Welcome to my 15,000th post on 2+2, not counting all of my posts as ColbertFan (a failed experiment to distance my image from AC after I stopped being AC).

Despite being well above average for the Internet, this forum is chock full of level one thinkers; closed-minded people who make assumptions about others without stopping to think that there might be more than one reason for a person's behavior or beliefs. This attitude leads to a great deal of unwarranted bigotry and stereotyping of people with different beliefs. The world is filled with different people who have different beliefs, from liberals, conservatives and libertarians, to Christians, Muslims and atheists, to realists, idealists and pragmatists, and many, many more. All of us live different lives, with different experiences, and we all come to our different beliefs in different ways and for different reasons. Two people can have seemingly very similar end beliefs, yet one can have gotten there through motivations that most people would consider "good", while the other got there for motivations that most people would consider "evil". I've never met two people who have the exact same beliefs, and despite the billions of people in the world, I wouldn't be at all surprised if no two people did.

It is pretty much normal human behavior to try to classify people into groups and to make assumptions about people that they have put into those groups based on their life experiences and beliefs. A poker player might decide that another player is a nit based on their age or how they dress. A liberal might decide that someone is racist because they think that "states' rights" is code for racism. A teacher might decide that a child that's having certain difficulties in class has ADHD. The difference between being a closed-minded bigot and an open-minded non-bigot is to always be vigilant and aware that these are useful assumptions to help make dealing with the complexity of humanity easier and quicker and not facts. There are always exceptions, and most ridiculously stupid beliefs in the world have intelligent people that hold them. And every time you make one of those assumptions about another person, you need to be open to the possibility that this time, even if it's been right 100 times in a row, it might be wrong.

Most people tend towards closed-minded bigotry. I abhor closed-minded bigotry. In fact, my political beliefs are entirely based on tolerance and acceptance of people with different beliefs than myself. Sadly, this forum is now a place where the closed-minded bigots have free reign to troll and derail threads, so I can't really talk about my beliefs. Instead, for the past few years, I have been trying to fight the rampant closed-minded bigotry in this forum and doing a poor job of it. People have consistently misunderstood my efforts, and this is mostly my own fault.

Miscommunication is an obscenely common occurrence between people. I personally believe that it is the largest cause of strife in the world. When miscommunication happens, both parties are at fault, but generally, the person trying to communicate is in a better position to see and correct the error and is likely to be more at fault. I have been consistently miscommunicating with people in two main ways.

The first way in which I regularly miscommunicate with others here is my sense of humor. One thing is that I am extremely sarcastic. I used to constantly use the smiley while posting, since sarcasm can be so difficult to detect online. For some reason I stopped doing so in my forum posts. Not sure why. The other thing is that I have a strong tendency towards subtle ironic humor and tend to mock the behavior of others that I perceive as stupid by performing an exaggerated version of that behavior. The problem is that people don't realize what I'm doing, don't see what was wrong with the other person's behavior and think I'm serious and that I seriously believe what I'm saying. I've known this for a long time, but it's a deeply ingrained habit of mine, and it's difficult to stop. At this point, it only amuses me and simply gives everyone else a poor impression of me. Gonna try working on this.

The second way in which I regularly miscommunicate with others here is in arguing against someone's argument when I don't support the "other side" and often even actually support their side. In particular, it drives me crazy when liberals make arguments based in closed-minded bigotry, because the liberal part of me feels like liberals are supposed to be the side that's open-minded and opposed to bigotry. I don't bother arguing with conservatives as much, because I fully expect them to be closed-minded and bigoted, and I don't really share their beliefs, so it doesn't offend me. When liberals do it, I find it offensive. When a liberal screams "racist!" at someone who is expressing beliefs that don't necessarily have any root at all in racism, I find it especially offensive. And, of course, when someone does that to me, that's the most offensive of all, because it's offensive on so many levels. It's not simply closed-minded positions though. I argue in a way, not to try and convince someone of the other side, but to try and convince someone I feel should be open-minded to be a little more open-minded. It basically never works, and I don't really do a good job of explaining what I'm actually trying to communicate, and people tend to think I've taken up some position that I haven't, and although that's a blatant logical failure on their part, since I never claim to support their position, I should be aware at this point that it happens regularly and work on taking measures to clarify my position better. Who likes run-on sentences?

