DocWatts

Oooph, that was rough to watch. Of course, if Biden were a corpse he'd still be the better choice over Mango Mussolini, but for the typical low-information Voter who's on the fence, it was a bad look. Considering that the election is likely to be decided by less than a 100k votes in a handful of swing states, something like this could be enough to lose the election. On the other hand, Trump's criminal conviction has been hurting him, his sentencing in just a few weeks. Republicans have been doing terribly in Senate and House elections, and it's anybody's guess what might happen between now and November. So it's reasonable to assume that the election is still a toss up.

Find an area of philosophy you're interested in (such as metaphysics, ethics, etc) and get a 'lay of the land', so to speak. No need to get fully enmeshed into the world and values of academic philosophy, but you should be able to know enough about the history of a subject to have a context for the ideas your interested in - especially if you plan on developing and articulating your own vision. For instance, if you're interested in ethics, you should at the very least know the broad strokes of historically significant paradigms such as consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. As far as getting 'the lay of the land', I wouldn't bother trying to learn about someone like Hegel or Marx or Kant by wading your way through primary sources. There are more efficient and economical ways to get that information than by banging your head against 'The Phenomonology of Spirit', for example. Much better use of your time to find a book or lecture from a contemporary academic who's already put in the work to translate the ideas in a way that's comprehensible for a normal person. I'd highly recommend the 'A Very Short Introduction' book series as a way to get started, they're relatively quick and easy reads, and cover a huge variety of topics within philosophy. Additionally, I'd encourage you to go of your way to get both a Western and an Eastern perspective on these topics - doing so can be a good way of inoculating yourself from getting 'paradigm locked' into just a single restrictive viewpoint. If you're into the philosophy of science, also explore spirituality . If you're primarily interested in spirituality, go out of your way to become scientifically literate. Having a broad palette to pull from will only benefit you.

Also, it's worth keeping in mind that the Republican Party has been consistently underperforming in elections since 2018. While the Democratic Party has been consistently outperforming the polls during that same period. The supposed 'red wave' of 2022 never materialized, and Republicans got their asses handed to them in the special elections across the country over the past 2 years. Trump has failed to grow his base since losing in 2020, and in that time he's become a convicted felon. Meanwhile the Republican Party has only doubled down on the unpopular abortion bans that have cost them big electorally. While this doesn't mean that Biden is on a fast track to an easy reelection, I'd argue that Trump rather than Biden has more an uphill battle to get reelected.

Best guess - Biden will handily win the popular vote by 3 - 5 million, while just barely squeaking out a narrow victory in the electoral college. If you live in the US, and especially if you reside within a swing state, and you've ever thought about political canvasing, it's basically now or never, since the election is highly likely to be decided by a few tens of thousands of votes in a handful of strategic states - Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Local, state, and national laws banning single use plastics from things like takeout would be a start. A timetable and eventual deadline for packaging for stuff like food and consumer items to switch over the biodegradable plastics seems like a no-brainer. Public funding towards R &D for more economical forms of biodegradable plastics, and plastic alternatives, would also be worthwhile.

Most human beings cant spend every waking moment pursuing their life purpose , recreation is a normal and healthy aspect of living a balanced life. Of course, there are better and worse ways to use recreation. The question is how well your gaming is integrated into the rest of your life, along with your intentions when you dive into a game. Are you using games because you enjoy engaging with an interactive piece of art? Are you using them to socialize and bond with your friends? Or are you habitually using games to disengage from Reality, and avoid dealing with real world problems? Cultivating mindful habits around how one engages with virtual worlds (whether that's a game or social media) is key.

