Awesome TED Talks (and similar enlightening lectures)

[ThunderPeel2001]

They kindof are. I couple of years ago, I dunno if I would've agreed with that statement either, but lately I've been paying attention to feminist issues. A lot of the patriarchy on the right is still in the "the woman was asking for it" frame of mind. You hear a lot of "there is no such thing as rape within the institution of marriage." And the mainline "pro-lifers" basically want to force rape victims to bear their unwanted rape children, no compromise on that. It is some fucking scary shit. Might as well call the right "pro-rape".

Hmm. Interesting points, sir, I think I'll have to think about what you say.

[miffy495]

Hmm. Interesting points, sir, I think I'll have to think about what you say.

Don't forget the standard first-response question from many religious conservatives in a rape case: "Well... what was she wearing?"

[MrHoatzin]

Of course one can be a 'rapey' creep and still do important things but you have to look at the bizarre timeline of events and the massive political will to discredit him.

When I said long live Assange, what I really meant I think, was long live the spirit of holding governments to account and investigative journalism in general. Without those people, like Assange, who are willing to stick their necks out to expose governments for the largely corrupt shams they are, governments could do what they liked with impunity.

What these strange sounding allegations have already done for Assange, is spread the 'no smoke without fire' message, setting the stage for a fall from grace at a later date if nothing else.

I'm not stupid enough to blindly believe in him. If he is found to have committed a crime by a fair trial then he should of course feel the full force of the law. But, I am very, very sceptical about these allegations and I have little doubt that the American and British governments (at least) are doing their utmost to make sure some of this shit sticks.

Like you say, things should be taken on balance, and in my opinion, the balance is firmly in favour of these allegations being politically motivated.

But if he committed a crime and has an unfair trial, he should go free?

Frankly, I have little doubt in the allegations themselves; it is not fair to call them "strange." A lot of what sounds "strange" about them is stirring of waters on the Assange side of the equation. I think they were made in good faith a long time ago by a couple of girls who say they were assaulted. If they were political from the get-go, they wouldn't have petered out only to resurface in this crazy hair-on-fire fashion.

There is no doubt the international apparatus wants him dead for blatantly political reasons. It is also valid to point out all of these fancy dudes on the left who are ridiculing rape in order to get him off. No one looks good in this situation. The worst thing we should be doing right now is discrediting the girls who brought this suit up. They make for an easy target and they are the most vulnerable piece on the board here.

Frankly, I think him falling pray to the hubris of his creep penis in conjunction with the complete overreaction from the government apparatus will make for a net positive thing. Idealistic bureaucrats split into two camps: those who love their government and those who love democracy and freedom of the press and justice, all those things that their government is supposed to stand for. The latter camp will not look kindly upon the knee-jerk crackdown and are more likely to leak more as a result, not less. Wikileaks is has done some good things, but they are still too centralized for anyone's good.

So fuck them all. Fuck Assange for being a coked-up chauvinist fucker. And fuck Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore for ridiculing rape as they apotheosize Assange. And fuck Joe Biden for claiming WikiLeaks is a terrorist organization. And fuck the many disparate and uncoordinated branches of the US government which think blocking websites such as The Guardian and The New York Times and forbidding thumb drives will somehow solve the problems of disenchantment in their midst.

[circadianwolf]

I agree with Kingz entirely.

WikiLeaks isn't (or shouldn't be) a cult of personality.

[Kolzig]

Not that I really want to jump into the Assange discussion as I haven't followed up the whole story really closely, but wasn't it proven already through Google cache that the girls had written to Twitter a lot of positive comments about Assange *after* the alledged rapes had happened? Then they deleted the messages afterwards when the prosecutor had opened the case for them?

But yeah, Wikileaks is more than just on guy. Even if it seems that Assange is being made/raising himself as the the only guy behind it.

And of course there might be some truth to the case that he did do something in Sweden, but as has been written why would the ladies arrange a celebration for him after the incidents if he had done what he is accused of doing?

If he is guilty, then he should be sentenced, but if he is not then he should not be. It does look a lot like smear campaign, but it feels weird that for example Visa, Mastercard, Bank of America and Paypal freezed Wikileaks accounts just because Assange is accused of something. Shouldn't he be on trial as a private person and not as a representative of Wikileaks?

This thread has moved in to a interesting direction from TED talks.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Kolzig

[ThunderPeel2001]

Visa, Mastercard, Bank of America and Paypal freezed Wikileaks accounts just because Assange is accused of something.

