Political correctness

[Pineapples Studio]

The Louis C.K. thing came up because we got on the subject of comedians. I thought that by bringing up Louis C.K., who is actually my favorite comedian, we could bring things back on track with the discussion about political correctness. I have no particular interest in rallying support for Louis C.K. specifically. I was just trying to make a point about cancel culture and how it has poisoned our society. He’s a high-profile case, and you’re correct that he is wealthy and will probably be fine. (He’s already doing stand-up again, and while I doubt he’ll be featured on Netflix again any time soon, at the end of the day he’s still selling out theaters.) However, this sort of thing happens to plenty of other people who are not so high-profile or wealthy, and it is thanks to cancel culture. Political correctness run amok.

[Iddaoeeok]

The Louis C.K. thing came up because we got on the subject of comedians. I thought that by bringing up Louis C.K., who is actually my favorite comedian, we could bring things back on track with the discussion about political correctness. I have no particular interest in rallying support for Louis C.K. specifically. I was just trying to make a point about cancel culture and how it has poisoned our society. He’s a high-profile case, and you’re correct that he is wealthy and will probably be fine. (He’s already doing stand-up again, and while I doubt he’ll be featured on Netflix again any time soon, at the end of the day he’s still selling out theaters.) However, this sort of thing happens to plenty of other people who are not so high-profile or wealthy, and it is thanks to cancel culture. Political correctness run amok.

Your perspective is still completely skewed, is cancel culture really poisoning your society? Now, I don't know about your society, but I can assure you there are far far worse, far more genuinely poisonous, things going on in the society I live! Not only that, I don't know a single real person who has been cancelled or whose life has been actually been affected by so-called cancel culture or who even knows of someone who has been cancelled. The whole thing stinks of a contrivance to keep a certain demographic in a state of perpetual outrage about other people and how they live their lives. That's the other thing that gets me about this, you've got people on one side of the argument who are perpetually outraged at the fact that the people on the other side of the argument are perpetually outraged at the fact that the people on the other side of the argument are perpetually outraged and so on, ad infinitum, It's a waste of energy.

[Iddaoeeok]

I just roll my eyes and some of the more nonsensical things that go on - or stuff that's reputed to go on - and move on, I don't get bent out of shape over it.

[Pineapples Studio]

Your perspective is still completely skewed, is cancel culture really poisoning your society?

Yes, it is. It has to do with the way people handle adversity and dissenting opinions. In a culture that endorses “cancellation” of dissidents, the average person is less inclined to defend the rights of others to speak freely.

Now, I don't know about your society, but I can assure you there are far far worse, far more genuinely poisonous, things going on in the society I live!

The existence of worse things does not negate the existence of this thing.

Not only that, I don't know a single real person who has been cancelled or whose life has been actually been affected by so-called cancel culture or who even knows of someone who has been cancelled.

Okay. Well, I do. Besides, celebrities may have an inflated sense of their importance in the world, but they are in fact real people. What constitutes a “celebrity” anyway? Are your favorite porn models celebrities? If so, does that mean that they are not real people?

The whole thing stinks of a contrivance to keep a certain demographic in a state of perpetual outrage about other people and how they live their lives.

That’s ridiculous. Sorry, I had to stop reading here.

[Iddaoeeok]

The existence of worse things does not negate the existence of this thing.

No, what it does is it puts it in context. Which is sorely needed in this case.

[Pineapples Studio]

[scarletxxx666]

sorry thats too complex for me i didnt understood that sentence

(i) Conservative in being humble enough to learn from collective historical wisdom & appreciating what needs to be conserved, (ii)though that does not mean trampling upon weakest in society..

Sorry. (i) I meant 'progressives' etc are too quick to want to change things about society - too arrogant & actually not very bright because I think they imagine country folk walking around with mobile phones etc 200 years ago. (ii) Definitely some things need changing, & have changed for better, such as social safety nets, at least in western europe.

thats too hard

my head hurts

too complex ;-;

[scarletxxx666]

this thread is too complex for me im not understanding a word

[101mike101]

Open forum, what do you think?

I post colours to mast, I think its gone crazy, I'm conservative working class if that makes sense...

