[barmar]

Quote

"liar", "racist", "sexist", "fascist" and the like

If the shoe fits....

[pilowsky]

I just watched (well skipped over quite a bit of) the three-hour presentation to the Arizona Senate of the "Audit".
The first part was a presentation by a person with many impressive sounding qualifications - until you read his Wikipedia entry - Shiva Ayurradai.
Among his many achievements was the invention of EMAIL.


The takeaway from the audit was that quite a few votes were flipped from Biden to Trump.
If the elections were conducted by the Cyber ninjas - who checked the ballots using a DLSR (sic) camera (whatever that is) - Biden would be President with a wider margin - the same applied to the Senate race.


Still, there was something there for everyone.
The main conclusion was the elections should be run carefully and be secure.
Good idea.

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2021-September-24, 14:26, said:

If the shoe fits....

Or “the fool sh*ts”…

[Gilithin]

pilowsky, on 2021-September-24, 19:37, said:

The main conclusion was the elections should be run carefully and be secure.

You miss the point. In America, "safe and secure elections" is bell whistle code for finding ways to stop black and brown people from voting.

[pilowsky]

Gilithin, on 2021-September-24, 22:13, said:

You miss the point. In America, "safe and secure elections" is bell whistle code for finding ways to stop black and brown people from voting.

dog whistle - and good to see irony is dead.

[Gilithin]

pilowsky, on 2021-September-25, 00:53, said:

dog whistle

You are right - I must have been thinking of bell end when replying for some reason.

[pilowsky]

Gilithin, on 2021-September-25, 10:53, said:

You are right - I must have been thinking of bell end when replying for some reason.

Or bellwether?

[johnu]

pilowsky, on 2021-September-24, 19:37, said:

The first part was a presentation by a person with many impressive sounding qualifications - until you read his Wikipedia entry - Shiva Ayurradai.
Among his many achievements was the invention of EMAIL.

Ayurradai is a legend in his own mind. It it true he also invented India?

[pilowsky]

johnu, on 2021-September-25, 14:58, said:

Ayurradai is a legend in his own mind. It it true he also invented India?

Possibly, but I thought it was a fairly modest achievement given that India is only a subcontinent.

[Winstonm]

pilowsky, on 2021-September-25, 16:34, said:

Possibly, but I thought it was a fairly modest achievement given that India is only a subcontinent.

Which continent couldn’t play?

[kenberg]

This could be an opportunity.

I have long rejected and still reject the idea that Trumpies are all alike. A lot of people don't much follow politics. I follow politics a good deal less than some who post here and there are many who follow politics a good deal less than I do. Yes they can then get caught up in craziness. Some are permanently attached. others are not. Or at least I hope that some are not. We shall see. We need some people to say "Maybe listening to this guy was a mistake". Could happen. With some, not with everyone.

I realize that any optimism, even limited and uncertain optimism, is out of fashion. Too bad.

[Gilithin]

pilowsky, on 2021-September-25, 14:16, said:

Or bellwether?

No, I am sure you would never make me think of bellwether.

[pilowsky]

Gilithin, on 2021-September-25, 23:32, said:

No, I am sure you would never make me think of bellwether.

baa

[thepossum]

I love the fallacious ideas of bellwether seats. They amuse me intensely

They always go with the government in power except the occasional time they don't

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2021-September-25, 18:22, said:

This could be an opportunity.

I have long rejected and still reject the idea that Trumpies are all alike. A lot of people don't much follow politics. I follow politics a good deal less than some who post here and there are many who follow politics a good deal less than I do. Yes they can then get caught up in craziness. Some are permanently attached. others are not. Or at least I hope that some are not. We shall see. We need some people to say "Maybe listening to this guy was a mistake". Could happen. With some, not with everyone.

I realize that any optimism, even limited and uncertain optimism, is out of fashion. Too bad.

Although it may not seem like it, I happen to agree quite often with your viewpoints. Here, again, I basically agree. But what I want to know is why this has happened.

It is my judgment that the driver of our division is information and who we rely on for that information. My wife has a sister who is steeped in far-right propaganda - inundated and brainwashed. It is impossible to reach her with any conflicting information - it is automatically rejected as fake or false. It is combined with religious overtones of the evangelical bias. The world is ending and here are the signs kind of thinking.