All in all, the point of this is that I do believe that I have been a poorer poster than I should be, and I'm gonna try to do better. Hopefully the rest of you can try to be a little more open-minded about people you disagree with though. You're all far too quick to assume that anyone you disagree with is "stupid" rather than there being a communication breakdown. Try developing some empathy for others and try to understand their point of view. Don't randomly bash people and call them names, try asking for clarification. You'll be making the world a better place instead of a worse one like you're doing now.

In before tldr and omg ur so dum.

Damn, I forgot to in before didn't read lol. I'm stuck a year ago on tldr.

I read it, I have similar tendencies as a poster. Good message.

I agree. This could be a quality forum if new mods were brought in and a number of no content posters banned. There are some thoughtful people here on 2p2 on all sides and more would post about politics if the trash was cleared out.

I don't agree with you and I don't think humans are that dysfunctional at communicating. I think differing beliefs and goals are the largest cause of strife in the world.

For example, if one book (the Torah) irrationally tells you that people from your religion are superior to all others and chosen to be special, and another book (The Koran) tells you that the Torah people are like pigs and lesser humans, who can be tolerated under extortion and allowed to live as second class citizens, but never be suitable for friendship, you've got the roots of the Middle East. That's not a communication problem, that's a problem with fundamental beliefs.

Where the communication problem happens is where people aren't honest. The Jewish apologists (of which there are many) claim you are being anti-semitic when you point out that some of the teachings of their religion are dangerously elitist. The Muslim apologists claim you are being a bigot when you point out the clear views expressed in the Koran and how they impact belief mindshare among Muslims. And so reality gets distorted, which is the whole point of loudly and irrationally shouting "racist" and "bigot", which are nothing more than political versions of "la la la I can't hear you"

That is a communication problem, I agree, but more fundamentally it's a lack of philosophical depth. Some people, especially people educated in modern liberal arts, favor political ends over truth, because that's what they've been taught to do and they follow the teaching like sheep. That is the actual source of most of the evil in the world, not miscommunication. And it's done a lot more strongly and deliberately in this age by people who call themselves variously "liberals" or socialists.

Some of the mods of this forum also fall on the "politics" side of the "politics vs truth" spectrum, which is why the forum is so terrible.
I think liberal use of sarcasm is a character flaw, myself, not something to merely be better communicated. Sarcasm is a deliberately aggressive and disruptive tactic - functional communication should rarely use it.

Reality doesn't bear that out.

What do you think conservative beliefs are? Conservatism at its core is the idea that social cohesion is valuable but fragile, and that major social changes should happen slowly and with excellent reason, and not for their own sake. History supports this view strongly.

Why would so many liberals be making up thoughtcrimes like "racism" and repeating them like parrots, if their view is backed by evidence and reason? There's a reason preachers are loud and emotive. There's a reason communists and socialists enforce accepted thought through slogans, shaming, hate rhetoric and education camps. There's a reason slave owners had disparaging names and strong punishments for slaves and slave freers. It's not because evidence and reason and compassion backs their position. It's because people have a natural tendency to question and dismiss irrational dogma if it common sense, common decency and obvious objections aren't hate-shouted down.

Liberals today are essentially using the same social control tactics to enforce their preferred world view, that the bigots and racists and segregationists of the 1800s used to enforce their preferred world view. The world's come full circle and it does no one any favors.

The trouble is that we have a bunch of philosophically unsophisticated people on this forum (including at least one mod) who make a lot of noise to try to enforce a political philosophy at odds with reason. The results are predictable. Add in a bunch of bored trouble makers (see gif above) and you have an unreadable forum. It has nothing to do with poor communication and everything to do with the fact that there are a number of people here to achieve political ends or scratch their boredom itch rather than discuss like intellectually curious, open minded people.

Good.

I can't work out if your being extremely sarcastic or subtlety ironic.

AlexM and Truthsayer,

Do you believe that in present-day America, false charges of racism against white people is a bigger social problem than racial prejudice against non-white people? Which injustice do you choose to fight on the internet and why?


