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    Default Conservatism

    It seems to me that conservatives diverge from liberals/progressives on the basis of perception, particularly what to acknowledge as existant and real, and what not to acknowledge as such. Progressives and liberals agree that one should have awareness proportionate to the need of one's times: e.g., if there is not enough information available in one's times to reconcile problems of behavior on the basis of data, then more awareness of the world's workings is needed to create the proper behavioral basis. The problem is that when you have data, you have many options for behavior and it is not always clear which options are the best, especially to those who conceive of these new awarenesses of phenomena. Liberals are always eager to acquire new rights by which they can confront phenomena, but the question of how to use those rights in the context of a society that seeks to promote the spread of life is not clear. We would like to leave these decisions to the individualists who are naturally aware of behavior and its impact, but these are more concerned, in our eyes, with being heroes who "save the world" from an imminent threat. Instead we act in ways that we are accustomed to given the intuitive nature of the new data, yet on a basis that the community could not understand, and it is very likely that in so doing we add to what existential threats may already have arisen. But what are we supposed to do? Do you, adaptists, criticize universalists for using knowledge that you refuse to use for our benefit, instead taking your "sweet time" as it were? What right have either you or the traditionalists to criticize our behavior when you offer us none or demand that we behave according to a reality we have discovered for ourselves to be inconsistent with experience? (We tried to tell you!)

    Conservatives take a different road. The conservative only embraces that awareness which has been proven to correlate to responsible behavior. Here we have the age-old disconnect between the progressive and the community: the community chooses what is "real" and what "isn't" based on its behavioral merit, believing the behavior itself a cornerstone for morality. Progressives increasingly believe this "delimited awareness" naive and unacceptable. At the very least, it's not helpful to us, or to liberals.

    I offer this solution: a public recognition of two different realities, one an emergent reality that progressives clarify as individualists create the tools by which they identify new aspects of it; and the other a "consensus" reality that everyone acknowledges as such, defined as that reality which people have agreed is behaviorally consistent with society's goals. Obviously given the presence of these you invariably have the "unconscious reality" or "unknown reality", those aspects of reality we have not yet apprehended. A committee with representatives from all psychic caucuses would choose by unanimous consensus when and how emergent reality becomes consensus reality.

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    Have some dressing with that word salad.

    Please see a psychiatrist. Show him your writings and please take every pill he prescribes you.
    That faith makes blessed under certain circumstances, that blessedness does not make of a fixed idea a true idea, that faith moves no mountains but puts mountains where there are none: a quick walk through a madhouse enlightens one sufficiently about this. (A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.) - Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Quote Originally Posted by niveK


    Have some dressing with that word salad.

    Please see a psychiatrist. Show him your writings and please take every pill he prescribes you.
    So you'll die a little more inside....

    http://pdamerica.org/orgs/start-chapter.php

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    Quote Originally Posted by dee
    i wish i had the mental capacity and patience to comprehend it all (don't say i agree with it 'cos i didn't have a chance to consider yet lol) *dreamy and sad*
    It's meaningless drivel derived from the fine art of bovine scatology with a touch of post-modernism to excuse its lack of reality basis. The reason it doesn't make sense is because it has no basis in reality. Admittedly, not all things with no basis in reality are completely nonsensical (take religion for instance), but a lack of such a basis can only hurt matters.
    That faith makes blessed under certain circumstances, that blessedness does not make of a fixed idea a true idea, that faith moves no mountains but puts mountains where there are none: a quick walk through a madhouse enlightens one sufficiently about this. (A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.) - Friedrich Nietzsche

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    the kinetic-molecular theory of gases posits that gas particles only engage in elastic collisions.

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    Quote Originally Posted by dee
    Quote Originally Posted by niveK
    Admittedly, not all things with no basis in reality are completely nonsensical (take religion for instance), but a lack of such a basis can only hurt matters.
    maybe the reason for religion making sense is because it does actually exist, or at least the one that does makes sense lol. but i think it may be to do with using such a combination of IM elements that does not consciously register and perhaps encoding of the information into formulaic verbal expressions adds to the inability to make good sense out of it. don't know.
    All religions make about the same amount of sense, although in my experience the eastern religions are a bit more sensible than most. The Abrahamic are thinly veiled social control mechanisms, and as such, make little sense when objectively evaluated, but remain highly effective by creating and manipulating fear. But I'm going off subject here. Some theologies have a pretty strong, consistent, sensible structure, but they all base themselves on some false premises, and thus have no basis in reality. Similarly, Tcaud builds some interesting, if sometimes quite incoherent, hypotheses, but they're based on a set of false premises, making them useless beyond a mental exercise.
    That faith makes blessed under certain circumstances, that blessedness does not make of a fixed idea a true idea, that faith moves no mountains but puts mountains where there are none: a quick walk through a madhouse enlightens one sufficiently about this. (A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.) - Friedrich Nietzsche

