No. I’d prefer you doing your own research on Mamdani and maybe later I can give you sources to fill in any blanks.
How do you mean? Can you elaborate?
Please don’t post unsourced claims on the forum then refuse to give sources.
I think they could eventually be a big deal, if enough of them spread. Yes. But the stuff Trump is doing, and DeSantis is supporting, are a very big deal right now. I see that as a key difference.
I think my thoughts on the rest of your post are kind of addressed in my most recent post (right before yours but I’m guessing it went up while you wrote this). So I won’t reiterate what I said there again.
Build up our political knowledge (as well as other knowledge), find effective ways to spread it to more people, and eventually we’ll have quality candidates running for office.
So basically stick with philosophical education, and stay away from political activism, for at least decades, like Rand said to?
To be clear, intensifiers are basically words that you could replace with “very”. They’re modifiers that don’t add much substance to your communication, so they’re usually better omitted (not always). I didn’t mean to object to all intense (strong) language.
Good point!
I edited my post. I was mostly defending the divisive language there, not the intensifiers. I think the defense applies to intensifiers that make something meaningfully more divisive, but not all intensifiers do that.
I don’t think being “Non-Tribalist” means you can’t condemn a tribe if that tribe goes off the deep end.
I think MAGA sucks and is actively destroying my country. And the majority of Republicans are explicitly or implicitly supporting that. So I’m currently oriented against that tribe in that sense.
But I have not reoriented my views to be purely tribal. I still hold principles that Republicans have historically claimed to support. I hold views that conflict with the Democrat tribe.
Part of the issue is that if a tribe turns into a cult and seizes power, they can effectively make everything a tribal issue. If you’re opposed to them doing that, you effectively end up against their tribe. That’s not really you being tribal though, IMO. They forced that issue.
To clarify, that was a formulation I made based on interpreting and extrapolating from what might follow if one accepts certain premises (like Rand’s) about property rights, collectivism, and the logic of socialism. It was more my interpretation (or summary) of things I read.
From ChatGPT
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“Abolition of private property” (housing context) — resurfaced video where Mamdani says a system that guarantees housing for everyone—even “if it meant abolishing private property”—would be preferable. (Clip carried by NDTV; the segment is widely mirrored.) www.ndtv.com
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“End goal of seizing the means of production” — remarks at a Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) event in Feb 2021. (Transcript/clip referenced by PolitiFact’s context piece and multiple outlets.) PolitiFact+2Mediaite+2
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“Gradually buy up housing on the private market and convert it to community ownership” — clip of him outlining community land trusts, tenant right-of-first-refusal, and moving “beyond the market” toward a Vienna-style social housing model. news.grabien.com+1
Reporting that highlights/frames those statements as anti–private property
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NY Post: headline coverage that he “called for ‘abolition of private property’” and endorsed “seizing the means of production.” New York Post
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Fox News (multiple write-ups): pieces on the YDSA “seizing the means of production” quote and the “replace private homes with communal living / convert to community ownership” clips. Fox News+2Fox News+2
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Mediaite: news brief on the 2021 “seizing the means of production” clip. Mediaite
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JNS / JFeed: roundups emphasizing the same 2021 video and housing-communalization remarks. JNS.org+1
Fact-check context (still confirms the quotes)
- PolitiFact (context explainer): confirms he did use the phrase “seizing the means of production” at the 2021 YDSA event (while also arguing his platform isn’t “communism”). Useful for exact wording/timing. PolitiFact+1
No. Why not do both?
Instead of using lots of low quality AI sources/text, I think it’s better to use one or two sources which you look at carefully yourself and write your own comments on.
Rand called herself a “radical for capitalism”. It makes sense that she saw herself as a “radical” because the word means:
2 advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme or progressive section of a political party: a radical activist.
• characterized by independence of or departure from tradition; innovative or unorthodox: the daring, avant-garde spirit of the music was too radical for the conservative audience.
Neo, which do you think is worse and more dangerous?
- A politician who says some positive stuff about “socialism”.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOXOWAhFz0A
This might seem like a nitpicky point, but the way you’ve worded it sounds like you are talking about a fetus that has existed for six weeks (“They just incorrectly think a fetus is a person after six weeks”). In fact, the Florida law bans abortion at 6 weeks gestation, not at 6 weeks from conception.
The law in Florida clearly defines gestation as starting on the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period.
On average, a woman with a 28-day cycle will ovulation on day 14 of her cycle. (14 days after the start her of her period.) The egg is then fertilized within 24 hours of ovulation. So at 6 weeks gestation, the fetus will have existed for 4 weeks. In that case, the woman could only have possibly known she was pregnant for about 2 weeks at the time the ban comes into effect.
For women with longer cycles, the those numbers be even more restrictive. If you have a 35 day cycle (which is still a normal cycle length), that would mean on average you ovulate at 3 weeks. So at 6 weeks pregnant, the fetus will be 3 weeks old, and you will have had 1 week during which you could have possibly known about the pregnancy.
For a woman with a very long or irregular cycle, it’s possible that 6 weeks would be before she has ovulated, so before the fetus even exists. This type of thing is more common in teenagers or perimenopausal women, but it also happens to many women who have hormonal issues such as PCOS.
Since the law clearly defines gestation age by the first date of the last menstrual period, as opposed to defining it by something actually related to the fetal age, there isn’t any room for doctors to be reasonable and use dates that actually correspond to the fetal age. This means that the law essentially bans all abortions for many women.
I don’t think that this is just some unintentional oversight. I don’t think that laws like this are indicative of people just being confused about consciousness or whether a “heartbeat” makes a fetus a person. If they cared about heartbeats, they could define the law based on heartbeat. But they don’t. Instead they use a definition that blocks more abortions.
I was talking about Mamdani, so radicals of the leftist variety, and terrorists.
What was your intention here? It feels cheeky.
No, not nitpicky. This is an important distinction that I wasn’t aware of.
Bold added by me:
No. Political philosophy and economics are too advanced. I think basic intellectual skills have to be higher. (maybe a good amount of basics in both are fine, I’m not too sure).
I know you didn’t mean it as the very first thing children should be taught since you say:
But you might think most people should, right now, pick up a political philosophy or economics book. My point is they don’t have the skills and, I think more importantly, the interest to do that. They like emotional tribalist fighting and confirmation of the other side being wrong and evil, not challenging and serious philosophy.
The fact that people like the tribalist fighting so much suggests to me that explicit education isn’t enough. Maybe the basic culture has to be way different and maybe parents have to unconsciously teach their children better values.
You haven’t answered me on how people retreating from politics to CF wouldn’t make much of a difference at the current amount of fans. Politics already gets lots of attention. And political philosophy has gotten a disproportionate amount of attention compared to epistemology.
Nor on how you plan to impact politics and how much you can impact it.
Nor on how that impact would compare to Paths Forward and improvement rationality in general.
It’s fine to take your time. But lots of posts have gone by so I wanted to remind you and you didn’t say you would address the rest in your post.
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Why is it okay for a society to dictate who an individual has to associate with? What are your principles? Are you considering becoming a collectivist?
I rather live next to someone racist against me who respected my individual rights and would never initiate force over someone who wasn’t racist but didn’t respect my individual rights and had no problem initiating force.
Can you provide a source of Rand saying this? She had the Objectivist Newsletter for a while which was focused on applying Objectivism to contemporary issues, including politics and culture. Also, I read she urged voters to defeat Mcgovern, and encouraged readers to evaluate Goldwater through Objectivist principles. I don’t see any evidence she required voters or readers to have decades of preparation.