That's not why they freezed the Wikileaks accounts.

[Lu]

Indeed, they freezed the wikileaks thing, because of the information released in the leak. I assume they're questioning the legality of what Wikileaks has been doing. Might've included pressure from the government to do so, which is something they would all deny anyway.

The cult of personality thing that's happening with Assange, apparently some Wikileaks guys thought the same and broke off and are starting up Openleaks? I read about what their plan was and thought that that was a much better idea than what Assange/Wikileaks has been doing.

[syntheticgerbil]

So fuck them all. Fuck Assange for being a coked-up chauvinist fucker. And fuck Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore for ridiculing rape as they apotheosize Assange. And fuck Joe Biden for claiming WikiLeaks is a terrorist organization. And fuck the many disparate and uncoordinated branches of the US government which think blocking websites such as The Guardian and The New York Times and forbidding thumb drives will somehow solve the problems of disenchantment in their midst.

This is about all I can bother to follow right now, but I think this sums up pretty nicely how I feel as well.

[OssK]

Well, maybe wikileaks has been made and maintained by Julian Assange, it doesn't really matter does it ?

After all, he's not alone in the endeavor, and for all you and I know, Da Vinci or Picasso could have secretly been murdering rapists or just assholes, I'm not sure it would matter in the slightest way. One day Assange will die and who cares who he was, it's what he did that changed something, nobody should defend him if he's a dick… The painter's a person, the painting's an result, one and the other are not really linked…

Alternate example for the nerd minded : the same person that made the wonderful ET remade it to change guns into radios // George Lucas made the first three Star Wars AND the last three…*Point is, you can be the duke of douchest and still make good things, 't couldn't you ?

[Gwardinen]

So I finally got around to watching the War You Don't See. It was quite good, and certainly thought-provoking, but it does bother me how even those arguing against just swallowing the things we're told if they're told convincingly seek to make their point by doing that. Now and then I despair at how much rhetoric goes into both sides of every important argument. There were plenty of instances in this film in which I thought John Pilger was pushing a little too hard, was being a little too unfair and irrational, despite the fact that it is a pressing and important topic.

I wish more issues like this could be debated with both parties taking a bit more of a step back and considering both sides of the issue to at least the extent that is required to make their objections more interesting. People who believe absolutely that they're right, as clearly John Pilger does and so do those he's accusing, just irritate me.

I don't know whether it's exactly for that reason or not but the Intelligence Squared debate on the Catholic church of which Stephen Fry's portion was previously posted in this thread did not make me feel entirely ill after watching it, so I recommend watching the entire thing to anyone that's interested. Here's the start:

[MrHoatzin]

Ack. I hate it when people invoke abstract equivalence between positions. Not all flipsides are created equal. In fact, almost every position from the right I have heard since I started paying attention to politics has been utter bullshit—bullshit that is birthed from the fear of the different and base tribal impulses (some of which in turn have been usurped by the powerful monied interests for their own profit).

Generally, bullshit with a veneer of plausibility tastes differently than truth presented with conviction. Both can be distilled down and the premises of bullshit end up a lot more glaringly false, fraudulent, unjust. And truth is generally complicated and messy.

Still, most people believe their own bullshit. One of the most interesting things that has come out of Wikileaks is the trail of propaganda that the GWB administration unleashed upon its own diplomatic corps. No one is immune to bullshit. At the end of the day you have to trust someone.

Here's a good person to listen to on the subject of propaganda (it's infuriating tho!):

_0OnTHz--7I

This is vid 1 of 7; for your convenience:

,

,

,

,

, and

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[ThunderPeel2001]

Here's my understanding of things: The people who are seen as representing the right in politics (eg. Sarah Palin) don't always reflect the actual ideologies of what it actually means to be right. The right, at its core, is more about helping the lower classes: How much should the State be responsible for those who don't earn/are on lower wages? The right leans towards them being a victim of themselves, the left leans towards seeing them as a victim of society.

Anything beyond that start getting into the individual's personal opinions.

Feel free to correct me.

[MrHoatzin]

In general, though, I always took the left to favor a new power alignment and progress, whereas the right favors the existing power structures and tradition. That has been the more or less traditional definition since the French Revolution.

