Is Revolution The Only Viable Solution?

[Arkhangel]

4 hours ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

With right-wing authoritarianism on the rise, in the US, UK, Australia, Turkey, and possibly, France, is there any way for the democratic process to stem this tide?  Electorates are totally polarized and no one wants to consider any compromise that benefits all.  Everyone has become an advocate of "my way, or the highway."  How does this get resolved without revolution?

Speak for yourselves, authoritarianism is certainly not "on the rise" in Australia. Right wing elements are gaining more traction in the democratically elected parliament, but there is not even the smallest hint of a threat to the status quo of our democracy. Suggesting that we're headed towards autocracy is ridiculous, frankly. I think you're conflating authoritarianism with right-wing democratic populism.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, TrueMetis said:

Don't forget jobs like cashiers, warehouse employees, and even a lot of white collar jobs. There are robots replacing lawyers.

But will the CFBP consider "AI" review of pleading "meaningful attorney involvement" under UDAAP standards?  If not, you can't replace human review.

[HoodedCrow]

It's just a matter of time, Australia.

[Sivin]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

FIrst, I hope you're joking, but I somehow know you're not really.

The way I see it, the xenophobic, homophobic and racist folk aren't "winning." When they "win," almost everybody loses, and them first and foremost. Because xenophobia, homophobia and racism are so pointless and absurd that they are symptoms and consequences of much greater issues that remain unresolved. This isn't a case of "us" versus "them" ; this is the narrative that neo-fascism seeks to impose on us all. This is us, together, still having to deal with our collective backwardness ; as much as we want to say it's "others" we still live in these times, in these societies, and have to somehow address these issues together, even if we are not directly responsible for them.
I would propose that the real question is why is our societies' social progress stagnating, and even, in some cases, reversing? I would suggest that the reason is that the fruits of our civilisation are not truly being shared. Inequality and unfairness breed anger and resentment and some very cynical people are able to manipulate that hatred and direct it toward "difference." It's an age-old story that keeps repeating itself: if you want to control the masses, you need scapegoats. Angry people don't think, don't question, but follow. If you look at the narative presented by the current version of neo-fascism, you almost always find the peculiar idea that minorities or immigrants are to blame for people's woes. And when the enemy is not "within" it is to be found "outside" in the concept of a clash of civilizations.
Not that I have any easy solution to propose as anger and hatred are not easy to fight. What I do know for certain however is that seeking to deprive angry people of whatever little power they have left will only further fuel their anger. There is no amount of force, no "revolution" that can magically turn the tides. On the contrary, I am tempted to believe that any inkling of solution will be counter-intuitive, and that what we need is more democracy, not less. Right now, it seems that xenophobia, homophobia and racism are strong, because our institutions allow them to acquire a disproportionate amount of power and influence. In actuality, such impulses still come from a minority. Were the masses to hold any significant power, they would not waste it by turning it against themselves. The reason we are stagnating and regressing is because we are losing sight of what there is to achieve, what the next step in our collective progress should look like. People in whose interest it is to preserve the statu quo are using their influence to spread the idea that collective social progress is impossible, that "there is no alternative" to the current structure of our societies. This is of course a lie. And that lie will need to be exposed to move past the current situation.

Heh, a long-winded way of saying "love will triumph". 

I'd rather be a liberal guerrilla. 

They'll call me the Piggly Wiggly Bandit 

[TrueMetis]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

But will the CFBP consider "AI" review of pleading "meaningful attorney involvement" under UDAAP standards?  If not, you can't replace human review.

Your just mad cause your going to be obsolete.

More seriously I don't have any idea how these issues will be dealt with. Probably something for the lawyers and politicians to handle, maybe after they've already been replaced by our new robot overlords.

[all swedes are racist]

yes, next question

[Rippounet]

30 minutes ago, WinterFox said:

Heh, a long-winded way of saying "love will triumph".

Not really, no. It's a long-winded way of saying that a credible progressive alternative to both economic neo-liberalism and representative democracy needs to be developed for the future. Whether that can be done and whether such an alternative can eventually triumph (peacefully and democratically) are open questions. It's perfectly possible that mankind will prove unable to reach the next step in civilization and self-destruct (or, at the very least, throw itself back to the stone age).

The whole liberal v. conservative narrative is utter bullshit and needs to go. Take five minutes reading the comments of a Breitbart article and tell me how well you think this would end...

