly can be in some circumstances -- again, Ford was a great example, he reshaped the entire course of human civilization by systematically laying out an ingenious production system. But he was just one genius, and while Highland Park was way ahead of its time, his approaches are nowadays very antiquated. Over the last few decades, the most successful auto manufacturer won by building a workforce that, top to bottom, consists of a community of problem solvers who view the purpose of their jobs (and the organization) as one that benefits society. That's a very different definition of "success" than most American companies, but one that serves them well. After all, the government never made them do it, but they did it anyways, because it got the best results. Eventually, the pendulum would swing around again, and today, a certain Elon Musk is threatening to become the new Ford. So, I don't agree with your implication that my definition of success is rigid or universal. In fact, I think I can turn it around, and suggest you think about why your definition of "American" is a definitive one: What made America "great" in WWII was Americans working together for a common cause. I think that's when we're at our best, when we're contributing our individuality towards common goals that benefit everybody. I'm rambling now, so I'll cut myself off.

The presence of individual "rags-to-riches" stories does not tell us anything about whether it is getting easier or more difficult for Americans to increase their lot in life. I get it. You're bought in to a nice feeling. It's easy to love the stories of Americans like Henry Ford (though, the actual Henry Ford was a fascist). The trouble is that feel good stories don't inform us about the actual conditions in the country. At best they're a harmless fantasy to indulge in, at their worse they lead us to draw all sorts of dubious conclusions, such as the belief that America is still great because at least one person we know "made it." And the entire notion of "making it" -- when looking at society as a whole, in aggregate -- has perverse undertones of narcissism and sociopathy. Plenty of people who build wealth are wonderful people who used their imagination, ingenuity, and empathy to envision ways of creating value for others. But the shared collective fantasy of "making it" is more about the outcome than the journey. It's not success, it's a counterfeit of actual success. It's as different from what folks like Henry Ford accomplished as selling fantasy knives on QVC is different from building, say, an automobile manufacturing empire.

This thread is reminding me of my favorite George Carlin quote: "they call it the American Dream because you'd have to be asleep to believe it."

So, higher education costs are skyrocketing, putting it out of reach for more and more Americans every year. Think about front line nurses and occupational and physical therapists. Many of them take out $100-200k in student loan debt just to earn the privilege of taking care of the sick and injured. Do you want fewer people making the inarguably dumb financial decision that leads them to a career spent helping people in need? For America to improve, we have got to get out from underneath overly simplistic perspectives.

Oh I wasn't necessarily agreeing with the notion that we need to take away gun freedoms. In fact, when I first read your reply, my initial reaction was nodding in agreement with your assertion that freedoms, once taken, don't tend to come back. But I stopped and asked myself, "is that actually true, or is it just something we all accept as true without questioning it?" I scanned my memory bank for the first example I could think of where a major freedom was taken away, and alcohol prohibition was the first one that came up. I was fairly certain you had concrete examples in mind, and was genuinely curious about what they were. I wasn't trying to lay some kind of stupid rhetorical trap or anything. To answer your question, though, I think that the premise of people having a absolute right to arm themselves is already out of the question, and has been for a long time, but nobody sees it that way, because the problem has been framed for them. Americans today don't have the freedom to bear arms if those arms include a bazooka. So, today, it's fairly undeniable that Americans only have the freedom to bear arms within reason, just like we also only have freedom of speech within reason. Ultimately, this is therefore a discussion about where to draw a line. Now, because the debate has been allowed to be framed by the right, determining where to draw that line is called "gun control" when it's anywhere other than where the gun lobbies want it to be, and it's called "our inalienable second Amendment rights" when it's drawn to their satisfaction. So, my proposal isn't "safeguards," it's for us to stop framing the problem in clumsy, binary terms.

What examples do you have in mind? The first one that comes to my head is alcohol prohibition, which did return.

No, but the stupid people are.

Remove illegal immigrants from the workforce, and, outside the service sector, you'd end up with a lot more jobs moved overseas or to Mexico. And they'd probably take the front line managers and workers who are US citizens with them.