Conservative in being humble enough to learn from collective historical wisdom & appreciating what needs to be conserved, though that does not mean trampling upon weakest in society..

For me, anything political is the same as unethical. Because the essence of politics is making yourself and your side look good and your opponents look bad, regardless of who is right and wrong.

It has nothing to do with being fair or good. It's all about winning in any way you can. Which makes politics fundamentally unjust as a method for doing things and for achieving goals.

At its extreme, politics leads to war, civil war, or a war with external enemies. Which is another reason why politics is an unethical way of doing things.

It’s the only way of doing things. Politics don’t exist just for the hell of it. They exist because they provide the most effective means of motivating people to maintain their own societies. You cannot dismiss the fundamental challenges that human nature presents here, which often render any dreams of altruistic cooperation impossible. Altruism may work at the level of a family or a clan, but it doesn’t scale. Altruism cannot drive complex societies because men are greedy. They want to be rewarded personally for their individual achievements. The successful realization of a shared collectivist goal is simply not enough; talented people want their own piece of the pie and their own “special” stake in its success. They want rewards in proportion to the amount of effort they put into something, and they don’t want people who did not match their output to receive the rewards that they do.

It is often said that communism only works on paper and quickly devolves into tyranny when put into practice, and this is true, but it’s important to understand that the reason it is true is thanks to basic human nature.

Unlike animals, people are supposed to invent and improve, when their current way of doing things creates a lot of problems.

Saying that this is the way things are now, and accepting it without trying to find and create anything better is like giving up on humanity and relegating its fate and its future to that of dumb animals. Because that's what will happen to people and to humanity in general, if they stop trying to learn and improve and make things better than they currently are.

[Pineapples Studio]

Yeah, but animals don’t have anything like a political infrastructure, as we do.

What I’m saying is that human nature is exactly what it purports to be; it is our nature. It cannot be overcome. We are governed by it thanks to biological processes that evolved over thousands of years to give us the drive and self-preservationist instinct which have made us the apex species on the planet. Every attempt to improve upon humanity, or to make people “better” in some way, always results in horrific tragedy. (See: Eugenics, the Holocaust, etc.)

[101mike101]

Yeah, but animals don’t have anything like a political infrastructure, as we do.

What I’m saying is that human nature is exactly what it purports to be; it is our nature. It cannot be overcome. We are governed by it thanks to biological processes that evolved over thousands of years to give us the drive and self-preservationist instinct which have made us the apex species on the planet. Every attempt to improve upon humanity, or to make people “better” in some way, always results in horrific tragedy. (See: Eugenics, the Holocaust, etc.)

People are unique and different from other animals in that their main form of evolution and improvement is now culture, rather than genetics. And that's what a latest study of human adaptation has found:

Culture drives human evolution more than genetics

If people relied only on their genetics, then they wouldn't have been able to populate much of the world, and human numbers would've been a lot smaller than they are now. Because even human agriculture is a cultural development, rather than genetic. And agriculture is the main reason why there are so many people now and why we live in cities, rather than being hunters and gatherers.

Putting genes before culture is like returning people to their animal past and making them like dumb animals. This is something the Nazis did in their philosophy. They claimed that they were a genetically superior race, and their war on others was nothing more than survival of the fittest.

They used the idea of genetics and biological evolution to justify their genocide. This was total nonsense, precisely because human culture has been far more important in the development of human civilization than human biology and genes.

Politics is culture. And culture is primary in current human development and advancement. It makes no sense to say that human genetics are stopping people from their cultural evolution. Because this is like giving up on the primary advantage that the human species has over other animals, and limiting them in the same way that all other animals are limited.

So, it's total nonsense to say that verbal fighting is the best and the only way for human societies to rule themselves. Because this is like saying that might is right in a verbal and political sense. It's this kind of thinking that has led people to enslave others (such as blacks in USA) and commit genocide against outsiders or minorities (such as American Indians).

This kind of idea has led to Nazi like behavior even in democratic societies in the past. And to say that this is the best and the only form of government people should strive for is total nonsense. Not only people can do better, but they should do better.