That’s what we expected when Biden won in 2020, then Jan 6 happened and Trump is running again. There’s an implication that things will gradually return to some 2007/2008 status quo (which was also very polarized) and right-wing extremism will simmer down. But there’s no reason for it, no cultural forces for it. Right now there’s no reason to think another Trump or someone worse won’t take up the mantle of owning the libs by grifting the right.

I’m not sure how much the kingdom was involved in Al Qaeda’s early years, unless you count American-Saudi-British funding of MAK/other Mujahideen during the soviet-afghan war. However, it’s clear Al Qaeda was already declaring against the kingdom a couple years before the USS Cole in '98. But sure I’d see Al Qaeda being a child of SA in a way similar to the KKK being a child of the US

You forgot the part where Saudi Arabia started courting American aid and literally expelled Bin Laden for being anti-American. That doesn’t make SA “the good guys” but it makes a huge difference in how your framing paints SA’s position and involvement with Al Qaeda during the 2000s. Their history is long and complicated, but during the war on terror, SA was much more aligned with the US against Al Qaeda and Bin Laden

You forgot the part where Saudi Arabia started courting American aid and literally expelled Bin Laden for being anti-American. That doesn’t make SA “the good guys” but it makes a huge difference in how your framing paints SA’s position and involvement with Al Qaeda during the 2000s. Their history is long and complicated, but during the war on terror, SA was much more aligned with the US against Al Qaeda and Bin Laden

The risk with that position is that if you don’t have an idea of what the system to fix things ought to look like, other people will tell you what idea to have, and you may accept it without any real critique because it sounds like it will give you the outcomes you want, because you’ll accept ANYTHING.

This is how we ended up with Trumpism. Conservatives also felt the country was broken, they felt left behind by Washington elites, and what they wanted was to feel secure, stable, and represented. So when someone comes along and says they’re gonna “drain the swamp” and “build that wall”, they ate it up. Because ANYTHING seemed better than the status quo. Many regretted it.

The onus is on every citizen to develop some idea of how society ought to be governed, especially when one of has the means and most of us have the means nowadays. It sucks because that exposes you to personal critique and problems are all hard and complex so it never seems good enough. But that’s the only way to develop better ideas. Otherwise we end up with another Stalin.

“not fucking up the environment” and “not creating wealthy elites” are descriptions of outcomes, not descriptions of political/economic systems like democracy, capitalism, monarchy, or Marxism.

So given that you want to achieve these outcomes, what political/economic system do you think would better help us achieve them? What system of governing people and economic product do you think would help us better preserve the environment and avoid wealthy elites?

For example, Marxism suggests a transitional phase of “dictatorship of the proletariat” that might align with things you’ve said. However it is exactly that, transitional. Historical examples of this we’ve seen such as Cuba, Vietnam, and China have transitioned to some form of market economics and with that, re-emergence of wealthy elites.

Okay, but you haven’t really answered the question of “what’s the new system”. You don’t have to solve all the problems of creating a new society, but you should have a general idea. “Not the old system and not the past people” is not an actual system. “Normal people thrive” is not an actual system.

For example, monarchy would be a system where “capitalist dystopia is finally unwinded and whoever opposes it gets rekt,” but somehow I don’t think that’s what you want.

You have to make an actual positive claim about what you envision, about your ideology, values, ethics, etc.

Isn’t there one happening in Gaza right now?

And then what? Yes, identifying and resisting an oppressive power structure is all well and good, but any revolution has to grapple with the fact that you will still have a massive population with cultural and ideological structures that can only conceive of the world in terms of the old system. Congratulations, you’ve toppled the government and now you have the power to implement a new system. What will you do with that power? Will you implement yet another system in which there is a powerful in-group that the law protects but does not bind and a disempowered out-group that the law binds but does not protect?

I heard he was a democrat in the past and looked up some of his ads/debates during the 2004 election. He criticized tax breaks for the rich and advocated for affordable education and equal opportunity for minorities. Jesus it’s like he got replaced by a lizard person.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?183616-1/louisiana-senate-campaign-ads

Once upon a time they had mirrors. But with the rise of political extremism and divisiveness, they replaced all mirrors with camera-based digital displays so they could flip the image and see their true selves represented, not some distorted atrocity.

You could curve the proportion to income to scale impact to something more equitable. How you decide what’s equitable would be another problem to solve, but I imagine it would involve benchmarking around the middle class and poverty line. Right now fine rates are okay for the middle class, so keep the proportion similar, fine rates really fuck up poor people, and fine rates mean nothing to the upper class. So imagine you you feel would be a fair impact for a fine and scale it accordingly.

They offer reputation. Career advancement is highly dependent on publication history and impact. Getting into a prestigious publication means your work will more likely be read and cited. Because highly reputable journals can charge high publication fees (because it’s in such high demand), they get to set the industry norm, which other less reputable journals/publishers get to follow. It does cost money to develop and maintain that reputation for rigour and impact (i.e. good science). But yeah it’s exploitative AF. There are attempts for less profit-motivated publications… But making those rigorous while still being democratic is hard

Maybe they will stop screaming when we stop murdering them. https://www.statista.com/chart/30779/map-of-trans-and-gender-diverse-people-killed/

Interpretation note: there is a smaller list of cases where it’s confirmed they were murdered for being trans. There is a gray area between likely and unlikely that trans-hate was the motive.

China’s EV’s putting brakes on oil demand

I appreciate your statement and generally agree. However, there is nothing complicated or contradictory about the harm caused in rape or the need to protect children from predators.

All good points. Sorry I’m coming from a non US perspective where climate change denialism is present, but less fervent. I like your definition of “truth from a rarified point of view”, though I might also considered non-rarified or pervasive, and factually well substantiated truths can be used as propaganda as well. The 95%+ consensus of scientists on climate change is both factually/meaningfully/importantly true and also used with a propagandistic flavour in many examples of political persuasion for example.

My post was more aiming at acknowledging propaganda as a vehicle of persuasion for any and differing representations of reality (political groups) that exists in parallel with the the establishment of facts of reality. Some representations will adhere more or less with the factual arguments.

An interesting exercise is to replace “Communism is bad” with “Climate change is coming” and interrogate how we feel about that and why.

It is interesting to reflect that propaganda is involved for all kinds of policy application, including science. As someone trained in sciences, it’s always a bit uncomfortable seeing folks extolling science as the exclusive solution to everything. The role of science in society is deeply tied up with values, norms, and policy. I think it’s always good to have a healthy dose of critical self reflection, so we can engage better on the level of humanized reasoning, rather than on the level of regurgitated propaganda.

The difference is less that it’s in some circumstances only marginally better. Rather, it’s more that when you advocate for better coverage in EU, the pushback might be more along the lines of “that’s too expensive or an inefficient use of highly limited taxpayer dollars, but I’m open to continuing to evaluate the impact and economics of it”. In the US, sometimes the pushback is “you don’t like it? Then GTFO, you communist traitor!”

Gotta love how the more “Applied” a field is, the more “Impure” it is.