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    MRS(1)=MRS(2)=q(1)/q(2)
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    Let's fly now Gilly's Avatar
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    Default Re: Conservatism

    Quote Originally Posted by tcaudilllg
    It seems to me that conservatives diverge from liberals/progressives on the basis of perception, particularly what to acknowledge as existant and real, and what not to acknowledge as such. Progressives and liberals agree that one should have awareness proportionate to the need of one's times: e.g., if there is not enough information available in one's times to reconcile problems of behavior on the basis of data, then more awareness of the world's workings is needed to create the proper behavioral basis. The problem is that when you have data, you have many options for behavior and it is not always clear which options are the best, especially to those who conceive of these new awarenesses of phenomena. Liberals are always eager to acquire new rights by which they can confront phenomena, but the question of how to use those rights in the context of a society that seeks to promote the spread of life is not clear. We would like to leave these decisions to the individualists who are naturally aware of behavior and its impact, but these are more concerned, in our eyes, with being heroes who "save the world" from an imminent threat. Instead we act in ways that we are accustomed to given the intuitive nature of the new data, yet on a basis that the community could not understand, and it is very likely that in so doing we add to what existential threats may already have arisen. But what are we supposed to do? Do you, adaptists, criticize universalists for using knowledge that you refuse to use for our benefit, instead taking your "sweet time" as it were? What right have either you or the traditionalists to criticize our behavior when you offer us none or demand that we behave according to a reality we have discovered for ourselves to be inconsistent with experience? (We tried to tell you!)

    Conservatives take a different road. The conservative only embraces that awareness which has been proven to correlate to responsible behavior. Here we have the age-old disconnect between the progressive and the community: the community chooses what is "real" and what "isn't" based on its behavioral merit, believing the behavior itself a cornerstone for morality. Progressives increasingly believe this "delimited awareness" naive and unacceptable. At the very least, it's not helpful to us, or to liberals.

    I offer this solution: a public recognition of two different realities, one an emergent reality that progressives clarify as individualists create the tools by which they identify new aspects of it; and the other a "consensus" reality that everyone acknowledges as such, defined as that reality which people have agreed is behaviorally consistent with society's goals. Obviously given the presence of these you invariably have the "unconscious reality" or "unknown reality", those aspects of reality we have not yet apprehended. A committee with representatives from all psychic caucuses would choose by unanimous consensus when and how emergent reality becomes consensus reality.
    There is one major flaw in your perspective. You fail to take into account the Liberalistic tendencies within a Conservative body; you forget that, given the nature of constant change in the world, any society or group that attempts to stabilize itself completely will, in fact, be repressing itself at its very core; change cannot be eliminated. You expound on the values of risk-taking Liberalism and the continued search for information, yet you forget that conservatism is what keeps the world out of total chaos; you condemn it despite its intrinsic value to the nature of mass information exchange and continued stability in a community. You forget that yes, we WILL make it there eventually, no matter how far ahead you are (or think you are).

    Your lashing out at Conservatives here will do nothing but bring you infamy, and even if you ARE, in fact, the one on down the path waving the flag for us to catch up with what's new and important, you have to acknowledge your role in the greater scheme of things not as pushing the forefront of conceptual development for others to follow you directly, but merely bringing possibilities into being, and not pushing but pulling, however harder it is, the Conservative community from your vantage point. If you're going to build a house, you have to cut down the trees that stand there now, and you appear to hold a chainsaw. You can cut the trees and chop them up and hey, even prime the lumber for the house if you like, but a chainsaw can't put even two boards together. You know you're not going to get to the guts and glory; you're just pushing too hard and making people angry, and are probably only stalling Conservative progress in your direction.
    But, for a certainty, back then,
    We loved so many, yet hated so much,
    We hurt others and were hurt ourselves...

    Yet even then, we ran like the wind,
    Whilst our laughter echoed,
    Under cerulean skies...

