He was banned. He was restored shortly before I took over.

(not something I had any part in either way).

I think most people buy into at least one conspiracy to some degree if you talk to them long enough. Usually it amounts to some trivial detail that they just can't explain and figure there must be more to ("Okay, I guess Oswald did it...but wtf was the Babushka lady, there's got to be something going on there"). Then you get the other end of the spectrum, the NQ's, who believe EVERY conspiracy. That's when there's got to be something pathological going on.

In their world logic is a euphemism for confirmation bias.

Not all conspiracy theories are equal. Imo it's certainly possible that Oswald did not act alone. There are crazy grassy knoll people, but I don't think being 100% confident there wasn't a conspiracy is called for.

SH trutherism is insane.

I assume you mean in general, and not just on 2+2, since I was speaking in general, and not specifically about 2+2. The proximate cause is almost certainly just that the stuff bothers me, but I also think it's politically and culturally important in what I expect is the same way you think direct action is important (and I agree with you).

Recently in the Trump thread Fly made a remark about the lack of social cohesion and its effects on politics. Thinking that social cohesion/shared culture is politically and important and its creation an important political goal is the reason why I was disagreeing somewhat with dvaut's characterization of economic issues as sort of logically prior to cultural issues.

I'm basing this off the internet, but I think also you tend not to get people who only buy into the SH conspiracy theories in the way doubts about the JFK story are quite common in people who aren't otherwise particularly paranoid (distance from the event no doubt matters a lot here too, it's easier to buy into theories from the past where the evidence is less clear). The only people I've seen advocating SH crap are people who are all the way in deep. There are almost no conspiracies the SH crowd don't buy into.

Wasn't he part of the crew you told Mat to lift the exhiles on?

There were 3 exiles reversed

spank
bahbahmicky
DudeImBetter

Let the record show that I was actually permabanned...twice...not exiled, both during the reign of Kerowo the Lolowo. Hence the avatar.

Only time I was exiled was from Ikes' infamous rape thread that died with his banishment.

When I took over you could post in P but not in PU.

I assume as with Spank, your Permaban by Kerowo was converted to an exile from PU

Ahhh right, think that was what became of my second perma.

My intended meaning was on the interwebs, but I'll spew a little bit about IRL too. I'm in the "stuff just bothers me" camp too... or more accurately, it mildly amuses me to explore this phenomenon.

I'm also of the camp that LOLs @peeps who think they are engaging in activism by posting on interwebs forums like this, or take any of this shiz to have IRL ramifications. The 2+2 deplorables in question aren't even trying to chat in an honest manner. It's pretty clear that a significant subset of those dudes aren't currently equipped to do so, even if they so cared. You weren't arguing facts or opinions regarding the topic at hand, you are trying to explain to these deplorables a way that facts might even relate to opinions... yeah, I don't see any point or amusement in this at all.

Regarding IRL: I fully understand that I have a minority view on these thingees.

It doesn't rise to level of annoyance, but I'm just rubbed the wrong way when peeps tell me I should think this-or-that. I think it's border line rude, unless we know each other, and have developed some trust. I'm not at all kidding when I say here on 2+2, that I don't want to change anyone's opinions, and I like you folks just the way you are (Odi Award winners excepted).

However, I fully realize that most peeps are 180 from me, and that both IRL activism, and interwebs forums like 2+2 Politardia, tend to attract those peeps who really, really... really, really just wanna jawbone other peeps into thinking this-or-that. Fine, I get that. My second point is that they're doing it all wrong and ass-backwards.

IRL the way you jawbone other peeps into thinking this-or-that is... I mentioned it right above... building a relationship of trust. IRL you do that by connecting on the level of emotions. OTOH, IRL there prolly aren't very many more counter-productive ways so go about jawboning another peep into thinking this-or-that than going on a full out frontal "Logical Attack". Cliffs: Build Trust >>>> Doing Nothing >>>> Logical Attack.

It's important to be highly sceptical of concepts like "prior" here, because that might lead to a Class Reductionist garbage-in-garbage-out situation. That being said...

The same institutional power structure brings into being both the "economic issues" and the "cultural issues". Broadly speaking, under modern capitalism, and with the quibble above fully in mind, the "economic issues" is the disease, while the "cultural issues" are symptoms. The "cultural issues" cannot even begin to be understood in isolation from that institutional power structure, and the "economic issues" that they bring into being. The "cultural issues" cannot even begin to be addressed in isolation from that institutional power structure, and the "economic issues" that they bring into being.

Cliffs: Oxy doesn't constantly bring the Wage System into existence. The Wage System will constantly bring Oxy abuse, or something equivalently odious, or even worse like the Prison Industry Complex or war, into existence.

Shame Trolly beat me to it but this isn't quite my point. I'm mostly defensive of the notion that we really have any of the tools necessary to wage a kulturkampf via the state. But solving economic problems and redistributing things is exactly, precisely what states do.