Can speak from experience here (probably would have fallen into this camp in my teens and twenties), but there's a few different ways you could parse this question. So what is a 'hardcore gamer'? In my my mind, I can think of three buckets that one might be referring to. Note that these aren't mutually exclusive, as someone could fall into just one or all of these. 1) Folks who treating gaming as a hobby, like how someone might treat golf or woodworking or Dungeons and Dragons as a hobby. 2) Folks who treat their opinions on gaming as an identity. Think of folks who get emotionally invested in the console wars between Xbox and PlayStation, or who are very ideological and defensive about their hobby. 3) Problematic gamers - basically folks who haven't developed healthy technology habits, where their gaming is interfering with other aspects of their life such as school and relationships. In my experience, I don't see really any correlation between #1 and immaturity, at least any more than someone who's heavily invested in home improvement or science fiction is likely to be immature. Categories 2 and 3 seem to be more closely linked to immaturity, but keep in mind that folks in these two categories also tend to be younger as well (hopefully growing out of these as they mature).

Thought I might post another snippet from my philosophy book, 7 Provisional Truths, for those who might be interested. This section is a follow up to my earlier post about how Objects are mentally constructed (but not imaginary), where I describe how objects are akin to a lens that our minds use to navigate Reality (which can be found here: https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/101752-a-framework-for-ontology-objects-are-mentally-constructed/ ) _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Disclosive View As A Window Into Visual Perception An illustrative case study for how the Disclosive View can help us explain and interpret our embodied interactions with the world can be found in a survey of how our visual field is organized. What we’ll be articulating here is a phenomenological account of how objects are disclosed to us through visual perception (recall that phenomenology concerns itself with how things show up for us in the directness of our lived experience). Let’s first acknowledge that not having access to eyesight doesn’t preclude an individual from experiencing objects. Minds are inherently adaptable, so a perceptual system without access to eyesight has other avenues for object disclosure, such as touch and sound. For our present purposes however, we’ll focus on the primary means by which objects are disclosed to human beings, which is through vision. For those with functioning eyesight, our perceptual system organizes visual input along a subject-horizon schema. (A schema just refers to a template by which something is organized). In practice, this subject-horizon schema highlights whatever visual phenomena we happen to be focusing on as a ‘foreground’ (i.e., a subject) which is contrasted against a ‘background’ (a horizon). The boundary that marks where a subject ends and the horizon begins we experience as the edges of an object; be that a blade of grass, or a printed word on a page. For things that extend beyond our field of vision, like the interior of a room, the unified whole that we experience is akin to a mental composite, composed as we move our eyes around, taking in details. Crucially, these subject-horizon schemas are not predetermined. Instead, their boundaries have an inherent flexibility that’s dependent upon the context in which we’re viewing something. A well-studied side effect of this flexibility are optical illusions. Optical illusions aren’t a case of our visual system ‘malfunctioning’, as common sense might attest. Instead, they are a consequence of the fact that our sense perception is tailored for coherence and intelligibility; not to recover fixed features from a ‘neutral’ Reality. While contemporary common sense might tempt us to analogize our visual perception to a video camera, in actuality the embodiment of our minds and our perceptual system tells a very different story. The roots of this misleading metaphor stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what sense perception is all about. As living beings, our survival depends on being able to flexibly cope with the complexities of a fluid environment. A perceptual system that functioned like a mechanical recording device wouldn’t be up to the task of providing focused information that’s relevant for our needs and purposes. The reason that this matters is because the overwhelming majority of what we might potentially encounter within Reality is irrelevant for us. Consequently, our perception is just as much a process of filtering out a near infinite stream of irrelevant stimuli as it is a process of presenting with us sights and sounds and tactile sensations. The fact that your nose isn’t visible to you right now, despite it lying within your visual field, is good evidence of this. As it turns out, we’re capable of attending to only a tiny part of our visual field at any given moment. While our entire field of view spans about 180 degrees horizontally and 135 degrees vertically, only 2 degrees of that field consists of the highly detailed images that we associate with ‘what it’s like’ to have vision. This high detail portion of your visual field is associated with the fovea centralis, which is the region of your eyes where the light sensitive photoreceptor cells known as cones are most densely packed. From here, the rest of your visual field gradually widens out into a low acuity no man’s land of rough and tumble nebulosity. Where we can’t make out much more than some basic impressions of shapes, colors, and movement. If you doubt this, try affixing your eyesight on a focal point that’s a few inches away from this page, and see if you’re still able to make out any of the words in this paragraph. It may be a bit surprising to discover just how small a portion of our visual field this high detail focal area actually is. Yet when everything is functioning properly, this system works so well that the blurry no-man’s land which takes up the majority of our visual field isn’t a hindrance to us in practice. In practice, we’re scarcely aware of it most of the time, which is indicative of its efficacy.