It can get pretty muddled, what is left and what is right, depending on the country and tradition. In Serbia for example, the ultra nationalist (AKA Radical) Party is aligned with the Socialist party and the remaining former communists (who have not rebranded themselves into Socialists, which is the party of Milošević), but they're all essentially disgusting reactionaries that live in a fantasy land and kowtow to all things Russian over the West—these guys are the right. In economic matters, they would prefer to privatize all institutions by giving them to their cronies, like some sort of third world criminal enterprise. The left are the Democratic parties (they go in several flavors, some crazy). They tend to favor a middle-way capitalism and the EU. Because this is all so convoluted, you don't really hear much talk of the left and the right over there.

[Gwardinen]

Ack. I hate it when people invoke abstract equivalence between positions. Not all flipsides are created equal.

Yeah, that's a fair point, I'm not really sure what I'm looking for here. As you said, abstract equivalences aren't really useful to anyone, but going into an argument with a closed mind - even if you're completely right - still feels alien to me, and I hate that single-track focussed rhetoric that comes out of it.

Generally, bullshit with a veneer of plausibility tastes differently than truth presented with conviction. Both can be distilled down and the premises of bullshit end up a lot more glaringly false, fraudulent, unjust. And truth is generally complicated and messy.

I don't know, I'm still having trouble with it. Not necessarily choosing which concepts I agree with personally, which I try to do based mostly on the actual empirical evidence each side presents, but on who I prefer to listen to argue. As I said, it seems like no matter which side of whatever issue people stand on, they all argue it the same way, using different words and data. Making my mind up about the situation only really requires the data so I'm not stressing over this, but it'd just be nice if not everyone in every debate was such a zealot so much of the time. I understand that this is the way human psychology works, the parts of our brain dealing with rational changes in decision actually switch off while listening to people with whom we don't already agree, but it's still tiring to be exposed to all the time.

Still, most people believe their own bullshit. One of the most interesting things that has come out of Wikileaks is the trail of propaganda that the GWB administration unleashed upon its own diplomatic corps. No one is immune to bullshit. At the end of the day you have to trust someone.

I was thinking about this during the film. At what point does a politician start being totally ok with the idea of straight up subverting the will of the people that elected them? Do you think most actually start out that way, more interested in getting power than turning it towards a specific cause, or is it a situation in which you "grow up" as more and more of the realities crash down upon you? It seems rather surprising that there hasn't been a President or Prime Minister who was still somewhat innocent before they got into office and was then horrified by what they had to do. Perhaps there has been, would we know if there was? It's almost enough to make me start lending credibility to certain conspiracy theories about how leadership is determined.

[ThunderPeel2001]

In general, though, I always took the left to favor a new power alignment and progress, whereas the right favors the existing power structures and tradition. That has been the more or less traditional definition since the French Revolution.

Hmm. Not entirely sure I agree with that... Yes, that's apparently where the terms left and right came from....... but you're taking their standpoints very literally, instead of what they stood for. A right wing person in a country with a long socialist tradition would not support existing the power-structures just because it was "tradition".

During the French revolution those ideals stood for something.

[OssK]

Here's my understanding of things: The people who are seen as representing the right in politics (eg. Sarah Palin) don't always reflect the actual ideologies of what it actually means to be right. The right, at its core, is more about helping the lower classes: How much should the State be responsible for those who don't earn/are on lower wages? The right leans towards them being a victim of themselves, the left leans towards seeing them as a victim of society.

Anything beyond that start getting into the individual's personal opinions.

Feel free to correct me.

[watch out for the bold strokes] I would say that before there were classes high and low, there were people. And when you address these peoples on a political level, as individuals, on the left they would tend to force them to behave nicely to one another, on the right they would rather let people be free of their behavior.

Therefore :

On the left, you would force richer people to give to the poorer, on the right you would allow him to decide what to do.

Feel also free to correct me

[ThunderPeel2001]

[watch out for the bold strokes] I would say that before there were classes high and low, there were people. And when you address these peoples on a political level, as individuals, on the left they would tend to force them to behave nicely to one another, on the right they would rather let people be free of their behavior.

Therefore :

On the left, you would force richer people to give to the poorer, on the right you would allow him to decide what to do.

Feel also free to correct me

Hmmm. Not too sure about this, either...

[DanJW]

Therefore :

On the left, you would force richer people to give to the poorer, on the right you would allow him to decide what to do.

Feel also free to correct me

Hmm yeah also not really how I see. Might be how some right-wingers see it. But the right wing is more likely to persecute minorities, which puts paid to 'freedom'.

For my part I see it as co-operation vs competition. The Right sees human nature as just fine as it is and healthy competition as the best way to continue.

