aurum

That attitude does create more dysfunctionality. If you want to end the dysfunctionality, you can't just talk about things people agree on. Learn how to navigate situations of conflict with grace, not just hide from them.

Prioritizing democrats winning over meta-issues is the problem I am attempting to draw attention to. There can be other threads talking nitty-gritty democrat strategy. I would like this one to stay above that, as much as possible.

That disagreement / division already existed, you just weren't talking about it. Which makes it even more dysfunctional. Embrace conflict. Conflict is necessary to lead to resolution.

Don’t get so focused on specifics that you miss the big picture, meta-points being made. This is a meta political thread.

Says the new ager

I think I remember that thread. He was asking for help, but also seemed to think his situation was helpless. I was concerned about him. Very sad either way.

Are you joking? This is not an elaborate double-agent scheme. This is just RFK, seeking power.

If RFK actually approached the Harris campaign as well as the Trump campaign, then it's worse than I thought. I was assuming his decision was mostly about having an ax to grind against the democrats. Edit: found an article about it https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/14/politics/rfk-jr-harris-administration-role/index.html

They could certainly go together, yes.

I would keep digging on this. Yes those are two of the biggest challenges. The issue of censorship is a dynamic question with a moving answer. There's no static "right amount" of free speech or censorship.

But that wouldn’t be contemplation . Just think about it. Set aside any anti-censorship bias you might have and put yourself in the shoes of a government official.

It would be very wise to contemplate why governments censor people.

Hatred of trump is just more human bias.

I don’t have a problem with critiques of the democratic party in general. They can and should be made. But let’s be clear: if someone thinks a Trump admin is going to implement their progressive vision, they have lost the plot. Trump and his people are gearing up for Project 2025 authoritarian, social conservatism like we haven’t seen before. There will be nothing progressive about it. Kennedy is being a fool for this. His bias against the democrats is going to land us in MAGA hell.

To be fair, most serious feminists do not claim that. Their perspective is more nuanced. Obviously the modern world could not exist without both men and women contributing in their own ways.

Honestly. Establishment democrats say Trump is bad, so he must be good

Well I think it remains to be seen how this plays out. It does seem that RFK was pulling more from the right. But I wouldn’t underestimate the number of lefties supporting RFK. Look at who his senior advisor is, Charles freaking Eisenstein. I was a fan of his work at one point. You basically can’t go more left than this guy: https://www.kennedy24.com/eisenstein-video He represents a significant demographic that RFK is pulling from. If Charles ends up voting for Trump, I will have lost almost all respect for that guy.

Leftist RFK followers, now voting for Trump, is the ultimate irony.

Alright then. I’ve made my points but it doesn’t appear we are going to reach an agreement on this. I’m exiting this discussion now.

Then let it be non-sensical. At least for now. If you want to go beyond tier 1, you can't get there with more tier 1. Sorry. You have to do something else. Alternatively, just decide you want to stay at tier 1 and that you're done evolving in this way. Except you are misapplying that insight. Just engaging in more tier 1 pragmatism is NOT tier 2. You have to actually discover what is beyond that. What you are describing is an insight that is mostly appropriate for utopian SD Green types. Tier 1 is already deeply rooted in pragmatism, and we are building on top of that. We don't need more of it. No! Tier 2 is a WORLD apart from Green politics. Tier 2 is not on the map. Don't underestimate how big a difference it is.

Sense-making is the process of understanding something through making distinctions. We are engaging in it right now. How did you come to understand mathematics? Or how a door works? There isn't a guarantee of that. Sense-making may have an inverse relationship with power. I wouldn't say negate. But they can distort sense-making through manipulating perception. Slogans essentially brainwash people, which is very effective for political agendas. Note: I'm not saying we should stop using slogans. Well they are engaging in sense-making, just a lower version of it. Big picture, our collective sense-making will not deeply improve without decades of evolution and development globally. Survival is too strong for most people. By improving understanding. But that doesn't mean it will improve any particular political agenda. I am purposefully making no guarantees of that. Sense-making could ruin your political agenda. I watched your video. Essentially it is about political game theory dynamics from a left-wing, SD Green perspective. It's fine overall. A piece of the puzzle. But it's not what I would consider SD Tier 2 politics.

Mincing paradigms, bypassing and false neutrality IS also bad sense-making. Think about why people engage in such behavior. This is a very meta-point.

The fact that politics has real-world outcomes IS what makes it so hard for people to do proper political sense-making. Detachment is essential. No amount of naval-gazing or bypassing accusations will change this. And I DO consider outcomes and impact on people and society when sense-making. There wouldn't be any other way to think about politics since it is all about outcomes. But there is often a cost to understanding, and that cost is usually your political agenda. I'm sorry if that sounds cold, but I don't know how else to explain my perspective at this point. I think we are beginning to go in circles here. We should probably wrap this up unless you have additional new points you want to make. But I did enjoy this back and forth, it challenged me to consider my thoughts.

I agree with all that. In this context, sense-making is not about absolute higher consciousness truths. I am not talking about God-realization or anything like that. I am simply talking about the practical understanding our political situation. No fancy stuff needed. Also, I'm not looking to narrow the point I'm making down to rhetorical strategy. My point is more about the diametrical opposition of political agenda and truth. Rhetorical strategy is just a potential example of that larger dynamic. In theory, rhetorical strategy is values-neutral since anyone with any kind of values could engage in it. But in practice, rhetorical strategy is never values-neutral. It is used by people with specific values and a specific agenda. And in this sense, it certainly can be a hinderance to sense-making. Well I would disagree. I think what I'm saying is relevant. But it's true that it may not be highly actionable if your goal is winning in politics. That isn't my goal. So you can criticize me on that.

Rhetorical strategies and sense-making are essentially inverse functions. When one goes up, the other goes down. And the reason is that strategy is about winning and your agenda, while sense-making is about truth and understanding. Can there be some overlap? Of course. But you have to be careful when assuming these goals will complement each other. Proper sense-making will eventually threaten whatever political campaign someone is running. They certainly can be. It depends on the example we are talking about. Regardless, they are vague, gross oversimplifications that are essentially just designed to galvanize people. A couple points here: 1) I'm not necessarily arguing for just maxing out on information. More information is not necessarily good sense-making. Sometimes it's just a few key points deeply understood that make all the difference. 2) In a way, I think we are agreeing. You agree that the vast majority of people are not interested in serious sense-making, so you want to dumb things down.