Are we being asked to call a spade a spade here, or what? If so, why these weasel words?
When emulating those "who went to Spain to fight Franco in the 1920s [sic]", is the idea that we should denounce fascism, but only in ways that won't offend the Party?
And please, offend the party.
And: Spanish Civil War is usually dated as 1936-39. So, s/1920s/1930s.
Another example, much of the article uses "China" to suggest a broad, villainous other. Like so much American media, this reads like, "What are we, China?" or alternatively, "Surely we are better than China..." Which assumes a level of backwater, out of date, poorly run culture in China.
As a concrete example, the author says something to the effect of, "China claims to have quickly built a hospital, which I very much doubt." And explains nothing further -- why do you doubt that? What evidence do you have? Or are you just relying on your audience to credulously agree that because it came out of China, it's bad or a lie?
Additionally, the article appeals to the idea that we are all self interested by our fundamental nature. That we're all programmed to survive at all costs, and the means of that survival is individual self interest. Plenty of folks (myself included) believe that our survival instinct is one of social cohesion -- we survive because we band together into social groups.
So I agree with the conclusion -- we should be fighting fascists, and we should be doing it with strong policy and aggressively pushing fascists out of shared spaces (a bar that permits one nazi to be there is a nazi bar), I just think this article doesn't make the case for that very effectively.
I do not think at all that individual self-interest is our only motor. I'm saying we underestimate the extent to which it motivates us. I should probably clarify that.
My view of China is informed by my months-long stay there during the pandemic (among other stays but that was the most ... uh... impressive one). It is my only direct experience with autocracy and I assure you it was scary as heck. Make of that what you will.
And I'm European.
China has quite developed competitive science and industry. It is very competitive internally - sometimes more free market then America (which tends to create winner takes all systems with less actual competition).
The truth is our greatest ally. We need to harness it as a weapon, not abandon it in a pathetic attempt to insult our enemies and preserve the status quo.
We had truth. It's still there, readily accessible. We got here despite that.
If you have a massive ecosystem dedicated to churning out un-truths and it can crowd out truth, then the truthiness hardly matters… in the near term at least.
In the long run, truth-seeking systems work better because it’s hard to operate effectively without it. Which I suspect we’ll re-learn in a few short months.
I don't think so. I value credibility, and I'm not alone. You care about what's true, right? Almost everyone does. It's just really damn hard to figure it out. If we actually want to fix things, our job is to make that easier.
Perhaps. Sounds cyclical. I wouldn't expect that reasserted norm to hold for long.
maldonad0•1h ago
Democracy only exists for a short time after a revolution. After a while, the power permanently consolidates in a number of elites and the democracy becomes "democracy", that is, little more than a show.
The only time democracy works incorruptibly is in small groups where everyone knows each other and everyone knows what's going on.
kingstnap•1h ago
If you had a small group that actually frequently had 50%+1 rulings, I feel like you would fracture real fast.
maldonad0•1h ago
nosignono•1h ago
This is demonstrably untrue, there are plenty of cases of stable democratic systems. They just tend to exist outside of capitalism (or stand in opposition to traditional capitalist practice). It often relies on syndicalism or federation to stay distributed. Maybe that's compatible with your "small groups" statement, where many small groups coordinate together to form big groups to get things done.
johnecheck•1h ago
While larger democracies generally have fallen to increasing concentrations of wealth and power, I don't think we should conclude this is inevitable. We can do a lot better than this.
Eddy_Viscosity2•23m ago
QuadmasterXLII•18m ago
You are way underestimating the malignant stupidity of voters.