[Impmk2]

1 hour ago, Arkhangel said:

Speak for yourselves, authoritarianism is certainly not "on the rise" in Australia. Right wing elements are gaining more traction in the democratically elected parliament, but there is not even the smallest hint of a threat to the status quo of our democracy. Suggesting that we're headed towards autocracy is ridiculous, frankly. I think you're conflating authoritarianism with right-wing democratic populism.

 

Yeah I was going to write something similar. I mean even if you do conflate the One Nation (populist extreme right wing) party with authoritarianism, they're unlikely to break too much more than 10% nationally, which is about where they were at in the mid-90s. The recent state election in Western Australia had them at 4% there, and that's far from the least conservative of states. This is probably as much due to them being run by an utter moron as much as anything else though.

The mainstream parties aren't going anywhere soon due to mandatory voting, and I would be extremely surprised if our current center right government lasts more than its current term. That's about par for Australian polictics (2 terms in government). So we'll end up with a center left government in 2019, and they'll in all likelyhood need support of the hard left greens party (who consistently get 10% of the national vote) to get legislation through the senate.

[Sivin]

17 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Not really, no. It's a long-winded way of saying that a credible progressive alternative to both economic neo-liberalism and representative democracy needs to be developed for the future. Whether that can be done and whether such an alternative can eventually triumph (peacefully and democratically) are open questions. It's perfectly possible that mankind will prove unable to reach the next step in civilization and self-destruct (or, at the very least, throw itself back to the stone age).

The whole liberal v. conservative narrative is utter bullshit and needs to go. Take five minutes reading the comments of a Breitbart article and tell me how well you think this would end...

I'm not following exactly? Are you asking me how I think a liberal VS fucktard war would go?

[Rippounet]

2 minutes ago, WinterFox said:

I'm not following exactly? Are you asking me how I think a liberal VS fucktard war would go?

It's a rhetorical question. I'm saying the "liberals" need to find a way to convince the "fucktards" that they can offer a better vision of the future for everyone (that's what liberals are supposed to be about). A different way to put it is to say that we need to move beyond this "liberal-conservative" divide and figure out what everyone can get on board with.

At this point, any use of force would only end in terrible bloodshed and further regression. We're dangerously close to the brink as it is.

[Robin Of House Hill]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

FIrst, I hope you're joking, but I somehow know you're not really.

The way I see it, the xenophobic, homophobic and racist folk aren't "winning." When they "win," almost everybody loses, and them first and foremost. Because xenophobia, homophobia and racism are so pointless and absurd that they are symptoms and consequences of much greater issues that remain unresolved. This isn't a case of "us" versus "them" ; this is the narrative that neo-fascism seeks to impose on us all. This is us, together, still having to deal with our collective backwardness ; as much as we want to say it's "others" we still live in these times, in these societies, and have to somehow address these issues together, even if we are not directly responsible for them.
I would propose that the real question is why is our societies' social progress stagnating, and even, in some cases, reversing? I would suggest that the reason is that the fruits of our civilisation are not truly being shared. Inequality and unfairness breed anger and resentment and some very cynical people are able to manipulate that hatred and direct it toward "difference." It's an age-old story that keeps repeating itself: if you want to control the masses, you need scapegoats. Angry people don't think, don't question, but follow. If you look at the narative presented by the current version of neo-fascism, you almost always find the peculiar idea that minorities or immigrants are to blame for people's woes. And when the enemy is not "within" it is to be found "outside" in the concept of a clash of civilizations.
Not that I have any easy solution to propose as anger and hatred are not easy to fight. What I do know for certain however is that seeking to deprive angry people of whatever little power they have left will only further fuel their anger. There is no amount of force, no "revolution" that can magically turn the tides. On the contrary, I am tempted to believe that any inkling of solution will be counter-intuitive, and that what we need is more democracy, not less. Right now, it seems that xenophobia, homophobia and racism are strong, because our institutions allow them to acquire a disproportionate amount of power and influence. In actuality, such impulses still come from a minority. Were the masses to hold any significant power, they would not waste it by turning it against themselves. The reason we are stagnating and regressing is because we are losing sight of what there is to achieve, what the next step in our collective progress should look like. People in whose interest it is to preserve the statu quo are using their influence to spread the idea that collective social progress is impossible, that "there is no alternative" to the current structure of our societies. This is of course a lie. And that lie will need to be exposed to move past the current situation.