Thanks for the share, I'll admit that I've yet to hear Verveake talk at length about his views on ethics. My broad perspective is that ethics is a skill and capacity that can be cultivated, having to do with how wide our 'circle of concern' for other beings extends, and how adept we are at understanding the perspective of others. Which I suppose would place me into the camp of virtue ethics. This is in contrast to the idea that ethics is primarily a detached from of intellectual reasoning, which I tend to disagree with. While there are certainly specific situations where adopting a more detached position can be useful and appropriate (for instance, for people in positions of authority whose role necessitates impartially), this is the exception rather than the rule.

I thought I might share a write up for a philosophy book that I'm writing, which touches upon ontology, epistemology, and our embodied experience within the world. In it, I attempt to present some of the phenomenological insights of Heideggar and Merleau-Ponty in a more accessible manner, as part of a broader effort to develop a metaphysically agnostic, pragmatic ontology that has its basis in our embodied interactions with the world. Objects Are Mentally Constructed (But Not Imaginary) In this section, we’ll be introducing an alternative to the common sense, or Objective View, of objects. Because this alternative is grounded in the world disclosure process we’ve been exploring, we’ll refer to it as the Disclosive View. In contrast to the Objective View’s insistence that objects are absolute features of Reality, Disclosive View contends that objects are more akin to a lens for navigating Reality. This makes them fundamentally experiential, as they’re how our mind turns our surroundings into something that’s comprehendible for us. In essence, objects are a type of interaction which happens between our embodied minds and our surroundings; neither existing ‘out there’ in some external Reality, nor as a pure fabrication of the mind (distinguishing them from hallucinations, which present us with non-existent phenomena). In sum, the gist of the Disclosive View is that objects are mentally constructed (but not imaginary). Before proceeding, let’s first clarify what a mental construct is. What a mental construct (or just a construct, for short) refers to is a distinction that our minds create and sustain, which is coupled to some observation about ourselves or our world. If we think more deeply about what an object actually is, it’s our mind’s way of drawing a boundary around some portion of our local Reality. The advantage of carving up Reality in this way is that it allows us to relate to what’s contained within a given boundary in a more concrete way (as a house or as a chair, for example). As such, the boundaries which mark where one object ends and another begins are not arbitrary; rather, they are functional in nature. They are our mind’s way of packaging our surroundings into more manageable ‘chunks’ that are easier to interact with and understand. Because this point can be easily misconstrued, the contention here isn’t that objects are ‘imaginary’ (like how Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are imaginary). Instead, what’s being pointed out is that objects are the products of a cognitive process that puts us in direct contact with the world. As living beings that are adapted for survival, objects would be useless to us if they didn’t convey generally reliable information about Reality. This also explains why there’s a valid distinction between objects and hallucinations, despite both being mentally constructed. Since the former puts us in touch with our surroundings and our environment, while the latter does not. Hence, objects are mentally constructed, but not imaginary.

