aurum

You can justify the necessity of it all you want. Won’t change the fact that it’s poisoning your mind.

There can be. But you have posted some cringe right-wing takes though.

Left-wingers would have a lot of egg on their face as well. Just maybe not as much as right-wingers.

If right-wingers actually participated in an unbiased debate, it would collapse their entire worldview.

Claims of ABC bias are almost entirely right-wing cope. Don’t buy it. Right-wingers have no interest in an unbiased debate.

Almost anyone who is decided is not going to change their mind at this point.

We’ll see. It’s still an open question. But this is why I keep trying to emphasize not just looking at the debate from a progressive POV. It will skew your interpretation. There should be nothing mind-blowing about realizing that last night was not enough to move many undecided voters.

It ultimately doesn’t matter if people polled think she won the debate. What matters is whether it moved actual voters. And the data on that still remains to be seen.

Let’s wait for the election polling numbers to come in. What I don’t like is seeing progressives jump on this narrative of how “obvious” it was that Kamala crushed Trump, when really they’re just looking at it from their progressive POV. Which includes how they think average voters behave. Critique out of the way, I do think it was Kamala’s night. The baiting was real and Trump walked into it perpetually. She slammed him on Putin and he slammed himself with fake election nonsense. Definitely one of his worst debates, while she looked ready. My guess is she will get a decent polling boost from this + Taylor.

Yes it’s possible. But I wouldn’t take this for granted. Just look at how many people project their worldview onto others. This is a deep, epistemic problem. And it requires treating it with seriousness.

Looking good for Kamala. Another poll in her favor: https://thehill.com/homenews/4873826-harris-trump-debate-winner/amp/

I’d say you are right. Yellow takes self-correction to another level. But that doesn’t mean you will self-correct everything automatically. You’re still a flawed, limited, biased human at Yellow. Also, any assessment of someone’s ability to self-correct would be coming from your own assumptions about what a “corrected version” of them would look like. So it’s tricky to say “person X is not Yellow because they haven’t corrected Y behaviors / beliefs”. That could just be a projection of one’s own worldview.

We’re not dealing with honest sense-makers. I do think people will overall feel that Kamala won though. And yes, I’m sure the Harris campaign will capitalize on it to whatever degree they can.

Musk can self-correct. So he would have the bare minimum cognitive ability to be Yellow by that standard. That said, I have a hard time placing Musk solidly at Yellow. He’s made a lot of errors lately related to misunderstanding Green. Which of course is partially why the Greens are so mad at him.

Maybe. I suspect the overall public reaction will lean Kamala. But not by much. The race is just too close at this point. Neither scored an obvious victory tonight.

Not for the average Trump voter. They love that stuff.

I actually think from his campaign’s POV, he did fine. You have to admit that it’s hard to beat devils in a debate. That’s why they’re so devilish. Kamala also did well though. I think well enough to give her a bit of a boost.

Yeah, just look at all the other debates . I actually think from a Trump campaign POV he didn’t do that bad. He made all his favorite talking points, spoke with conviction and flipped most things said at him. Yeah he lied continuously, but his base doesn’t care. Devils are great at debating.

It’s doesn’t quite sound like Yellow to me. Maybe very early stages. Sounds more like you’re just describing the ability to self-reflect, be aware of bias and have empathy. This comes online prior to Yellow. Most people should be able to do that to some degree. Yellow is self-reflection to a much higher degree.

Amazing what a muted microphone will do.

She roasted him on Ukraine. Maybe her best moment. Trump was Trump. He couldn’t stop yelling about borders, WW3 and blaming the democrats for everything under the sun. More fake election nonsense. I think overall people will perceive that Kamala won. Fact-check: https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/fact-checking-kamala-harris-donald-trumps-1st-presidential/story?id=113567997

Part 2. More discussion on democracy, nihilism, philosophical elitism and critiques of modernity. Strauss was a fascinating and sophisticated thinker: https://chatgpt.com/share/d1986517-5f93-44e3-9729-259fef634c4d

I wanted to share a conversation I had with ChatGPT about a relatively unknown philosopher, Leo Strauss. Originally I had intended to have a conversation about neoconservatism. But when GPT explained that Strauss was a key influential figure in that movement, I ended up going down a rabbit hole exploring his views. What I find fascinating about Strauss is that I believe he presents a Steel Man critique of moral relativism, liberalism and many other modern ideologies. If you can't successfully argue against Leo Strauss' ideas, then your political philosophy is probably weak. He is not some right-wing demogague. He is worth integrating into your perspective. This also ties nicely with anyone studying Post-Modernism. Here is the link to the conversation: https://chatgpt.com/share/3a639ac8-1835-49a9-9125-b8609e0d57d1 What's also interesting is that despite the fact that Strauss is not a right-wing demogague, his ideas were taken up by neoconservatives and used to justify policies like the Iraq War. Ironically, Strauss himself understood that ideology is often abused for the sake of political gain. But apparently his followers didn't read that part .

Leo's latest blog post featured a video about the realities political messaging. It's quite disturbing in some ways, and I wanted to lay down some thoughts about it. First, let's start by acknowledging the obvious truth that Rick Wilson is right. Politics is largely about optics and messaging, not policy and truthfulness. Just watching the ads for The Lincoln Project is like a masterclass in how to persuade voters. It works. Second, it's great that Rick is using his skills of messaging and persuasion to help democrats push back against right-wing bullshit. I agree that's what is definitely needed, and democrats tend to be bad at this. But at what cost? What is the cost of this "they go low, we go low" strategy? For example, Rick argues that if Republicans start accusing you of supporting something crazy like critical race theory, then you should punch back by accusing them of being racist. Don't go into the facts. Don't stick to the issue. Just score points. Again, this does work. And when you're dealing with someone like Trump, that is probably the best strategy. But at the same time, this constantly manipulation of people's perspective in many ways IS the deeper problem. Deeper than any single political position or policy. It's the degradation of the epistemic commons. Our shared, collective sense-making Even when you degrade the commons for the "good guys", you're still degrading the commons. People become dumber and less able to make sense of the world in an accurate way. How can we possibly ever expect to have intelligent political discourse as a society when people act this way? How can we expect to have conscious leaders when what is incentivized is manipulation? I suppose in my fantasy world, I would love for people to be able to just talk like mature adults about policy without having to resort to flinging mud at each other. I would love if being the best politician wasn't about who could manipulate the best but who was actually able to best lead. But obviously we are not mature, developed or intelligent enough for that. So here we are.

Yes, you might not label your experience if you grew up all alone since you wouldn't have language. Nonetheless, experience exists and is Truth. This is what Patterson is getting at, and what Thaddeus seemingly just does not grok.