Ron Paul’s phony populism
- Thread starter ColdBlooded
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Obviously you need such things as the FDA and the Department of Education - otherwise you will have all sorts of crooks selling tainted food and you will have a curriculum that conists of whatever some bucnh of lunatics with a lot of local influence decides. Oops, the latter is in fact already pretty much the case in the US because there has never been a centralized curriculum compiled by actual experts as in other countries (whose education, for some mysterious reason is much better than that in the US)
Where will you find these benevolent experts that will make life better for us? Bill Gates wants to sterilize us and teach us not to procreate. Brzezinski would rather kill a million people than control them, as if those are the only two options. Kissinger? Bush? Obama? Gaddafi? Putin? These are your Technocratic class as it stands...and I don't think they know near as much about running shit as you think. I can understand why you think it would be better for everything to be completely fair and equitable, I just don't understand how you could possibly trust any bureaucracy to plan and execute effectively. The only way the the world knows how to govern is at gunpoint. Government(s) ALWAYS fail the sustainability test...that's why ours is supposed to be limited.
Jesus Christ, never argue with fools, thats why this thread is so long, you know perfectly well that the US corporate tax rate is higher than even the most socialist countries in Europe and as far for there not being any growth? The World Bank has predicted that by 2030 the number of middle class people in the developing world will be 1.2 billion a rise of 200 percent since 2005 making the developing worlds middle class larger than the populations of Japan, US, and Europe combined that = demand for goods and services and American contractors to come in and build infrastructure the end
Your problem is your solution to all these problems often comes back some panel of experts making decisions for the good of everyone, but you constantly neglect the fact that such a perfect / unbiased panel has never existed in history and relies on experts that would be more robot than human. Even "experts" are still human and highly susceptible to and influenced by the same inherent human characteristics as everyone else, which why even when so called panels of experts are put in charge, the outcome remains the same and they still make the same mistakes that have plagued our species since it's creation (selfishness, corruption, waste, shortsightedness, emotional, etc)
1. You need the experts to be in charge of decision making because this is your best chance at taking the best decision. What we have right now is people who suffer from the same deficiencies you are describing but are in addition to that completely incompetent and unqaulified to take decisions - former lawyers and businessmen don't know shit about the real world so why the hell do we have them in charge?
2. A society that has advanced and developed sufficiently to be able to trust the decision making to its most competent members will have also advanced sufficiently to produce experts who are aware of their own cognitive deficiencies. It's not as if scientists, at least the good ones are unaware of that issues - that famous Feynman quote exists for a reason. Yes, a lot of scientists, especially in the fields where managing large research teams is the norm, are not philosophers anymore and have become a lot more of managers, who do not differ much in their thinking from the managers in the business world. But that's a consequence of the current system in which all incentives and selection criteria point in that direction (those who are good at making connections and securing funding get ahead, the real thinkers fall behind), and it's the current system that has to go
2. A society that has advanced and developed sufficiently to be able to trust the decision making to its most competent members will have also advanced sufficiently to produce experts who are aware of their own cognitive deficiencies. It's not as if scientists, at least the good ones are unaware of that issues - that famous Feynman quote exists for a reason. Yes, a lot of scientists, especially in the fields where managing large research teams is the norm, are not philosophers anymore and have become a lot more of managers, who do not differ much in their thinking from the managers in the business world. But that's a consequence of the current system in which all incentives and selection criteria point in that direction (those who are good at making connections and securing funding get ahead, the real thinkers fall behind), and it's the current system that has to go
How is the above a response to my post? Has it ever occurred to you that the people who make the World Bank report are the same kind of ignorant know-nothing economists that think infinite growth in a finite system is not only possible but guaranteed to happen, with demand making the necessary resources for that appear out of nothing?
u know i commend both sides of this discussion as i do understand where you both are coming from and the circumstantial experiences you've had that are motivating your world-view as a whole.
And although i personally enjoy the constitutionalist ideals behind his campaign, i know that those in control practically give us toys to play with and fight over to keep us thinking we are choosing between possibilities rather than options provided for us by them with just one possibility at its end.