First, xenophobic, homophobic and racist folk have always been a facet of conservatism, not fascism.  Fascism is simply the armor they wear. These are people who believe, without basis, that they are superior to those they perceive as different from themselves.  While it might have started with simple differences of economic status/class, it has expanded and accelerated during the latter half of the 20th century.  This is probably an outgrowth of a trait we all have of affinity to those most like ourselves.  It's hard to break that kind of programming.  The problem is that for something as important as determining who governs us, there is no level of competence required.

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

The forthcoming tidal wave of postcapitalism is going to completely redraw the map on how the political parties worldwide approach things. Most of them don't seem to grasp the magnitude of the problem, even as they mess around with the symptoms: Trump proudly declaring that jobs will return to the US from China, for example, apparently unaware that was will come back is not factories ready to employ thousands of Americans but factories full of automated production lines, robots and AI-driven ordering systems, and media reporting on the exciting advances in driverless cars and trucks without pondering what will happen when millions of drivers are made jobless in a very compressed space of time. And this is something that governments are going to be grappling with on a small scale imminently, and on a very large scale in the space of the next generation.

Otherwise, the primary problem of the left is the degree to which it appeals to ethical and moral behaviour and decisions taken on behalf of society as a whole. It requires people to be profoundly unselfish, especially with their money, which sounds great when you're a penniless student but less so when you're a forty-something parent with two kids. Some countries have cracked the problem (like those in Scandinavia) but the UK and US certainly haven't, and shows no sign of doing so soon (as the immense scorn poured on Sanders and Corbyn - in the latter's case, not helped by his own limitations as a public figure - shows).

Like a lot of things, the left isn't a binary.  There are degrees of left.  If you call the current day Democratic Party, left, you overlook the fact that its policies aren't significantly different than Eisenhower Republicans.  The Democrats could have chosen a candidate of the left, but chose one of the right.  That left people on the left, uninterested in their candidate. And here we are.  I don't think ethical people are incapable of winning a war.

[Iskaral Pust]

I have less and less confidence that we're all going to get on the same side.  The problem is change: some people embrace change and happily learn new technologies, while some people inherently do not or even cannot.  This tension has always existed and having both arguably conferred group survival benefits, but change happens now faster than ever before in human history.  The chasm is now too wide.  We are changing our environment faster than our evolution can keep up (not a great signal of long term species survival), and we've reached a tipping point in our societal balance.

The minority best able to handle this change are now responsible for the majority of economic, artistic and cultural production, while the others tag along at the periphery.  The left behind majority will need to be bribed and pandered to by the productive minority to maintain a peace, whether political or literal.  And a listless, feckless majority resenting their dole will need a lot of pandering.

Most unfortunately, the traits supporting success seem to be heritable to a large degree, somewhat nature (conservative vs progressive has shown to be partially innate) but mostly nurture.  And the rate of change continues to accelerate.  So the problem is only getting worse through concentration. 

Talk of liberals unleashing a revolution on the "fucktards" is laughable.  Revolutions come from the starving/dispossessed majority against the disconnected elite minority.  If there's any revolution in the offing, it will come from Trump nation, not the other way around. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

8 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

 Revolutions come from the starving/dispossessed majority against the disconnected elite minority.  If there's any revolution in the offing, it will come from Trump nation, not the other way around. 

Yet things are so upside down at this point, the dispossessed are voting in elite minorities like Trump simply because they are not establishment. 

[Rippounet]

12 minutes ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

These are people who believe, without basis, that they are superior to those they perceive as different from themselves.

While I hold no illusions about either conservatism or neo-fascism, I think you're being a bit unfair to conservatives here. I'm more inclined to believe that the political evolutions we are witnessing come from a general feeling of inferiority, an impression of powerlessness and unfairness that generates frustration and anger. It's being used by people who do feel superior (like Trump) and are somehow able to direct the anger at scapegoats, but I very much doubt that the masses are feeling superior even to the minorities that they are hurting so much.

This is the kind of analysis I'm drawing on, have you read it?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/08/a-new-theory-for-why-trump-voters-are-so-angry-that-actually-makes-sense/

6 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The minority best able to handle this change are now responsible for the majority of economic, artistic and cultural production, while the others tag along at the periphery.  The left behind majority will need to be bribed and pandered to by the productive minority to maintain a peace, whether political or literal.  And a listless, feckless majority resenting their dole will need a lot of pandering.

That's the way I see it as well. And in the long-run, conservatism doesn't address the roots of the problem, it's rather likely to make it worse.

Come on guys, liberals are supposed to be smug. A bit of smugness wouldn't hurt here. None of us wants a bloody revolution right now. A peaceful transition to a different socio-economic structure is what we should be hoping for.