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    Quote Originally Posted by niveK
    Quote Originally Posted by dee
    Quote Originally Posted by niveK
    Admittedly, not all things with no basis in reality are completely nonsensical (take religion for instance), but a lack of such a basis can only hurt matters.
    maybe the reason for religion making sense is because it does actually exist, or at least the one that does makes sense lol. but i think it may be to do with using such a combination of IM elements that does not consciously register and perhaps encoding of the information into formulaic verbal expressions adds to the inability to make good sense out of it. don't know.
    All religions make about the same amount of sense, although in my experience the eastern religions are a bit more sensible than most. The Abrahamic are thinly veiled social control mechanisms, and as such, make little sense when objectively evaluated, but remain highly effective by creating and manipulating fear. But I'm going off subject here. Some theologies have a pretty strong, consistent, sensible structure, but they all base themselves on some false premises, and thus have no basis in reality. Similarly, Tcaud builds some interesting, if sometimes quite incoherent, hypotheses, but they're based on a set of false premises, making them useless beyond a mental exercise.
    I agree to a certain extent but I also think you're overemphasizing religion as a set of beliefs rather than as a societal institution. Religion is, in essence, a useful social control mechanism that benefits a strong society. I've noticed that it's commonly slandered by people in Western society, indeed I've slandered it myself in the past, but once you realize the role it actually plays it makes a lot more sense. For example, it's fashionable for many people in our society to disassociate themselves from practicing any formal religion because to do so lacks logic. However, in most cases (the ones where religion has not been replaced by spirituality) the individual actually compensates for their lack of faith by replacing things like "God" with "the market" and "priests" with "psychiatrists". We're told to have faith in the market, to trust the market. Likewise we're told that if something ails us (on a mental level) we should seek the guidance of a psychiatrist (except where in the past we'd repent our sins to a priest who would prescribe us pennance, now we we're told to talk about our problems with a doctor that will prescribe us medication). Also, increasingly, whereas religion was used to bring communities together in the past, allowing people to meet others, now the workplace is trying to replace that function. I've noticed that people are becoming dependent on the their work to meet new people. Still, although we've (the West) tried hard to replace the benefits we've lost, since abandoning religion, the decadence, nihilism, substance dependence (1/3 of Australians are on prescribed drugs and at least 1/5 of Americans), and lack of any coherent values that permeate the post-industrial world seem to indicate we're suffering without it.

    One of religion's strengths is that it provides common values to uphold. By getting rid of religion we also forsake these common values, i.e. the ethics of the multinational corporations that run things are based largely on "Game Theory (the guy from that movie, "A Beautiful Mind"). I think that's where this whole concept of "playing the game" came from. Ironically it's been proven that Game Theory (which is based on everyone always acting in their self-interest and by so doing benefitting everyone else) is bull shit, even Nash has admitted it was influenced by his psychosis, and studies show that only sociopaths and economists (the ones recording it's benefit) actually behave accordingly. Never-the-less this fallacious theory gained credence because facts and data were manipulated in order to promote it as "the truth."

    Anyways I strongly recommend this 3 part BBC documentary, "The Trap", which anyone interested in our post-industrial maze can find in nice quality for free here: http://stage6.divx.com/user/Ommu/vid...reedom?-Ep-1/3
    You really just need to watch the first few moments to find out if you're interested
    INFp-Ni

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    Quote Originally Posted by misutii
    I agree to a certain extent but I also think you're overemphasizing religion as a set of beliefs rather than as a societal institution. Religion is, in essence, a useful social control mechanism that benefits a strong society. I've noticed that it's commonly slandered by people in Western society, indeed I've slandered it myself in the past, but once you realize the role it actually plays it makes a lot more sense. For example, it's fashionable for many people in our society to disassociate themselves from practicing any formal religion because to do so lacks logic. However, in most cases (the ones where religion has not been replaced by spirituality) the individual actually compensates for their lack of faith by replacing things like "God" with "the market" and "priests" with "psychiatrists". We're told to have faith in the market, to trust the market. Likewise we're told that if something ails us (on a mental level) we should seek the guidance of a psychiatrist (except where in the past we'd repent our sins to a priest who would prescribe us pennance, now we we're told to talk about our problems with a doctor that will prescribe us medication). Also, increasingly, whereas religion was used to bring communities together in the past, allowing people to meet others, now the workplace is trying to replace that function. I've noticed that people are becoming dependent on the their work to meet new people. Still, although we've (the West) tried hard to replace the benefits we've lost, since abandoning religion, the decadence, nihilism, substance dependence (1/3 of Australians are on prescribed drugs and at least 1/5 of Americans), and lack of any coherent values that permeate the post-industrial world seem to indicate we're suffering without it.

    One of religion's strengths is that it provides common values to uphold. By getting rid of religion we also forsake these common values, i.e. the ethics of the multinational corporations that run things are based largely on "Game Theory (the guy from that movie, "A Beautiful Mind"). I think that's where this whole concept of "playing the game" came from. Ironically it's been proven that Game Theory (which is based on everyone always acting in their self-interest and by so doing benefitting everyone else) is bull shit, even Nash has admitted it was influenced by his psychosis, and studies show that only sociopaths and economists (the ones recording it's benefit) actually behave accordingly. Never-the-less this fallacious theory gained credence because facts and data were manipulated in order to promote it as "the truth."