Thanks! One of my aims with this book was to do an in-depth exploration of philosophical concepts that's more accessible than what you'd find within an academic book or lecture (both Verveake and Leo do a very good job at this). The concept of 'disclosure' is drawn directly from the philosopher Martin Heidegger, which Verveake and myself are both drawing up on. The shared domain that's being explored here is called 'embodied / enactive' cognition, so it makes sense that we'd be exploring similar ideas and concepts (I'll admit that Verveake is of course an influence on my work as well). For the most part I agree with Verveake, we just have slightly different areas of emphasis. Verveake's main 'thing' (if he can be said to have just one primary area of emphasis) is the unfolding 'meaning crisis' within Western society. My own perspective is about cultivating a more construct aware perspective, so that we can learn to hold our attitudes and beliefs in a more provisional and self aware way. Both Verveake and myself emphasize meta-rationality, so one would expect there to be commonalities in our subject matter and approach.

That sounds like it falls squarely in the preview of metaphysical ontology, whereas the perspective I propose is more about using ontology to better understand our subjective, embodied experience within the world. To that end, what I propose is a type of pragmatically oriented metaphysical agnosticism. Having a living body with survival needs is a central to how we understand our surroundings and our world, it doesn't matter whether that body is composed of 'matter stuff ' or 'mind stuff'. In general, I've found metaphysical speculation about the overall meaning and purpose of capital R 'Reality' to be less helpful than perspectives which are grounded in our subjective, lived experience. Mind you I'm not saying that there aren't uses for metaphysical theories and speculation, I just find that in my personal experience, they introduce a lot of unnecessary baggage if our goal is self-understanding.

A good analogy for my frustrations with how intellectually lazy this false equivalency between Trump and Biden is: Let's say I have two candidates for a job opening in my small company Don and Joe both want the job, and unfortunately for me they're the only candidates available. Joe has enough experience to be qualified for the job. He's far from exceptional, but I can at least rely on him to show up every day and do what I'm paying him to do. But he's quite old, and there's questions about if his health will hold up over the upcoming years. Don is convicted felon with a history of fucking over every person he's ever worked with. He's primarily applying to the job is to enrich himself at the expense of the company, and leave someone else holding the bag when the shit hits the fan. He also has numerous sexual harassment allegations against him, and has a trial pending for inciting an armed mob against his previous employer when they fired him. "False Equivalency" Fred : " I dunno, not seeing much of a difference between these two candidates."

You're commiting a 'false equivalency ' fallacy. In no reality are Trump and Biden equally incompetent, unethical, deluded, or corrupt. Defaulting to this stance is an example of an intellectually lazy 'thought terminate cliche'.