AlexM,

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=267

In the long run, people's genuine desires matter far more than the empty rhetoric they come packaged in. It doesn't matter why you argue for states' rights, if most people on your side do it to push forward their social conservative and racist agenda. The success of the rhetoric would result in putting social conservatives and racists or their political representatives in positions of power, where they are then free to apply their rhetoric selectively to push forward their agenda. From a political standpoint, it doesn't matter if you're genuinely a racist or biblical theocrat or if you merely work hard to put genuine racists and biblical theocrats (like many in Ron Paul's and Rand Paul's inner circle for instance) in positions of power where they can do a great deal of harm.


Truthsayer,

Your post is meant to be a satire, right? You've created this caricature of a conservative, who's very upset at being grouped together with actual racists for some reason, decides that this kind of weird grouping and guilt-by-association is the bigger crime than actual racial prejudice, then group and guilt-by-association bomb all the "liberals" and "liberal" this and "liberal" that, because, why not let them have the taste of their own medicine? You then magnified his hypocrisy for dramatic effects by going on about how this sort of rhetorical tactic - which he employs! - is why liberals are truly the second coming of slaveowners.

Then to leave no doubt in the minds of readers, you had your character randomly make up examples of Jews and Muslims believing in the wrong things - the good Christian conservative character obviously thinks of Jews and Muslims when he tries to think of religion being harmful! And the high and mighty tone and random comments about philosophical depth combined with the complete lack of evidence, reason and compassion (which he hypocritically decries!) are there to complete the character.

Am I on the right track?

More like Poopsprayer.

lolwut

While lots of ******ed (I call them the "professional" Jews, like Abraham Foxman et al) Jews are like this, it doesn't mean you arent being antisemitic if you

1) misrepresent what the Torah says having never studied any of it - or its more importantly, its mainstream interpretations - critically, for the purposes of criticizing it; and

2) use it as an excuse to support discriminatory treatment of religious Jews, regardless of whether they actually demand superior treatment.

I won't address anything you say about Islam because I haven't read the Koran and don't know anything about Islamic religious thought beyond how people have been treated, generally, under Islamic/Arab rule, and how certain entities claim they would treat others if they were ruling. Hint: it varies, but it is near uniform that non-Muslims are systematically and deliberately discriminated against well beyond simple preferential treatment.

It would behoove you to consider that you are by definition an elitist if you're criticizing others' beliefs - in that your preferred political/ethical framework is ab initio superior to theirs.

The rest of what you wrote is pretty good, imo.

Both are fronts for the real problem, which is general closed-mindedness and bigotry in people. If you ignore that, there is probably more racial prejudice against non-whites in this country than there is false charges of racism, so the racial prejudice is the bigger problem, but in my mind, looking at things that way ignores the real problem.

As I stated in my OP, I'm more likely to "fight" against liberals. This is because I believe I have a better chance of getting through to a group of people I consider to be generally more open-minded overall. The group of people who use false charges of racism include many who have, from my point of view, good intentions and are actually trying to make the world a better place, free of racism. The group of people who are racially prejudiced against non-white people I consider generally hopeless, and I haven't the slightest clue where to even begin trying to get through to them, so I don't bother. I mean seriously, if I can't even get through to people with similar beliefs to myself about their closed-mindedness, how can I possibly get through to those who have radically different beliefs than my own?

Of course.

Wait. You seem to have just totally contradicted your above statement here. You said my genuine desires matter more than my rhetoric, but in this statement, you're saying that my genuine desires don't matter because of the perception of my rhetoric?

Not at all. I'm trying to convince liberal and libertarian minded people, not social conservatives and racists. If a liberal or libertarian minded person starts to agree with the ideas of states' rights, it doesn't mean that they're going to suddenly ignore their opposition to social conservatism and racism and start to support political representatives that support those positions just because they happen to also support states' rights. I'm not asking anyone to become a one issue voter. The Green Party of America supports the concept of states' rights, or at least the concept of decentralized grassroots democracy, in their platform, and that is more along the lines of where I would push people. Of course, actual Green Party candidates don't generally talk about this much and may not even agree with that part.