    Anyways I strongly recommend this 3 part BBC documentary, "The Trap", which anyone interested in our post-industrial maze can find in nice quality for free here: http://stage6.divx.com/user/Ommu/vid...reedom?-Ep-1/3
    You really just need to watch the first few moments to find out if you're interested

    I don't deny that religion is a usable social institution, but that grants nothing to its truth value. That which is based in reality is always a better option than a lie, no matter how noble. Religion isn't necessary for morality, and in fact, reliance on religion for morality holds morality back by leaving it arbitrary and only as "meaningful" to a person as the fear of punishment and the strength of conviction of the belief. Furthermore, it's open to easy manipulation by everyone from amoral televangelists looking to make a buck to terrorist psychopaths looking to blow up skyscrapers with airplanes. Religion has served its purpose, but it's clearly insufficient for such a task in today's society. It's time to move on to better structures.

    Your characterization of game theory seems reminiscent to me of creationist characterizations of evolution, right down to the "creator says it's wrong" canard (even though Nash didn't originate it. Besides, as I shall explain in my best Morbo voice: GAME THEORY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. I've never heard of game theory making such a claim that everyone acting selfishly will benefit everyone. Plus, I'd love to know how its been "proven" that an entire branch of applied mathematics is bullshit. Hell of a claim to just leave dangling.

    Moral reasoning developed in humans because it was evolutionarily beneficial to us as social creatures without a biologically predetermined caste (in other words, we're all equal). It's a phenomena that can be studied and evaluated. Note, this doesn't mean there's a "science" of morality that will tell us how to act, rather we can derive knowledge to inform our moral decisions. Society is too dynamic to attempt to constrain to a static set of rules. Morality has to be evaluated in situ, something an authoritarian religious approach to morality cannot accomplish, especially since it holds to stagnant dogma instead of being refined by continuous self-evaluation.

    As for people that put their faith in non-religious icons, they're still making the same mistake as when they held to religion. Ideological faith is a bad thing, always. Moving away from religion is just part of a larger need to move away from ideological faith and the general intellectual laziness that permeates society and start critically evaluating everything and making informed decisions.

    As for the supposed decadence of society: We no longer have slavery, gays no longer have to hide in the closet (for the most part), racism has declined drastically, we have greater availability of health care, have a greater religious freedom, greater sexual freedom, and can evaluate ideas in the academic marketplace with much greater ease due to widely available education and information resources. Of course, we still have problems. We'll always have problems. But compared to the shit that used to be wrong, we aren't nearly that bad off. Mostly, it's just a bunch of WASPs whining that all the rampant sex is out in the open and racism is hidden instead of vice versa like it was in the 50s.
    That faith makes blessed under certain circumstances, that blessedness does not make of a fixed idea a true idea, that faith moves no mountains but puts mountains where there are none: a quick walk through a madhouse enlightens one sufficiently about this. (A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.) - Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG
    MRS(1)=MRS(2)=q(1)/q(2)

    NO.

    (P+n^2a/V^2)(V-nb)=nRT

    BITCHES.

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    Default Re: Conservatism

    Quote Originally Posted by Gilly
    Quote Originally Posted by tcaudilllg
    It seems to me that conservatives diverge from liberals/progressives on the basis of perception, particularly what to acknowledge as existant and real, and what not to acknowledge as such. Progressives and liberals agree that one should have awareness proportionate to the need of one's times: e.g., if there is not enough information available in one's times to reconcile problems of behavior on the basis of data, then more awareness of the world's workings is needed to create the proper behavioral basis. The problem is that when you have data, you have many options for behavior and it is not always clear which options are the best, especially to those who conceive of these new awarenesses of phenomena. Liberals are always eager to acquire new rights by which they can confront phenomena, but the question of how to use those rights in the context of a society that seeks to promote the spread of life is not clear. We would like to leave these decisions to the individualists who are naturally aware of behavior and its impact, but these are more concerned, in our eyes, with being heroes who "save the world" from an imminent threat. Instead we act in ways that we are accustomed to given the intuitive nature of the new data, yet on a basis that the community could not understand, and it is very likely that in so doing we add to what existential threats may already have arisen. But what are we supposed to do? Do you, adaptists, criticize universalists for using knowledge that you refuse to use for our benefit, instead taking your "sweet time" as it were? What right have either you or the traditionalists to criticize our behavior when you offer us none or demand that we behave according to a reality we have discovered for ourselves to be inconsistent with experience? (We tried to tell you!)