Having been raised in a near-cult-like evangelical church environment, I think I have a particularly deep understanding of the allure to many of these people - it is the intense emotional eruptions that occur from time-to-time within the group. This is not an intellectual exercise; it is an emotional kidnapping. It is the rapture of shared anger.

Behaviorists tell us that the most powerful behavioral modification occurs with intermittent positive reinforcement. Q-Anon proclaims dates when something magical will happen; those dates come and go with nothing happens; then, January 6th happens. As a good friend in Las Vegas once told me, his addiction to gambling was based on the euphoria of anticipation - the winning and losing were irrelevant. Only continual playing fed his illness. It is no different with Q-Anon. Or with Trump. What matters is the anticipation.

I have gleaned that you are not big on psychological explanations but I think that is the answer. And if we can't figure out how to get these anticipation addicts off their information sources of choice and teach them critical thinking, we are in deep trouble.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2021-September-26, 10:12, said:

Although it may not seem like it, I happen to agree quite often with your viewpoints. Here, again, I basically agree. But what I want to know is why this has happened.

It is my judgment that the driver of our division is information and who we rely on for that information. My wife has a sister who is steeped in far-right propaganda - inundated and brainwashed. It is impossible to reach her with any conflicting information - it is automatically rejected as fake or false. It is combined with religious overtones of the evangelical bias. The world is ending and here are the signs kind of thinking.

Having been raised in a near-cult-like evangelical church environment, I think I have a particularly deep understanding of the allure to many of these people - it is the intense emotional eruptions that occur from time-to-time within the group. This is not an intellectual exercise; it is an emotional kidnapping. It is the rapture of shared anger.

Behaviorists tell us that the most powerful behavioral modification occurs with intermittent positive reinforcement. Q-Anon proclaims dates when something magical will happen; those dates come and go with nothing happens; then, January 6th happens. As a good friend in Las Vegas once told me, his addiction to gambling was based on the euphoria of anticipation - the winning and losing were irrelevant. Only continual playing fed his illness. It is no different with Q-Anon. Or with Trump. What matters is the anticipation.

I have gleaned that you are not big on psychological explanations but I think that is the answer. And if we can't figure out how to get these anticipation addicts off their information sources of choice and teach them critical thinking, we are in deep trouble.

Psychology is relevant, as is sociology and upbringing. A few words about our different childhoods.
My mother was brought up as a Seventh-Day Adventist but she liked to drink and she liked to play poker so bye-bye to the Adventists. My father went through Ellis Island in 1910 but became a citizen only in 1937 or maybe 1938. I was taken home for adoption in 1939 and my guess is their wish to adopt played a role in his decision to become a citizen. They also joined a church, the Presbyterian, somewhere along the way. I can recall no religious discussions at home, they wished to be accepted in the community I imagine. In short, practicality trumped ideology.


I think appealing to practicality might save us from Trumpism. DT does not give a FF (Flying F) about anyone other than himself, and the hope is that people can eventually come to see this. A big problem is that many working people don't think that the Dems give a FF about them either unless they are gay or black or something that falls into some such category.

So we have a problem Practicality might be an answer.

Oh, yes, about religious discussion at home. The minister came by to convince my mother she should come to church more often. She said she likes to sleep late on Sundays. He said something about early to bed etc. She said that her understanding was "Early to bed, early to rise, your wife goes out with the other guys" All very practical. When I was 14 the minister made another try by telling me I had to get my parents into church more often so that they wouldn't burn in the fires of hell. I decided it was also time for me to stop attending.

[kenberg]

There is a long My op-ed piece by Marc Fisher that reflects the pessimism felt by many about where we are headed. It has no solutions, perhaps there are none. I'm trying to decide whether I have anything new to say. I've been posting for a long time. Anyway, I liked the pece. But we need to find a way forward.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2021-September-29, 07:30, said:

There is a long My op-ed piece by Marc Fisher that reflects the pessimism felt by many about where we are headed. It has no solutions, perhaps there are none. I'm trying to decide whether I have anything new to say. I've been posting for a long time. Anyway, I liked the pece. But we need to find a way forward.