Thought I might share an interesting interaction I had with Claude, where I asked it to conduct an interview to assess where I'm at on Sausage Cook-Grueter's Levels of Ego Development model. (Got the idea for this from another post which did something similar for the OP's Spiral Stage). According to its assessment I have a foot in both the Strategist and Construct Aware stages, which seems plausible to me. __________________________ Assessing Your Ego Development BW Could you interview me to see at what stage of Susan Cooke Grueter's Levels of Ego Development that I might be at? Sure, I can conduct a brief interview to try to assess what level of ego development you may be at according to Susanne Cook-Greuter's model. This will involve asking you some open-ended questions and analyzing your responses. Please keep in mind that this is just an informal assessment based on our conversation. Let's begin: How would you describe your sense of self and identity? Is it fairly consistent across different situations or does it tend to shift? To what extent do you feel bound by rules, norms and expectations of society versus feeling free to question and re-evaluate them? How complex and nuanced is your understanding of different perspectives, motivations and worldviews other than your own? When faced with challenges or uncertainties in life, what is your typical way of making sense of them? How would you describe your values, principles and beliefs? Are they relatively fixed or do you see them as continually evolving? Please respond openly and I'll analyze your responses to provide an informal assessment of where you may fall on the ego development scale. Let me know if you need any clarification on the questions. BW Let's start with the first three: I'd say that I'm very aware that my identity is something that's constructed (which is not to say that every aspect of personal identity is a 'choice'). Lifelong learning and introspection are both important to me, and much of my personal growth has been a process of cultivating a flexible form of personal identity. In my mind, this is a healthy 'middle way' that falls between rigid forms of identity that are affixed to rigid belief systems, and on the other hand being so fluid and amorphous that a person doesn't have a solid idea of who they are and what they're about. I follow rules insofar as they make sense for a given set of circumstances and context. To my mind, both blindly following social norms and also knee jerk rejection of them and expectations can be problematic when taken to an extreme. I want to make sure that whatever narratives I'm engaging with are done in a mindful and authentic way. I am constantly going out of my way to subject my narratives and meta-narratives to scrutiny. I also regularly go out of my way to try to understand other worldviews and perspectives. I tend to think less in terms of perspectives being 'right' or 'wrong', and more in terms of how partial a particular perspective is, and what are the purposive contexts where it's adaptive or maladaptive. Based on your responses to the first three questions, it seems you may be operating at the Autonomous or Construct-Aware stage of ego development according to Cook-Greuter's model. Your awareness that identity is a constructed narrative, yet still valuing a flexible and authentic sense of self, aligns with the Autonomous stage's ability to step back and question the self-narrative. Your nuanced view of social norms and expectations, seeing them as context-dependent rather than rigid rules to conform to or rebel against, also reflects the Autonomous stage's increased complexity in meaning-making. Additionally, your stated attempt to understand multiple perspectives without judging them as right or wrong, and evaluating their contextual applicability, demonstrates the kind of meta-systemic awareness characteristic of this later stage of development. The fact that you actively seek to scrutinize your own narratives and worldviews points to the critical self-reflection common at the Autonomous/Construct-Aware transition. Let's move on to the remaining two questions, as they may provide further clarity on pinpointing which of those two levels you more closely align with. Please share your thoughts on questions 4 and 5. Copy BW In general, I try to frame challenges from a meta-perspective where it's appropriate to do so. I also try to cultivate healthy sustainable habits, and operate from a secure base of social support with people that I can depend on and trust, who have thier own unique insights to contribute. I realize that I have a tendency to over intellectualize as a defense mechanism, and have been working to cultivate taking more embodied action in the world. I try to make sure I'm pursuing needs higher up on Maslow's Hierarchy from a secure base of the levels below it (the opposite of this would be using spirituality as an 'escape' from unmet security and belonging needs, for instance). I'm someone who developed an avoidant attachment style from my environment growing up, and will sometimes withdraw into my mind as a way of disengaging with unpleasant situations. I've been working to become more mindful of this, and be present and engaged more of the time. Your response to question 4 provides some valuable additional insight. A few key points stand out: The ability to frame challenges from a meta-perspective and cultivate a secure base aligns with the Autonomous stage's increased self-awareness and self-authorship. Your recognition of using over-intellectualization as a defense mechanism, and working to take more embodied action demonstrates the kind of self-reflection and growth orientation characteristic of later stages. Your awareness of attachment styles, using spirituality as an escape, and the need to stay grounded while also growing suggests an understanding of developmental levels and stages. However, your mention of sometimes withdrawing into your mind to disengage from difficulties may indicate certain Autonomous stage defenses are still being worked through toward fuller presence and engagement. Based on this, I would assess you as likely operating at the transition between the Autonomous and Construct-Aware stages, with significant capacities of the Construct-Aware stage, but still incorporating some earlier Autonomous stage patterns at times. Let's move to the final question about values and beliefs to see if that provides any additional clarity. Copy BW Lifelong learning, intellectual flexibility, compassion, and introspection are my core values. I particularly enjoy learning how people develop their worldviews and intuitions, and have gotten a high amount of value out of subjects such as epistemology and meta-ethics. Much of my growth has been a process of coming to accept and embrace that my values aren't fixed, but are something to be refined over time. Additionally, I also think it's very important to be able to identify ones emotional attachments to the beliefs and narratives that one use to orient themselves to Reality. I go out of my way to approach subjects systemically, though I'm not above getting emotionally triggered by subjects that have a direct impact on my survival needs if I'm not being mindful. I tend to enjoy interacting with people who have an appreciation for perspective taking. I