    Conservatives take a different road. The conservative only embraces that awareness which has been proven to correlate to responsible behavior. Here we have the age-old disconnect between the progressive and the community: the community chooses what is "real" and what "isn't" based on its behavioral merit, believing the behavior itself a cornerstone for morality. Progressives increasingly believe this "delimited awareness" naive and unacceptable. At the very least, it's not helpful to us, or to liberals.

    I offer this solution: a public recognition of two different realities, one an emergent reality that progressives clarify as individualists create the tools by which they identify new aspects of it; and the other a "consensus" reality that everyone acknowledges as such, defined as that reality which people have agreed is behaviorally consistent with society's goals. Obviously given the presence of these you invariably have the "unconscious reality" or "unknown reality", those aspects of reality we have not yet apprehended. A committee with representatives from all psychic caucuses would choose by unanimous consensus when and how emergent reality becomes consensus reality.
    There is one major flaw in your perspective. You fail to take into account the Liberalistic tendencies within a Conservative body; you forget that, given the nature of constant change in the world, any society or group that attempts to stabilize itself completely will, in fact, be repressing itself at its very core; change cannot be eliminated. You expound on the values of risk-taking Liberalism and the continued search for information, yet you forget that conservatism is what keeps the world out of total chaos; you condemn it despite its intrinsic value to the nature of mass information exchange and continued stability in a community. You forget that yes, we WILL make it there eventually, no matter how far ahead you are (or think you are).

    Your lashing out at Conservatives here will do nothing but bring you infamy, and even if you ARE, in fact, the one on down the path waving the flag for us to catch up with what's new and important, you have to acknowledge your role in the greater scheme of things not as pushing the forefront of conceptual development for others to follow you directly, but merely bringing possibilities into being, and not pushing but pulling, however harder it is, the Conservative community from your vantage point. If you're going to build a house, you have to cut down the trees that stand there now, and you appear to hold a chainsaw. You can cut the trees and chop them up and hey, even prime the lumber for the house if you like, but a chainsaw can't put even two boards together. You know you're not going to get to the guts and glory; you're just pushing too hard and making people angry, and are probably only stalling Conservative progress in your direction.
    Liberal tendencies... correct. But I don't think extremist conservatives feel those, or at least they don't let on about it. It's the extremists who make the world interesting, otherwise everything tends to pretty much hum along. I think you are underestimating the problem of undifferentiation, however: people try to avoid using aspects of reality they are not comfortable with.

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    The only reasons why members of different contexts should ever have to not get along are ignorance and scarcity. Considering we are headed towards a future in which these two factors will be curbed to a greater and greater degree, we have a collective obligation to cooperate. No doubt there will be a tumultuous period of re-education, world-wide discussion and resistance on the part of those who have established themselves in less enlightened times. When this time passes, however, it will be time for us all to stop taking things so damn personally and recognize that our minds, beliefs and arguments are tools towards a common human goal unseen to us rather than self-sustaining pocket-realities in themselves.

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    Quote Originally Posted by niveK

    I don't deny that religion is a usable social institution, but that grants nothing to its truth value. That which is based in reality is always a better option than a lie, no matter how noble. Religion isn't necessary for morality, and in fact, reliance on religion for morality holds morality back by leaving it arbitrary and only as "meaningful" to a person as the fear of punishment and the strength of conviction of the belief. Furthermore, it's open to easy manipulation by everyone from amoral televangelists looking to make a buck to terrorist psychopaths looking to blow up skyscrapers with airplanes. Religion has served its purpose, but it's clearly insufficient for such a task in today's society. It's time to move on to better structures.

    Your characterization of game theory seems reminiscent to me of creationist characterizations of evolution, right down to the "creator says it's wrong" canard (even though Nash didn't originate it. Besides, as I shall explain in my best Morbo voice: GAME THEORY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. I've never heard of game theory making such a claim that everyone acting selfishly will benefit everyone. Plus, I'd love to know how its been "proven" that an entire branch of applied mathematics is bullshit. Hell of a claim to just leave dangling.

    Moral reasoning developed in humans because it was evolutionarily beneficial to us as social creatures without a biologically predetermined caste (in other words, we're all equal). It's a phenomena that can be studied and evaluated. Note, this doesn't mean there's a "science" of morality that will tell us how to act, rather we can derive knowledge to inform our moral decisions. Society is too dynamic to attempt to constrain to a static set of rules. Morality has to be evaluated in situ, something an authoritarian religious approach to morality cannot accomplish, especially since it holds to stagnant dogma instead of being refined by continuous self-evaluation.