The Left accepts that there are flaws with human nature and tries to overcome them by fostering co-operation and objective critical thinking.

Heart vs Head maybe

(Maybe that's saying the same thing you did, but without using contentious language like "the left denies us freedom")

REally though, I doubt we're about to Solve Politics here on Thumbs

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow. I so surprised at this. People dish out "left" and "right" wing criticisms/praise all the time, but it seems nobody can actually agree on what it means. I was being a little disingenuous before when I said, "feel free to correct me", as I happen to know my own definition is correct -- even if it doesn't preclude other definitions. (Although, I didn't word it very well at all.).

Right wingers want exactly the same as left wingers: A fair and just society, where we can all feel safe and happy. The differences is that neither side agrees how best to get these things.

Abraham Lincoln, considered one of America's finest Presidents, and the man who helped abolish slavery there, was right wing.

Winston Churchill, a highly respected British Prime Minister, who took the UK through WWII, was right wing.

I respect both of these people tremendously, but they sit on opposite political sides to me. Neither of them were evil, wanted to persecute minorities, steal candy from children, etc. They were honest, intelligent people, who believed that their way of thinking was the best way to help society. Nothing more than that.

There is a fundamental core to left and right politics, but also a lot of flowery interpretation and personal additions that go on top of this -- and I think that's where confusion arises. It's also why Satan spawn and hero to morons, Sarah Palin can sit on the same team as the guy who ended slavery. There's a core that they both agreed on: It's not the government's job to make sure there is social justice. They see attempts at doing that as meddling with personal liberties.

This core argument tends to affect the extremes of society: The very rich and the very poor. And also how companies do business.

An incredibly simplistic way of looking at it is this: "I worked my ass off to earn all this money, why should some of it be taken from me by the government in order to help those who have less than me?" (This is why there is often a class divide between left and right -- the upper classes don't always appreciate paying huge amounts in tax.)

The left sees the argument like this: "Society is flawed by nature. Those who need aid, need it due to circumstances beyond their control, so we must address this imbalance by getting involved."

The right often sees this as damaging society, claiming that a "pure" capitalistic society, left to its own devices, would sort itself out perfectly (a bit like survival of the fittest), with little need for government meddling in people's personal lives.

Of course, this "pure capitalism" doesn't work in practice, which is why we have things like minimum wage. If we, or America, were a "purely capitalist" society, there would be no minimum wage -- the market would set your worth, not the government. The problem is, of course, that countries without minimum wage tend have huge parts of their population being exploited and living below the poverty line (e.g. second world countries).

I do think that the majority of both "left" and "right" understand that a balance must be struck though, so minimum wage will not go away, but inevitably that still leaves swathes of grey.

Another core argument is how involved the government is in helping businesses, and how much they should restrict business practices. A more right wing country would have less laws governing what business can and cannot do. A more left wing government (like Obama's) attempts to place more restrictions, like more Consumer Protection or Equal Pay for Women (a bill about which was recently blocked by the Republicans in the US).

The right wing says that these sort of measures are more harmful than good (I, personally, disagree).

Quite interestingly though, a recent study (I think in Reading University, here in the UK) showed that people tend to refer to themselves as "left wing" and "right wing" based on the people in their lives, rather than the actual ideologies behind them. If they see someone they despise belonging to one group, then they're more likely to belong to the other, etc. If they see people they like and respect belonging to a group, then they're more likely to consider themselves as belonging to it, too.

It's a bit sad and silly, and it's helped turn politics into a game of personalities.

Here's a simple little test that's been around for 40 years designed to help people discover where they really sit on the political spectrum:

World's Smallest Political Quiz

I think the world would be a better place if more people took it!

Edited January 2, 2011 by ThunderPeel2001

[circadianwolf]

The problem with those descriptions, ThunderPeel, is that they never have an effect on actual government.

The people making decisions who are "right-wing" talk about letting people fend from themselves, but what they do is consolidate power among the powerful and deprive the impoverished of what little power they do have.

The people making decisions who are "left-wing" talk about making people work for the good of society, but what they do is consolidate power among the powerful and deprive the impoverished of what little power they do have.

Whatever they say, it's an obfuscation and artifice designed to achieve those results. There is no such thing as "independence" (which is what I would say right-wing rhetoric is about) in a globalized society. There's also no such thing as "equality" (which is what I would say left-wing rhetoric is about).

In the US, at least.

[ThunderPeel2001]

The problem with those descriptions, ThunderPeel, is that they never have an effect on actual government.