also find joy in teasing out the partial truth of various ideas. I also think that it's important to embody ones values, and let them guide your actions in the world (armchair theorizing is only useful insofar as it eventually informs your actions) Your response to the final question reinforces my assessment that you are operating at the transition between the Autonomous and Construct-Aware stages of ego development. Several aspects of your answer clearly align with the Construct-Aware stage: Valuing lifelong learning, intellectual flexibility, and the evolution of your values/beliefs over time Recognizing the importance of identifying emotional attachments to beliefs/narratives Appreciating multiple perspectives and teasing out partial truths Seeing the need to embody values through actions, not just theorizing At the same time, elements like getting emotionally triggered when your survival needs feel impacted and the self-awareness around this tendency, point to still working through some Autonomous stage patterns. Overall, your responses demonstrate a highly developed meaning-making capacity with significant Construct-Aware stage traits - a robust appreciation for perspective-taking, meta-cognition about your own constructs, and comfort with the ongoing refinement of values and beliefs. You seem to have one foot solidly in the Construct-Aware territory while still incorporating valuable Autonomous stage capacities like self-authorship and self-awareness. Let me know if you need any clarification or have additional reflections based on this assessment. I hope this has provided you with some insight into how you may currently be navigating Cook-Greuter's model of ego development. Copy BW What are some good resources for someone with a foot in each of these stages? Books and the like Here are some excellent book recommendations for someone transitioning between the Autonomous and Construct-Aware stages of ego development: "Immunity to Change" by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey - This provides powerful insights into identifying and overcoming the immunities or defense mechanisms that can limit personal and professional growth. "Self-Authorship" by Marcia B. Baxter Magolda - Explores the journey toward self-authorship and critically analyzing external influences and your own internal foundations. "Integral Life Practice" by Ken Wilber, et al. - Presents an "all-quadrants, all-levels" approach to growth across multiple dimensions. "Constructive Developmental Theory" by Robert Kegan - One of the seminal works on adult development and meaning-making stages. "In Over Our Heads" by Robert Kegan - Another classic by Kegan, examining the disconnect between the complexities of our modern lives and our meaning-making capacities. "Changing on the Job" by Jennifer Garvey Berger - Provides a framework for cultivating leadership capacities aligned with later adult development stages. "Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People" by Peter Senge, et al. - With a focus on generative learning capacities. Additionally, working with an experienced developmental coach can be immensely valuable for supporting continued growth through these transitional stages. Let me know if you need any other specific recommendations! Copy BW Would you say the Ken Wilber resonates more with the strategist or construct aware stage? (ken Wilber is my favorite philosopher, fyi) Based on Ken Wilber's integral philosophy and writings, he seems to resonate more with the Construct-Aware stage of ego development in Cook-Greuter's model. Some of the key reasons why Wilber aligns well with the Construct-Aware stage: Meta-paradigmatic awareness - Wilber's integral framework aims to transcend and include multiple paradigms and perspectives. This reflects the Construct-Aware capacity for meta-paradigmatic thinking. Comfort with uncertainty - Wilber embraces paradoxes, uncertainties and the limitations of any single ideology or belief system, which is characteristic of the Construct-Aware stance. Systemic, cross-disciplinary approach - Integral theory attempts to weave together insights from various domains like psychology, philosophy, and spirituality into a coherent inter-related framework. This interdisciplinary style resonates with Construct-Aware meaning-making. Developmental orientation - Wilber's work is steeped in understanding developmental stages/levels across multiple lines or streams. Appreciating these differing waves of perspective is key at the Construct-Aware stage. Postmetaphysical reconciliation - Rather than subscribing to any single metaphysical system, Wilber works to integrate and contextually position various perspectives, reflective of the Construct-Aware ability to hold multiple constructs. While Wilber does display high cognitive complexity akin to the Stratified Mind stage, his focus seems more oriented towards integrating frameworks versus purely deconstructing them, which aligns better with Construct-Aware tendencies. Since you mentioned Wilber is your favorite philosopher, it makes sense that his integral approach would resonate with you operating at that transitional space between Autonomous and Construct-Aware stages of development. His work can likely provide fertile ground for your continued growth. Copy BW How about Spiral Dynamics as a meta-framework? Strategist or Construct aware? When it comes to the Spiral Dynamics framework and its relationship to Cook-Greuter's model of ego development, I would assess it as being most aligned with the Strategist/Construct-Aware transition. Here's my analysis: The Spiral Dynamics approach, with its color-coded value meme system representing different levels of psychological existential development, has elements that resonate with both the Strategist and Construct-Aware stages. On the Strategist side: It provides an overarching systemic framework for making sense of different worldviews and value systems It recognizes the existence of different developmental waves or levels There is an attempt to integrate and synergize various perspectives However, Spiral Dynamics also exhibits some key Construct-Aware qualities: It adopts a very meta-paradigmatic stance, not being beholden to any single level It can hold multiple construct systems simultaneously without privileging any one as the truth There is an appreciation for the partial truths and limitations of each level's perspective Additionally, some of the later stage value memes in the framework, like the Yellow/Integral wave, align very closely with the Construct-Aware mindset of embracing paradoxes, transcending debates, and integrating multiple contexts. So while Spiral Dynamics has Strategist features in its broad categorical mapping of levels, its overall orientation transcends and includes those categories in a way more characteristic of the Construct-Aware stage. In essence, Spiral Dynamics seems to straddle and seamlessly blend the Strategist and Construct-Aware levels - providing an integrative meta-framework from the vantage point of the later Construct-Aware stage. For someone operating at your current transitional space, the Spiral Dynamics model can likely serve as a salient map for continuing to expand your vantage point. It meets you where you're at while also pointing towards further growth possibilities.