    As for people that put their faith in non-religious icons, they're still making the same mistake as when they held to religion. Ideological faith is a bad thing, always. Moving away from religion is just part of a larger need to move away from ideological faith and the general intellectual laziness that permeates society and start critically evaluating everything and making informed decisions.

    As for the supposed decadence of society: We no longer have slavery, gays no longer have to hide in the closet (for the most part), racism has declined drastically, we have greater availability of health care, have a greater religious freedom, greater sexual freedom, and can evaluate ideas in the academic marketplace with much greater ease due to widely available education and information resources. Of course, we still have problems. We'll always have problems. But compared to the shit that used to be wrong, we aren't nearly that bad off. Mostly, it's just a bunch of WASPs whining that all the rampant sex is out in the open and racism is hidden instead of vice versa like it was in the 50s.

    when you have the time check out this documentary:
    http://stage6.divx.com/user/Ommu/vid...reedom?-Ep-1/3
    It goes into game theory in either the first or second episode and examines concepts like "Negative and Positive Liberty". It'll provoke you to see things in a different way.

    In terms of religion I think you misinterpreted what I said. I don't think we should follow something just to follow something. What I meant was that society, as a whole, is suffering due to the fact that nothing is holding it together. Religion needs an adequate replacement for the collective good. Individualism, Free-will, Freedom, things like these are merely ideals that have little tangible basis in reality. Even democracy is under question. Representative democracy isn't all that democratic.

    I'm mentioning individualism, free-will, freedom and democracy because all are the ideological backbone of the post-industrial age. I'm talking about the modern age and its problems being tracable back over 100 years. Both today and 50 years ago are part of the post-industrial age. The "new" freedoms that you claim make life better are merely legal and inconsequential. Yes, I agree it's great that minorities have more rights, but if you look at the impact that has on day-to-day life in Western society as a whole you'll see it's not overwhelming. Technology was supposed to serve as means of making life better, of making us have to work less. Instead it's done the opposite, people work more, enjoy less leisure time, and because of this the family, the basic social support network, loses credibility. People are coping with this through workaholicism, which has become socially acceptable. Think about the last million years of humanity. Until the 1800s people would live in the same place, see the same people, work with the same people, rely and be relied upon by the same people, for their whole life. Suddenly these guarantees have disappeared in favour of "individual freedom", a concept we're taught when we're children. But what does it mean and why is it better? Why is it better that we have more trash in our homes? Why is it better that we're safe from poverty and war? Why is it better that Western countries can't even reproduce their own population without immigration? Or that it takes a double-income to raise a family? The fact is that most the new "securities" we enjoy are largely fabricated and merely the product of another human's short-term interest. There's no consideration for the long-term because we quite frankly can't plan that far ahead. So why not? Well because we're really not as "secure" as we've been made to believe.
    INFp-Ni

  15. #15
    Let's fly now Gilly's Avatar
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    Default Re: Conservatism

    Quote Originally Posted by tcaudilllg
    Quote Originally Posted by Gilly
    Quote Originally Posted by tcaudilllg
    It seems to me that conservatives diverge from liberals/progressives on the basis of perception, particularly what to acknowledge as existant and real, and what not to acknowledge as such. Progressives and liberals agree that one should have awareness proportionate to the need of one's times: e.g., if there is not enough information available in one's times to reconcile problems of behavior on the basis of data, then more awareness of the world's workings is needed to create the proper behavioral basis. The problem is that when you have data, you have many options for behavior and it is not always clear which options are the best, especially to those who conceive of these new awarenesses of phenomena. Liberals are always eager to acquire new rights by which they can confront phenomena, but the question of how to use those rights in the context of a society that seeks to promote the spread of life is not clear. We would like to leave these decisions to the individualists who are naturally aware of behavior and its impact, but these are more concerned, in our eyes, with being heroes who "save the world" from an imminent threat. Instead we act in ways that we are accustomed to given the intuitive nature of the new data, yet on a basis that the community could not understand, and it is very likely that in so doing we add to what existential threats may already have arisen. But what are we supposed to do? Do you, adaptists, criticize universalists for using knowledge that you refuse to use for our benefit, instead taking your "sweet time" as it were? What right have either you or the traditionalists to criticize our behavior when you offer us none or demand that we behave according to a reality we have discovered for ourselves to be inconsistent with experience? (We tried to tell you!)

    Conservatives take a different road. The conservative only embraces that awareness which has been proven to correlate to responsible behavior. Here we have the age-old disconnect between the progressive and the community: the community chooses what is "real" and what "isn't" based on its behavioral merit, believing the behavior itself a cornerstone for morality. Progressives increasingly believe this "delimited awareness" naive and unacceptable. At the very least, it's not helpful to us, or to liberals.