I agree. And I have no interest in doing any of that. I did vote for Ron Paul in the primaries in 2008, but I wasn't really enthusiastic about it. I do think that he is probably mildly racist, but only because most people his age are (oops, I'm ageist!). I think that for his age group, he is very open-minded and minimally racist, but I also recognize that he has allowed himself and his name to be associated with racist hate groups and has accepted support from them and pandered to them or allowed others to pander to them in his name and has tainted himself, and I think this was a huge mistake and error in judgement on his part and very damaging to libertarianism. I voted for him more to support the libertarian movement in general than anything else, and because who the hell else would I have voted for in the primaries anyway? Kucinich maybe? It's not like Georgia has Libertarian or Green Party primaries or that those matter. I did not bother voting for him in 2012. At no point did I work hard to put Ron Paul into power. I didn't even donate money.

I do not support Rand Paul in any way. He seemed potentially interesting at first, but even if he is actually a libertarian in conservative clothing, I believe he has gone too far in trying to pretend to be one to be trusted.

Anyone who pays any attention to Libertarian Party politics, such as the Libertarian Party conventions and similar, knows that the Christian conservative wing of the party is small and ineffective. They have enough influence to keep the LP platform and leaders from being ostentatiously pro-choice and to basically keep the official position of the party on the matter as neutral, but that's about it.

Personally, I would very much like to see a merger between the Libertarian and Green parties focussing more on a decentralizing government angle.

I can just see the bumper stickers:

Ron Paul: Minimally Racist (for his age group)!

Its a valid point, but what if he just doesnt feel like he has anything unique or interesting to say on the topic of racism against African Americans in the United States? After all, a lot has been said on the topic, by a lot of pretty smart people, and its pretty unlikely he's going to tell anyone here anything they dont know, or make them think of something they haven't thought of before.

Sure, its clearly the greater problem, and close-minded, ignorant claims OF racism are minor in comparison. But of course, racism in America is a pretty laughably trivial problem as well, if you compare it to human beings on Earth that have ACTUAL problems. The most down-trodden, discriminated against black gay obese woman with a facial deformity, who lives in the US, is living a life of luxury and wonder compared to just an AVERAGE citizen of the world, not even one of the most unfortunate.

Should anyone donate money to Toys for Tots? No, I suppose not, since that money could do far more good if it went to UNICEF. But its maybe more satisfying to do something different. Maybe he feels almost trite giving the same (absolutely true) old arguments.

How do you justify drawing the line of "things that are valid to complain about" above "false charges of racism against non-black people" and below "actual racism against black people in the US?" If I was plotting them on a spectrum, it'd be something like:

A-B---C-------------------D

where A=Not enough female firefighters
B=the poor thinking that leads to calling everything racist/sexist/elitist
C=the pervasive racism in America
D=global poverty, disease and suffering

I think this is actually quite mistaken. Sure, she has access to some material things, running water, "entertainment", etc. But life is about more than food and a a place to sleep and ****. People, in general, want to feel they are decent, have friends, etc. I bet if you checked the woman's "happiness" measure, or some other metric defensible for a utilitarian, you would find out that she's doing worse than, say, 85% of the world.

You can probably live a more "empowered" life in a village in Iran than in many places in the US if you are the wrong sort of person.

Sometimes its better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

Ok, that might actually be true, but its a bit of a sad commentary on human beings, and it sort of makes a mockery of the whole strategy we seem to be taking to improve this lady's lot in life. You are basically saying that what drives human happiness is being better off than everyone else, or keeping up with the Jones'. Kinda sad, but seems to be true. So wouldnt it be much cheaper and faster to just brainwash her into (accurately) realizing she is much better off than most people on Earth, and therefore should walk around with a smile on her face, than to actually spend vast time and resources bringing her up to a higher standard of living?

And I think the evidence you are using to make this point would actually conclude that improving all of these things wont make her any happier anyhow, at least not in the long run. Existence above a subsistence level of "not constantly fearing death every second" is positively correlated with happiness. Above that, improvements in quality of life dont seem to be.

She is already WAY above that level. Her life being improved would, at best, provide a temporary boost to her reported happiness on your metric.

Truthfully, if we actually had such a metric, I'd expect her to be at slightly below average, with a wide standard deviation. If we had 100 such ladies, a decent number of them would rank very highly in "happiness" and a decent number would rank very low.