No matter how much ron paul might glisten and shine, i know that the platform he is being given is so those of us who are sick of the system from the core will expend all of our focus and energy on him. And those being given romney or obama or whoever will spend all of their energy fighting for or defending him.
the truth of the matter is while we are fighting each other and spending a huge portion of our time and attention on the options that were provided for us, their agenda for the time being will always be supported by any of these people getting elected, as their real motivation at any given time will never include any of our "options" or the platforms they run on.
So instead of spending our time being introspective of our ideals and motives behind any given action or belief, or acknowledging to ourselves that those at the top are nothing but humans like you and i and the power to govern ourselves is very much possible if only we were to cease being ignorant children, we are sucked into their rigged game where our loss is guaranteed.
what they dont want are free thinking , self governing individuals who have an ability to incorporate a better way of living, with or without them, because they know that we, the governed, are in the end their equals, and all these games n shit are intended to keep us down from acknowledging that fact for ourselves.
THAT is what they fear the most.
And although i personally enjoy the constitutionalist ideals behind his campaign, i know that those in control practically give us toys to play with and fight over to keep us thinking we are choosing between possibilities rather than options provided for us by them with just one possibility at its end.
No matter how much ron paul might glisten and shine, i know that the platform he is being given is so those of us who are sick of the system from the core will expend all of our focus and energy on him. And those being given romney or obama or whoever will spend all of their energy fighting for or defending him.
the truth of the matter is while we are fighting each other and spending a huge portion of our time and attention on the options that were provided for us, their agenda for the time being will always be supported by any of these people getting elected, as their real motivation at any given time will never include any of our "options" or the platforms they run on.
So instead of spending our time being introspective of our ideals and motives behind any given action or belief, or acknowledging to ourselves that those at the top are nothing but humans like you and i and the power to govern ourselves is very much possible if only we were to cease being ignorant children, we are sucked into their rigged game where our loss is guaranteed.
what they dont want are free thinking , self governing individuals who have an ability to incorporate a better way of living, with or without them, because they know that we, the governed, are in the end their equals, and all these games n shit are intended to keep us down from acknowledging that fact for ourselves.
THAT is what they fear the most.
As I've said many times, the oppostion "us-vs-them" is not at all useful for understanding the situation. You say it yourself that the people with power are humans as the rest of us. That's very much true. But it goes further than that - there is no evidence that there are any conspiracies out there aimed at anything and the game isn't really rigged in any other way than what is officially known. And there isn't really the sharp distinction between those woh govern on one side and those who are governed on the other - it is the same kind of people pursuing their selifsh interests, with various shifting alliances of people fighting with each other when the interests of the people in those alliances align. The same kind of thing goes on in the life of everyone, just on a much smaller scale, and has been going on from the time humans evolved into a social but not yet an eusocial species.
All of which is actually much worse and a lot scarier than the kind of situation often conjectured in which there is some secret cabal of people with absolute power ruling the world. We would be in a much better situation if that was the case but all the evidence points that it is not and instead nobody is driving the train. If there were such people with absolute power operating in secret, it would mean that
1. There is a chance that they would actually be concerned about the future of the planet. Most of the bad things that people do are done in pursuit of power (i.e. status and reproductive success) and this is the reason for the current state of things - everyone fights for a bigger piece of the pie with disastrous consequences for the whole. On the other hand someone with the kind of power proposed by the conspiracy theories doesn't really have to fight for anything so they can actually think about the big picture.
2. It is at least in principle possible to convince such people to use their power to do the right thing, even if they are not thinking that way right now. At least the power is concentrated so that possibility exists. Contrast that with the situation in which lots of actors fight with each other for power with none of them understanding the big picture - it is almost 100% certain that only some very suboptimal outcomes are in the range of likely possibilities. Order beats chaos most of the time - it has to be some really awful order for chaos to be the preferred option.