    I offer this solution: a public recognition of two different realities, one an emergent reality that progressives clarify as individualists create the tools by which they identify new aspects of it; and the other a "consensus" reality that everyone acknowledges as such, defined as that reality which people have agreed is behaviorally consistent with society's goals. Obviously given the presence of these you invariably have the "unconscious reality" or "unknown reality", those aspects of reality we have not yet apprehended. A committee with representatives from all psychic caucuses would choose by unanimous consensus when and how emergent reality becomes consensus reality.
    There is one major flaw in your perspective. You fail to take into account the Liberalistic tendencies within a Conservative body; you forget that, given the nature of constant change in the world, any society or group that attempts to stabilize itself completely will, in fact, be repressing itself at its very core; change cannot be eliminated. You expound on the values of risk-taking Liberalism and the continued search for information, yet you forget that conservatism is what keeps the world out of total chaos; you condemn it despite its intrinsic value to the nature of mass information exchange and continued stability in a community. You forget that yes, we WILL make it there eventually, no matter how far ahead you are (or think you are).

    Your lashing out at Conservatives here will do nothing but bring you infamy, and even if you ARE, in fact, the one on down the path waving the flag for us to catch up with what's new and important, you have to acknowledge your role in the greater scheme of things not as pushing the forefront of conceptual development for others to follow you directly, but merely bringing possibilities into being, and not pushing but pulling, however harder it is, the Conservative community from your vantage point. If you're going to build a house, you have to cut down the trees that stand there now, and you appear to hold a chainsaw. You can cut the trees and chop them up and hey, even prime the lumber for the house if you like, but a chainsaw can't put even two boards together. You know you're not going to get to the guts and glory; you're just pushing too hard and making people angry, and are probably only stalling Conservative progress in your direction.
    Liberal tendencies... correct. But I don't think extremist conservatives feel those, or at least they don't let on about it. It's the extremists who make the world interesting, otherwise everything tends to pretty much hum along. I think you are underestimating the problem of undifferentiation, however: people try to avoid using aspects of reality they are not comfortable with.
    Even if they don't know yet, even if they don't let on when they're beginning to get it, they will still get it. So stop bitching.
    But, for a certainty, back then,
    We loved so many, yet hated so much,
    We hurt others and were hurt ourselves...

    Yet even then, we ran like the wind,
    Whilst our laughter echoed,
    Under cerulean skies...

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    Quote Originally Posted by misutii
    Anyways I strongly recommend this 3 part BBC documentary, "The Trap", which anyone interested in our post-industrial maze can find in nice quality for free here: http://stage6.divx.com/user/Ommu/vid...reedom?-Ep-1/3
    You really just need to watch the first few moments to find out if you're interested
    That documentary is entirely bullshit.

  17. #17
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    Default Re: Conservatism

    Quote Originally Posted by Gilly
    Quote Originally Posted by tcaudilllg
    Quote Originally Posted by Gilly
    Quote Originally Posted by tcaudilllg
    It seems to me that conservatives diverge from liberals/progressives on the basis of perception, particularly what to acknowledge as existant and real, and what not to acknowledge as such. Progressives and liberals agree that one should have awareness proportionate to the need of one's times: e.g., if there is not enough information available in one's times to reconcile problems of behavior on the basis of data, then more awareness of the world's workings is needed to create the proper behavioral basis. The problem is that when you have data, you have many options for behavior and it is not always clear which options are the best, especially to those who conceive of these new awarenesses of phenomena. Liberals are always eager to acquire new rights by which they can confront phenomena, but the question of how to use those rights in the context of a society that seeks to promote the spread of life is not clear. We would like to leave these decisions to the individualists who are naturally aware of behavior and its impact, but these are more concerned, in our eyes, with being heroes who "save the world" from an imminent threat. Instead we act in ways that we are accustomed to given the intuitive nature of the new data, yet on a basis that the community could not understand, and it is very likely that in so doing we add to what existential threats may already have arisen. But what are we supposed to do? Do you, adaptists, criticize universalists for using knowledge that you refuse to use for our benefit, instead taking your "sweet time" as it were? What right have either you or the traditionalists to criticize our behavior when you offer us none or demand that we behave according to a reality we have discovered for ourselves to be inconsistent with experience? (We tried to tell you!)

    Conservatives take a different road. The conservative only embraces that awareness which has been proven to correlate to responsible behavior. Here we have the age-old disconnect between the progressive and the community: the community chooses what is "real" and what "isn't" based on its behavioral merit, believing the behavior itself a cornerstone for morality. Progressives increasingly believe this "delimited awareness" naive and unacceptable. At the very least, it's not helpful to us, or to liberals.