[Altherion]

8 hours ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

If that's the case, should voting require an IQ test and psych evaluation?

You are not the first person to think of this idea. It didn't work then and it's even less likely to turn out well if applied to heavily armed people many of whom have spent their lives ready for the government to try taking away their rights.

6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I would propose that the real question is why is our societies' social progress stagnating, and even, in some cases, reversing? I would suggest that the reason is that the fruits of our civilisation are not truly being shared. Inequality and unfairness breed anger and resentment and some very cynical people are able to manipulate that hatred and direct it toward "difference."

Yes, this is almost certainly most of the reason. If you look at history, scarcity often causes division and strife. Our society appears to be wealthy, but because of the inequality, decent jobs and the associated wealth and social status are scarce -- especially outside of a small (and shrinking) number of geographic areas.

2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I have less and less confidence that we're all going to get on the same side.  The problem is change: some people embrace change and happily learn new technologies, while some people inherently do not or even cannot.  This tension has always existed and having both arguably conferred group survival benefits, but change happens now faster than ever before in human history.  The chasm is now too wide.  We are changing our environment faster than our evolution can keep up (not a great signal of long term species survival), and we've reached a tipping point in our societal balance.

The minority best able to handle this change are now responsible for the majority of economic, artistic and cultural production, while the others tag along at the periphery.  The left behind majority will need to be bribed and pandered to by the productive minority to maintain a peace, whether political or literal.  And a listless, feckless majority resenting their dole will need a lot of pandering.

It's worse than that: even if you could magically adjust the minds of the left-behind majority to grant them skills of your choosing and the ability to use them effectively, there still would not be enough decent jobs for all of them (or even a majority). There are some fluctuations based on geography and profession, but in general, the competition for intellectual jobs is already fierce even with the current number of applicants.

2 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yet things are so upside down at this point, the dispossessed are voting in elite minorities like Trump simply because they are not establishment.

They can only choose from the options offered to them. Most modern democracies have official (e.g. parties) and unofficial (e.g. the media) means of controlling who has a realistic shot at power and the public can only select among these.

[Iskaral Pust]

11 minutes ago, Altherion said:

 

It's worse than that: even if you could magically adjust the minds of the left-behind majority to grant them skills of your choosing and the ability to use them effectively, there still would not be enough decent jobs for all of them (or even a majority). There are some fluctuations based on geography and profession, but in general, the competition for intellectual jobs is already fierce even with the current number of applicants.

In the short term, that's certainly true.  In the long term, we don't know yet.  We've discussed before the potential effects of the robot revolution and there are positive and negative scenarios.  I would not want to commit to a "lump of labor" fallacy too early.   Even if robots can produce most goods and services, human-provided (unnecessary) goods or services could become luxury goods that would create sustainable employment.  We'd basically be like a troop of chimps grooming each other all day amidst an environment of effortless food and shelter.  Ennui could become the major social problem instead.  In fact, for those of us in the educated socioeconomic elite (I mean the top 5%, not just the ultra wealthy 0.01%), it possibly already is. 

[Commodore]

If you're characterizing the leadership of UK/US/France/Australia as authoritarian, the word has lost all meaning (it is applicable re Turkey).

 

11 hours ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

 How does this get resolved without revolution?

exit/emigration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty

Quote

members of an organization, whether a business, a nation or any other form of human grouping, have essentially two possible responses when they perceive that the organization is demonstrating a decrease in quality or benefit to the member: they can exit (withdraw from the relationship); or, they can voice (attempt to repair or improve the relationship through communication of the complaint, grievance or proposal for change). For example, the citizens of a country may respond to increasing political repression in two ways: emigrate or protest.

 

[Robin Of House Hill]

Well, that's pretty depressing.  The consensus seems to be that there is nothing that can be done, so surrender.  Apparently, the Star Wars quote is wrong.  The sound of democracy dying isn't thunderous applause.  It's a yawn.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

5 minutes ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

Well, that's pretty depressing.  The consensus seems to be that there is nothing that can be done, so surrender.  Apparently, the Star Wars quote is wrong.  The sound of democracy dying isn't thunderous applause.  It's a yawn.

Yeah, politics can be very depressing. Perhaps even worse, it can be an absolute outrage machine. I would push back on the idea that we are listening to the sound of democracy dying. We're just listening to democracy. Democracy by definition requires you to deal with ideologies that you don't agree with. 

[Robin Of House Hill]

Hard to do when one ideology wants to build and the other wants to destroy.