Hmmm...I actually kind of liked Colbertfan IIRC. Never realized he was AlexM.

Well, there has been a lot written on the nature of happiness from the Greeks to some decent recent empirical work (that I've not followed closely), e.g., http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happ.../dp/1400077427. I doubt most of the "smart" ways to conceive of happiness have made it into any sort of government thinking.

The core isn't being better off than you neighbor, though that helps. I think the core is being validated and empowered in certain ways, often through things like friendship, not being alienated from one's labor, being sent the (sincere) message that your contribution is important for the greater whole, etc. (Incidentally, I think thing like motivational posters crush more spirits than they enliven.)

It's a complex issue, but hardly unsolvable, and many folks have already "solved" it in certain ways. Unfortunately, implementing realistic ideas how to promote happiness in a vigorous way would trample on protected rights and whatever belief systems most people adhere to. So it's not so much "how to design the ideal city" as "how to design the ideal city within the parameters of existing zoning regulations."

Well if it makes any difference (and everyone doesn't already know this), I'm fairly certain that Truthsayer is the reincarnation of PingClown.

I'd argue you're drastically underselling the harms caused by real racism versus the imaginary harms caused to right-wingers called racists on the internet - on the one hand, you have calculated predatory/exclusionary lending, inequitable distribution of government monies and its component services like education, racially constructed residential and commercial zones, drastically unequal rates of incarceration, intentional voter suppression, and on the other you have someone's delicate sensitives bruised, and only unjustly when the charge is brought without merit. I think there's some rather vast distances on your spectrum that you failed to appreciate.

But that's frankly neither here nor there. More importantly is that there are some like rather large practical concerns, resource constraints, and hard biological trade-offs toward combating disease and poverty and hunger.

What are the causes of the harms perpetuated by racists other than the stunted emotional development and degraded mental state of racists? Like no one I know willingly chose to bring drought to the Volga watershed region this summer, nor have I met anyone who created crop-eating pests, but like basically every racist creep could quite easily choose to think differently. And there are only benefits to boot! Some pesticides that really significantly increase crop yields are also severely environmentally degrading and damage local flora and fauna and water quality and stuff. What are the harms of calling a racist dip**** a racist dip****? Basically, none. I mean I've yet to shame a mosquito into not spreading malaria, but in my more hopeful moments I'd like to think racists could be shamed into shutting the **** up.

So I think Phone Booth's point is valid. AlexM and that crowd haven't spent much time posting on 2p2 Politics haranguing intestinal parasites and apox on them for that, but I mean it's fair to question what that might have accomplished. But the mass phenomenon of a class of weird internet people reposting the greatest hits of the Confederate apologist talking point meme machine might be giving false intellectual comfort to racist troglodytes and it seems totally within their control to not do that.

I wish to clarify my last post a bit.

Part of this is not correct. The bigger problem of general closed-mindedness and bigotry is correct, but racial prejudice is definitely a much bigger problem than false charges of racism. One thing I struggle with is that in always trying to be open-minded, I have a tendency to say "probably" and downplay the strength of my beliefs in certain ways. Here, I was trying to be open-minded about the possibility that false charges of racism might be as big a problem, but they're not, and I don't believe that they are, and it's really not even close.

But this is one of the ways in which I fail to communicate well with people. By downplaying the strength of my belief trying to be open-minded, I can actually end up communicating that I believe something else entirely that I actually don't.

In addition to this, I also get frustrated when people who supposedly believe things that I also believe use arguments or attacks that make our side look weaker and more stupid than it should. When people are fighting on the side of beliefs that I share, it's personally offensive when they use tactics that violate those very beliefs!

I mostly agree with this post with the same exception that simplicitus took, but I wish to add to his post that it's also all relative to a person's experiences. It's easy for those who have all of these luxuries to look at those who don't have them and think how much worse life is for them, but we're looking from the perspective of those who have them and might lose them. The perspective of a person who has never had the luxury in question and doesn't know what it's like is entirely different. That's not to say that your example woman isn't much better off than a starving person in a third world country. She clearly is. It's just that any analogies drawn between the two are likely to be very flawed. No one can have the proper perspective.

No reason you shouldn't. That was when I was still trying to post well.