I wonder how everyday Romans felt when they came to realize that their republic was gone. And I have learned that Austria welcomed annexation by Nazi German.

The point? We cannot rely on "the sensible", "the sane", or the "silent majority" - each of us must be radicals for democratic norms and diversity acceptance.

PS: I stopped using Facebook a couple of years ago. In fact, I use no "social media". What I have found, though, is how incredibly toxic social media can be. My wife spends a lot of time roaming through Facebook - and occasionally reads me a headline or story. Most of the time I will respond - I don't buy that or that's BS. Just yesterday she passed on some tidbit she had just read about something or other. It seemed an absurd claim so as usual, I said, I don't buy that. Her response? But look how many people are saying it.

I started to try to explain to her about bots and how social media can spread disinformation but then thought, why bother? If I want it to be accepted I have to post it to Facebook with about a million likes.

Even Einstein didn't know this: Likes alter reality.

Critical thinking seems to be sorely lacking in the world - well, my world, anyway.

This post has been edited by Winstonm: 2021-September-29, 10:23

[y66]

From Why Is Every Young Person in America Watching ‘The Sopranos’? by Willy Staley at NYT

Quote

The show’s depiction of contemporary America as relentlessly banal and hollow is plainly at the core of the current interest in the show, which coincides with an era of crisis across just about every major institution in American life. “The Sopranos” has a persistent focus on the spiritual and moral vacuum at the center of this country, and is oddly prescient about its coming troubles: the opioid epidemic, the crisis of meritocracy, teenage depression and suicide, fights over the meaning of American history. Even the flight of the ducks who had taken up residence in Tony’s swimming pool — not to mention all the lingering shots on the swaying flora of North Jersey — reads differently now, in an era of unprecedented environmental degradation and ruin.

This sense of decline is present from the show’s very beginnings. In his first therapy session with Dr. Melfi, Tony tries to explain why he thinks he has panic attacks, why he suffers from stress. “The morning of the day I got sick, I’d been thinking: It’s good to be in something from the ground floor,” he says. “I came too late for that, I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.” Melfi tells him that many Americans feel that way. Tony presses on: “I think about my father: He never reached the heights like me, but in a lot of ways he had it better. He had his people, they had their standards, they had their pride. Today, what do we got?”

Young people these days. Why can't they just read Steven Pinker.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2021-September-29, 09:01, said:

I wonder how everyday Romans felt when they came to realize that their republic was gone. And I have learned that Austria welcomed annexation by Nazi German.

The point? We cannot rely on "the sensible", "the sane", or the "silent majority" - each of us must be radicals for democratic norms and diversity acceptance.

PS: I stopped using Facebook a couple of years ago. In fact, I use no "social media". What I have found, though, is how incredibly toxic social media can be. My wife spends a lot of time roaming through Facebook - and occasionally reads me a headline or story. Most of the time I will respond - I don't buy that or that's BS. Just yesterday she passed on some tidbit she had just read about something or other. It seemed an absurd claim so as usual, I said, I don't buy that. Her response? But look how many people are saying it.

I started to try to explain to her about bots and how social media can spread disinformation but then thought, why bother? If I want it to be accepted I have to post it to Facebook with about a million likes.

Even Einstein didn't know this: Likes alter reality.

Critical thinking seems to be sorely lacking in the world - well, my world, anyway.

The Marc Fisher piece speaks briefly of the 1950s. For a while now I have been thinking about myself as a product of the mid-century USA and trying to get a handle on what that means. Probably one thing that it means that it is tough to sell me on radical anything. At some basic intuitive level I believe that the people that I grew up with had a pretty workable approach to life. As mentioned, my minister told me to get my parents to come to church more often so that they would not burn in the fires of hell. How to do that? I stopped going to that church. Problem solved.

I think that the future if we are to have one, has to be based on realism and practicality. Some idealism is fine as a guide to that we should use our realism and practicality to bring about, but realism and practicality are essential. I think that view was common in the 1950s, maybe less so today. If Biden gets his 3/5 trillion dollar plan passed into law, i will very happily eat my words.

Put annother way: I thought about the problems of the world for a while after reading the Marc Fisher article. Then I went out to mow the grass.