Take an analogy. In the gun control debate, often after a mass shooting, usually gun nutters tut tut endlessly that regulation of an industrialized product is HOPELESS and impractical, and what the state really should do is ...solve mental health issues. Now that's some paradoxical **** because the state regulates goods all the time, often very successfully, including guns in plenty of places around the world. Whereas 'mental health' is a FAR more difficult problem to solve, like no one has ever really solved that, it's really intractable. We know so little about the human brain and the source and manifestation of mental health problems.

So it goes with the current moral rot of America. Will addressing questions of economic justice be a panacea? No. Are stagnating wages, crumbling public institutions, increasingly unequal distribution of wealth the proximate or only cause -- the only prior worth talking about? No. I think it is *a* cause for radicalization, along with corollary effects like residential segregation, mass media, consumer culture, and a litany of other things.

What I do think is "taking money from someone and giving it to someone else" has some chance of buffering the worst effects of America's deepening moral, cultural and social degredation and it's right up the government's ally. It's like one of the things it's equipped and designed exactly to do. Whereas solving deep cultural issues is a much harder nut to crack.

So I think I want to push back on the frame that I see similar to the gun debate. Don't mock the tools we do have to solve problems (like zoning laws/residential and public school segregation, like protecting the right to unionize and protecting public sector unions, like far more progressive tax schemes) and instead navel gaze about fantastical culture wars the government should wage instead. Economic justice is far more practical a solution than crawling into old white American brains and clean up the racist garbage floating around in there.

This is the WHOLE problem with your outlook: you fail to recognise that the political IS personal.

When political opinions are formed mainly from backgrounds and experiences, how do you think it could be otherwise?

It's certainly a difference in outlook. Obviously there's a personal side to politics but there is a good reason why it's common in political debate to have a 'no personal attacks' rule.

Misuse of ad hominem for $500 Alex

Yeah I threw in some weasel words ("sort of", "somewhat") in part because I was giving my original interpretation of your posts rather than how you probably understood it. Anyway, I think we are mostly in what you have previously called furious agreement. I agree that solving economic problems is easier, and worth focusing on. I definitely do not mean to mock this perspective.

My point (if I ever had any :P) was that I think working on economic issues shouldn't be entirely to the exclusion of thinking about cultural problems, and that thinking about culture can at least help guide how economic messages should be framed. If I've emphasized the possible difference in our perspectives, which I don't think is very large, it isn't because I don't value the wide agreement we also share.

I guess the other thing I'd say is that my interest in politics goes beyond what states do. Cultural issues are political even if they can't always really be addressed through official policy or electoral politics.

I'm sure this is correct. Although I do try to post in a way that avoids the "full on attack" reaction. Well, at least some times. I agree that it's harder to create rapport or to do persuasion online, but on the other hand I get to interact with a more interesting group of people then I do in my tiny rural town. Also I don't have to worry about them shooting me. Also I'm an aspy white tech dude so I enjoy aspy ways of communicating with other mostly white tech dudes. It's certainly a personal failing but what can I do?

The last sentence is the Marxist idea that I said I wasn't fully convinced of, although I think the two (economic vs. cultural issues) are highly interconnected. I just don't fully buy the base/superstructure conceptualization. So I would agree that the cultural issues can't be understood in isolation from the institutional power structure, or the "material" conditions in that Marxist sense, but I might also say that it's very much true the other way around as well.

This is the more theoretical sort of argument, whereas dvaut is focused on the argument that economic issues are more politically feasible, which is a very good point I think.

It's all just entertainment in my book, so it's all good. I've done worse... I chatted with nut low: ACers. I wasted plenty of times chatting with the deplorables too... just not trying to teach them how science works.

Also, I've always said that 'arguing' with fools on the interwebs, actually can serve an actual purpose. It's like the never ending mock-draft, and the 24/365 practice sparring Dogo, for learning how to, experimenting with, and practicing up on... how to 'argue' with fools IRL. If you can make the proper adjustments (like not getting punched), and if that's your cup-o-tea.

I wouldn't call it "the Marxist Idea", but I most certainly will lay the well earned blame for this idea at Marx's feet. This idea is often referred to as "Economic Man", and really undergirds a lot of modern western thought. Human experience, civil society, and hierarchy itself can hardly be "modelled" by such narrow, petty and fundamentally inhuman metrics. In particular, this idea catastrophically fails to explain Patriarchy, which doesn't even require civil society to work it's evil.

hey, all chez did is ask for all exiles to be lifted. if that included some terrible posters, by design, chez can hardly be held accountable

chez was bitterly disappointed that the racist lying POS TS wasn't allowed back into PU by tptb.

You can lock this thread, correct?

^{Note: not calling for mod action... just JAQing off.}

this is wookie's **** show, tyvm

I have been looking for a new home and since LK/Anais/Noodle is one of my favorite posters I may have found it!

It's with Tooth a bit like Bruce. Both go very far in isolating things, analyzing what's left. Bruce repeatedly had counter arguments, think it partly was for the sake of it. Tooth is the new razor in SMP, I'm sorry there's a good bit of misanthropy baked in.