    I offer this solution: a public recognition of two different realities, one an emergent reality that progressives clarify as individualists create the tools by which they identify new aspects of it; and the other a "consensus" reality that everyone acknowledges as such, defined as that reality which people have agreed is behaviorally consistent with society's goals. Obviously given the presence of these you invariably have the "unconscious reality" or "unknown reality", those aspects of reality we have not yet apprehended. A committee with representatives from all psychic caucuses would choose by unanimous consensus when and how emergent reality becomes consensus reality.
    There is one major flaw in your perspective. You fail to take into account the Liberalistic tendencies within a Conservative body; you forget that, given the nature of constant change in the world, any society or group that attempts to stabilize itself completely will, in fact, be repressing itself at its very core; change cannot be eliminated. You expound on the values of risk-taking Liberalism and the continued search for information, yet you forget that conservatism is what keeps the world out of total chaos; you condemn it despite its intrinsic value to the nature of mass information exchange and continued stability in a community. You forget that yes, we WILL make it there eventually, no matter how far ahead you are (or think you are).

    Your lashing out at Conservatives here will do nothing but bring you infamy, and even if you ARE, in fact, the one on down the path waving the flag for us to catch up with what's new and important, you have to acknowledge your role in the greater scheme of things not as pushing the forefront of conceptual development for others to follow you directly, but merely bringing possibilities into being, and not pushing but pulling, however harder it is, the Conservative community from your vantage point. If you're going to build a house, you have to cut down the trees that stand there now, and you appear to hold a chainsaw. You can cut the trees and chop them up and hey, even prime the lumber for the house if you like, but a chainsaw can't put even two boards together. You know you're not going to get to the guts and glory; you're just pushing too hard and making people angry, and are probably only stalling Conservative progress in your direction.
    Liberal tendencies... correct. But I don't think extremist conservatives feel those, or at least they don't let on about it. It's the extremists who make the world interesting, otherwise everything tends to pretty much hum along. I think you are underestimating the problem of undifferentiation, however: people try to avoid using aspects of reality they are not comfortable with.
    Even if they don't know yet, even if they don't let on when they're beginning to get it, they will still get it. So stop bitching.
    Yes but you're ignoring the coherency of the differentiation process. Will people like Expat, the empiricist traditionalists, ever *get* a new technology or cultural process without your prior exposition of those techniques? Without your development of them? You know the answer: they will not because they prefer that which is comfortable and familiar. Asking liberals and progressives to stop their trailblazing would be every bit as productive as your own self-requirement of the same. The supersocion functions because it offers roles for everything. What would happen if you took the INTjs out of the socion? The answer is obvious: ENTps would run out of ideas and become bored. They would begin type masking themselves and coming up with totally ridiculous and futile possibilities. Similarly, conservatives would , just as traditionalists would enter into decline without the responsive adaptations offered by adaptists.

    One of the ways you can tell when the author of a historical text is a traditionalist is by their use of words like "decline." The decline of the Roman Empire, for example, is described as due to a variety of reasons. Ultimately it was due to the Empire's inability to adapt, under which conditions. Someone like you, an adaptist, sees that as obvious. But again, tell that to a traditionalist, and they'll give you nothing more than a variety of reasons and speculations, each of which is only one aspect of the larger truth that the Roman Empire culturally disintegrated.

    (one note of interest: the Roman Empire instituted laws requiring the son of a shopkeeper to become a shopkeeper, the son of a butcher a butcher, a soldier a soldier, etc.. We in this forum, with our understanding of the socion, can appreciate how destructive these essentially type-ignorant institutions were. We can also see why capitalism works for the same reasons: putting the onus on individuals to succeed by their own merits naturally drives them into the niches specific to their types. (provided they have the self-confidence to seek them out.))

    The only reasons why members of different contexts should ever have to not get along are ignorance and scarcity. Considering we are headed towards a future in which these two factors will be curbed to a greater and greater degree, we have a collective obligation to cooperate. No doubt there will be a tumultuous period of re-education, world-wide discussion and resistance on the part of those who have established themselves in less enlightened times. When this time passes, however, it will be time for us all to stop taking things so damn personally and recognize that our minds, beliefs and arguments are tools towards a common human goal unseen to us rather than self-sustaining pocket-realities in themselves.
    Yes but the big question is this: what follows? When the world is completely at peace, or mostly at peace anyway (the immanent/extremists will never be kept from each others' throats, I don't think) what do we do then? How do we consciously respond to awareness of our own natures? Do we allow our natures to be shaped by our consciousness? Who offers the answers to these questions, and on what basis?

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