Unfortunately I haven't had much luck in finding it. Not sure if it was deleted or if it simply got buried....

What's tricky about this situation is that Putin is at fault for invading Ukraine, While the US and NATO are at fault for the destabilization of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union that catapulted Putin into power, effectively smothering Russia's chance to transition to democracy in the cradle.

Thinking that people are having less children because of anti natalism is a bit like thinking that the reason men are struggling is because of feminism. In both cases the philosophy that's being pointed to is a red herring, as far as its contribution to the problem in question. Contemporary society has more or less gutted the social support structures that made it viable to have children. In the West, a collapsing middle class, stagnating wages, and skyrocketing cost of essentials such as housing have made having children a dicey prospect for those who aren't economically affluent. In a post-Roe United States, getting pregnant can effectively be a death sentence if anything happens to go wrong during the pregnancy and you have the misfortune of living in a Red state. In the East, a famously dysfunctional work culture that doesn't leave people the time of energy to devote to raising a family has been well studied.

The interesting and unfortunate thing is that the US funnelling billions of dollars towards Bibi's illegal war isn't of any benefit to US strategic interests. It's more a matter of the right wing in Israel being very good at understanding and leveraging US domestic politics for its own ends. Basically selling its colonialist war in Gaza as a 'war on terrorism'. When in actuality Bibi's far right government is fueling Islamic extremism, and the Israeli government is responsible for the rise and continued existence of Hamas. And leveraging support from the religious right in the US (many of which subscribe to a type of scriptural literalism, which foretells that Israel is necessary for the Christian rapture to take place - sadly I'm not joking). It also sells itself to the US as the 'only democracy in the middle east', when in actually it's regime is probably closer to the apartheid government of South Africa than a contemporary Western European style democracy. If the US made continued military and financial support to Israeli conditional upon an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the war might not end tomorrow but it would put tremendous pressure on the Israeli government to agree to the UN ceasefire.