Well, I did give two specific recent examples of it having an effect on US government...

Whatever they say, it's an obfuscation and artifice designed to achieve those results. There is no such thing as "independence" (which is what I would say right-wing rhetoric is about) in a globalized society. There's also no such thing as "equality" (which is what I would say left-wing rhetoric is about).

Well that's a very cynical point of view! But this is all a moot point, because however you feel about the questions in the Quiz I linked to, you still get put in one of five categories... Whether you think it's impossible for somebody to ever do any good with those opinions, and little bit of power, is really a separate point.

FWIW, I was placed in the "Liberal" category by the Quiz. It'd be interesting to hear where other people were placed.

[DanJW]

I got borderline Liberal/Centrist.

[OssK]

Fuck you forum that ate my answer !

So the message was :

1)clarification : I'm a leftist and politically passionate person

2)restating my previous point, I think that the right places the emphasis of "rights and duties" on rights, makings laws the bare minimum to garantee those rights, and the left places the emphasis on duties, so as to enlarge the range of rights we have.

For instance, I would not mind paying a living tax to guarantee a right for everyone to have a roof in their plates and some food over their heads (or the other way around).

I took the test, it gave me centerist bordering left, I think it's bogus :

For instance, on "Government should not censor speech, press, media, or internet."

I would reply maybe, providing that there is no incitation to hatred or murder in them… And it's the only restriction that should aply…

"Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs."

There should be laws restricting access to at least the most dangerous drugs known to destroy the lives and wallets of the one who take it and at least to the kids…*And that makes me a liberitarian ? yeah…*right… Everyone wants kids on crack on the left…

"End government barriers to international free trade."

If I say yes, I'm a liberitarian, if I say no, I'm a leftist…*Except I prefer people to have access to food that is localy produced and if you have to make laws to encourage that (without prohibition of course) I would support it…

So yeah…*Meh moment after the test…

[ThunderPeel2001]

So yeah…*Meh moment after the test…

Yep. I think all that stuff is quite accurate... Maybe you don't know any Libertarians, I do! (It's not altogether fun -- at least from my experience, that's obviously a sweeping statement! ) They're against laws on principle, and think the world would be better without them. (It's really quite synonymous with the less fashionable word "Anarchy" -- although modern Libertarians acknowledge the need for some form of government).

As for Lefties being pro-drugs and anti-censorship... Yep, that's right, too. Your response to those questions here clearly puts you "Left of centre". Don't see why this would cause you a "meh" moment. I don't thnk you're as far left as you think you are. I've met many hardline Liberals who think that removing the illegality of drugs will improve things massively. Even hard drugs...

You also say something about "kids on crack", which makes me think you didn't read the question properly. Obviously the hard left isn't for that, but here's the question again.

"Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs."

All it means is to make it legal for adults to own and use drugs... Like alcohol and tobacco: There are plenty of laws stopping children getting both those things, but they are legal.

FWIW, the argument for this action goes like this: By legalising a drug we have more control over it. For example, there is no need for a black market for alcohol in countries where alcohol is legal and freely available.

In Holland, there is no black market for cannabis anymore, and hardline lefts would argue that by legalising the usage of even hard drugs would give the state more control by killing the black market (which has managed to stay strong despite the world's efforts to stop it anyway).

As a final point: Discussing these HIGHLY contentious issues is likely to spark massive political debate, so I've tried to be neutral in my responses, and just show a positions point of view, rather than my own.

Edited January 4, 2011 by ThunderPeel2001

[ThunderPeel2001]

One way of looking at the basic structure of politics is this:

On personal issues: The left and libertarians say LESS government intervention. The right say MORE.

E.g.: Left and libertarians are pro-gay marriage. Right are against.

On economic issues: The right and libertarians say LESS government intervention. The left say MORE.

E.g. Government spending: The right and libertarians want the government to spent less on public services, and would prefer people buy their own (and therefore tax everyone less -- so they would have more money to do that). People would also have more "choice", in theory.

The left say that it's important the government steps in as companies cannot be trusted, so we need more government spending to provide regulated public services. Also, even in situations where regulation isn't needed, those services are expensive, so they should be subsidised to make them available to all.

This argument can currently be seen in the US in regards to Healthcare. In the UK it can be seen with University Tuition fees.

To me, the fact that the vocal right are against gun control (which, really, they should be for), shows that a lot of the time their reasoning comes through fear... But that's another broad generalisation.

Edited January 4, 2011 by ThunderPeel2001