• Samsy@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    Political science? Hmm, switch to all communities and sort for new. Have fun.

    • meep_launcher@lemm.eeOP
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      9 months ago

      Haha, the appeal of political science to me is less about arguing with strangers about the news and more talking about broader philosophies and theories and then applying them to what we are seeing in the world. I feel like I can have a more nuanced conversation about the prisoner’s dilemma with regards to x topic, or applying philosophies like American Pragmatism to solving problems.

      Talking about the news without using some of the tools political scientists use has so many emotional trip wires that it can feel like I’m just keeping up with the Kardashians. That said sometimes I just can’t help but keep up with the Kardashians.

      • caveman@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        Recently the only news about politics I don’t find disgusting is done by political scientists. You you recommend a book on the topic for beginners?

        • dodgy_bagel@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          9 months ago

          A book about current events or a book about the study of politics? OP indicated they were political theory focused, so a lot of the theory was written by old dead guys; not exactly news about current events.

          • caveman@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            About the study of politics, like Plato, etc, but all in one for beginners

            • dodgy_bagel@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              9 months ago

              Plato has basically nothing to do with modern politics.

              You’re going to laugh, but I’m absolutely serious here: if your objective is to understand modern politics, I would start with The Prince and the Communist Manifesto.

              Both of these are short, written by extremely influential figures, written for non-academic audiences, and have some amount of relevancy to current political operations. They absolutely do not explain modern politics, but they are important foundational texts. Spend 20 hours on the manifesto; 2 hours to read and 18 hours of commentary and related topics. Avoid going deeper into the communist rabbit holes. stop there. Spend 30 hours on the prince; look for college level lectures. You can spend more than 30 if you like, but don’t go for the self help guru dipshits, obviously.

              Just keep in mind the target audences and the potential bias the two authors bring to the table.

              After those two, I want you to read On Liberty and read up on John Locke’s social contract theory. Those four works will get you a lot of milage.

              • caveman@lemmy.ml
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                9 months ago

                I’ve read a good part of Communist manifesto and found it interesting. The fascist Manifesto is very similar to it. I found very weird that communists are against fascists, given that their manifestos are so similar.

        • meep_launcher@lemm.eeOP
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          9 months ago

          Depends on what you’re wanting to focus on, but a great start would be Rules for Rulers by Arnold Meltsner, Freakonomics by Levitt & Dubner, CIA: legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner, confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins are some that I started early.

          CGP Grey did a great job synthesizing Rules for Rulers on YouTube as well.

          Also a big think video Why Sociopaths Rise to Power

          Also Veritasium has a great video on game theory

          Hope that helps!

      • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I’m gonna have to check this out because I just mentioned this as an idea for Lemmy the other day. The amount of posts I see about the same thing in different communities is too damn high.

    • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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      9 months ago

      That’s how I browse (all & scaled or all & new) and I’m a CS nerd. To make the experience less annoying I’ve blocked a bunch of communities mainly because they’re not interesting to me (there’s a lot of anime and/or porn communities, fucking hell), but it’s generally a nice experience – I can run into all kinds of things that I hadn’t heard of before. I haven’t even gotten traumatized yet! Shame the only way to filter the feed is to block communities, but eh