As an American citizen, seeing our NATO allies criticize the US for enabling Israeli's war crimes is a good thing, even if they don't have the power to change the prevailing geopolitical security arrangement. International condemnation is completely deserved here. The US wields immense power to influence events in Gaza, which it is currently using to support Israeli's far-right government, rather than calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Right wing grifters (deservedly) attract more criticism, but it's important to acknowledge that this sort of thing happens on the Left as well (TYT is another good example of this). A good rule of thumb is if the 'socialist' streamer you're watching owns a $200k sports car, it's time to look elsewhere for political opinion and analysis. Grifters like Hasan will talk a good game as far as drawing attention to the systemic injustices of capitalism, while eschewing any personal responsibility for thier consumption habits (typically under the guise that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, so 'fuck it'). It's the political equivalent of 'if you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him.' 😄

Hard to take this claim seriously when a huge chunk of folks who are pushing this angle are also planning on voting for someone who stashed classified national security documents (that he wasn't supposed to have) in cardboard boxes piled from floor to ceiling in a gaudy looking bathroom

I've read quite a bit of political science and sociology, and I've found the following three books to among the most helpful for contextualizing some of our contemporary political dysfunctions. The Righteous Mind goes in to why liberals and conservatives have differing moral intuitions. The Dictators Handbook goes into the incentive structures operating on people in positions of power, and why that tends to produce self-serving behavior. How Fascism Works is useful for contextualizing the democratic backsliding which has been taking place in countries all over the world throughout the past decade or so.

1) To use your own example, drug prohibition in countries like the US has been an utter and complete failure. Countries which have adopted a harm reduction policy (such as Portugal) have had far better outcomes as far as reducing the social harms that come from substance abuse. 2) Already posted a recommendation for HealthyGamerGG as probably the go to place for good advice on how to cultivate a healthy relationship to technology . But in short, what he advocates is parents working with thier child to cultivate these healthy habits. Obviously this does include some limitations, but it also means giving young people access to activities that they find intrinsically valuable in the real world (whether that's martial arts, offline hobbies, IRL time spent with friends). The goal is to help give kids things they can be excited about in the real world. Just taking away a 14 year old's phone without this will only cause them to suffer without a sustainable strategy to develop intrinsic motivation to develop healthy habits. 3) Agency and responsibility matters, but they take.place within a social context. The coca cola example is missing the tragedy of the commons element of adolescent smart phone use. Take one kid's phone away and they'll be socially isolated; rather, he advocates for changing norms around phone use for kids so that they can have more embodied, engaged interactions with their peers 4) In the real world, child abduction is overwhelmingly likely to happen by a family member, or someone that the child already knows. (Just how you're overwhelmingly more likely to be murdered by someone you know, such as a romantic partner, than stranger). Profit driven sensationalist news media which spreads fear and suspicion is to blame for the mistaken perceptions that society is less safe than a generation or two ago (the exact opposite is true, crime has been declining for decades for a confluence of reasons). Car dependency is actually a far bigger concern here, due to cities and towns being designed for cars rather than people, is a very legitimate concern. You'd be forgiven for thinking that huge pickup trucks and SUVs were designed to murder children, due to how unsafe they are for pedestrians. Unfortunately there's not an easy solution for bullying, but I'd offer that bullying simply moved online due to social media, and is arguably more pervasive than IRL bullying of a generation ago (where it only happened at school, at the playground, etc).

Jonathan Haidt uses cigarettes as an example of how we can regulate something without banning it. Where we collectively decided that it was worth inconveniencing adults (no more buying cigs at vending machines, taxes on them much higher, etc) to protect kids and adolescents. A parallel to this might be a ban on targeting online advertising directed at minors (similar to how cigarette ads aren't allowed on Nickelodeon). Personally I'd advocate for de-privatizing these platforms and making these huge social media platforms public goods (similar to what we should do for utility companies), but I realize that this isn't feasible in the current political climate. A blanket ban on TikTok is a clumsy (and lazy) way of handling the problem.