All of which is actually much worse and a lot scarier than the kind of situation often conjectured in which there is some secret cabal of people with absolute power ruling the world. We would be in a much better situation if that was the case but all the evidence points that it is not and instead nobody is driving the train. If there were such people with absolute power operating in secret, it would mean that
1. There is a chance that they would actually be concerned about the future of the planet. Most of the bad things that people do are done in pursuit of power (i.e. status and reproductive success) and this is the reason for the current state of things - everyone fights for a bigger piece of the pie with disastrous consequences for the whole. On the other hand someone with the kind of power proposed by the conspiracy theories doesn't really have to fight for anything so they can actually think about the big picture.
2. It is at least in principle possible to convince such people to use their power to do the right thing, even if they are not thinking that way right now. At least the power is concentrated so that possibility exists. Contrast that with the situation in which lots of actors fight with each other for power with none of them understanding the big picture - it is almost 100% certain that only some very suboptimal outcomes are in the range of likely possibilities. Order beats chaos most of the time - it has to be some really awful order for chaos to be the preferred option.
i do agree with your perspective that it is only the content of the peoples motivation that is changing, while the motivation is the same one as the oppressors'. It is like the concept of being anti-war rather than pro peace. The motivation for war is the same.
It is also similar to killing a murderer. We are nonetheless being motivated by self serving interests, even if we might try and claim otherwise.
And like you said, and i agree, this is an even worse state of being for us to exist in because we are taking our own inadequacies and projecting them onto the "others"; "i would have been a happier person if they didnt do so n so"; "i will freely express my love for humanity once humanity gets on the right track", or even: "those scumbag animal abusers should be abused like the animals they abused!", in which one is taking their own internal hate and JUSTIFYING its existence by projecting it on those who abuse. We KNOW animal abusers are "wrong" , we know such a person is an abusive person, this is out in the open, but who is keeping you in check?
All of this projecting of ones own inadequacies does nothing more than allow us to delusionally shift the responsibility of living rightly away from ourselves. This does not help us in the end, and this is the way things currently are. I agree with you on that.
But the 1 thing that distinguishes my outlook on humanity from yours is that i believe that we can actually break free from all of these 'primitive' motivations that dictate our actions as a whole.
The "conspiracy" is what appears to me to be a willful intent in depriving humanity from that which will aid in the social evolution of us all. From the implied perspectives that are blatantly stated in between the lines of what we hear on TV, to the suppression of technology and cures. That is the conspiracy in which i refer to it. It is a very real human conspiracy by very real humans.
It is also similar to killing a murderer. We are nonetheless being motivated by self serving interests, even if we might try and claim otherwise.
And like you said, and i agree, this is an even worse state of being for us to exist in because we are taking our own inadequacies and projecting them onto the "others"; "i would have been a happier person if they didnt do so n so"; "i will freely express my love for humanity once humanity gets on the right track", or even: "those scumbag animal abusers should be abused like the animals they abused!", in which one is taking their own internal hate and JUSTIFYING its existence by projecting it on those who abuse. We KNOW animal abusers are "wrong" , we know such a person is an abusive person, this is out in the open, but who is keeping you in check?
All of this projecting of ones own inadequacies does nothing more than allow us to delusionally shift the responsibility of living rightly away from ourselves. This does not help us in the end, and this is the way things currently are. I agree with you on that.
But the 1 thing that distinguishes my outlook on humanity from yours is that i believe that we can actually break free from all of these 'primitive' motivations that dictate our actions as a whole.
The "conspiracy" is what appears to me to be a willful intent in depriving humanity from that which will aid in the social evolution of us all. From the implied perspectives that are blatantly stated in between the lines of what we hear on TV, to the suppression of technology and cures. That is the conspiracy in which i refer to it. It is a very real human conspiracy by very real humans.
You can not change human nature. It doesn't matter what forum a panel is involved in or what context they belong to, as long as the HUMAN element is prominent, there is going to be that variable. And as we have seen over time, corruption, greed, and self-driven motivation is ALWAYS thrown into the mix. Its just the way things are. I feel like you forget this at times. Which is weird, because you're a smart cookie.