Limits of left politics.

[Danioover9000]

   Here's the latest video from @Leo Gura:

   First of all, a very nice video, and made me rethink a lot of some of the left leaning ideas.

   Secondly, it seems the thumbnail is made by an artificial drawing program, so Leo's drawing ability may still be novice level and is content with capping his drawing at that level. I'm disappointed.

   What are your thoughts about his take on the limits of leftist ideologies?

[Danioover9000]

   My quick thoughts, his take on the immigration issues is solid, and Sweden/Scandinavia/Norway should be taking notes on his take.

   Also, definitely agree that most progressives and extreme democrats or Socialists overuse the race card. Most cases it's a nationalistic and ethnocentric issue, and differences in religious and political nationalism. Definitely agree when people call you a Nazi or Fascist or Racist, those words are dirty and triggers close mindedness real quick. If some of those objections to Leo are why not, by female Progressives/Democrats/SJW's, well, what do you think and feel when I call you a whore or slut? Well, not a good feeling, right? I got called that, and whatever civil discourse I had with a person goes out the window. DEFINITELY agree here that we need to stop using dirty words to label our oppositions or other different perspectives of our positions.

[JosephKnecht]

Can someone make a short summary of the video?  

[trenton]

My thoughts on this video is that it was definitely needed and Leo did a great job on this video.

Many of his points match my personal experience. I have two sisters and a cousin who are very progressive and they often argue with their parents and grandparents over politics. I always felt skeptical about judging people from hundreds of years ago for slavery.

One thing I would add to progressives is the weaponization of spiral dynamics. I tried to teach others about the model, but stage green interprets the model as being more developed than conservatives and therefore superior. The stage green ego has a hard time appreciating the significance of these models. telling progressives about spiral dynamics will make them double down and continue judging people as racist bigots. My sister is a feminist who uses models of the brain to prove women are superior to men.

Stage green is close minded to research when ever it seems to validate the conservative perspective. For example, mom started talking about how some slaves used to be white. I was open minded and looked at the research, but my sisters refused to look because of mom's racist agenda. As a result I agree with progressives on many points, but they are only open minded when my research validates their current perspective. The fundamental misunderstanding of conservatives is the result of constant demonization.

I manage to stop a lot of these arguments simply by sharing my research. This demonstrates how much conflict is created through misunderstanding. If we had a news station that just reported the facts without a political agenda, then this would solve a lot of problems with polarization. Usually the facts favor progressives, but a higher level is possible.

Excellent video. I hope this forum benefits greatly from this balancing of our political views. This video helps see the difference between stages green and yellow.

[Thought Art]

Did a first watch, will watch again throughout the week make notes in this thread. A lot of it is stuff I had already contemplated myself. 

A lot of it comes down to Leo telling the left to try to understand conservatives and people with a lower developmental level. Try to be more holistic and understanding of all the parts of the human social matrix. Be more mature.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Thought Art

[Osaid]

Somewhat unrelated, but interesting synchronicity that Leo and Teal Swan's new video that day had the exact same type of thumbnail, planet Earth with an eye sticking out.

[thepixelmonk]

6 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

Secondly, it seems the thumbnail is made by an artificial drawing program, so Leo's drawing ability may still be novice level and is content with capping his drawing at that level. I'm disappointed.

lmao what? leo is not an illustrator. before AI tools he paid people to do his thumbnails.

[aurum]

Just finished the video, very much enjoyed it. Here's my analysis:

Leo's strongest point was that progressives tend to excessively demonize and misunderstand conservatives.

At lower levels of the spiral, "mudslinging" at your opponent is more appealing. And the mudslinging of stage Green does help to some degree, since it can appeal to stage Blue and Orange people. They are more likely to tune in to one of Kyle Kulinski's or Hasan's videos than a complex and respectful tier 2 conservation. And if some conservative is slinging mud at you, it's likely at some point you'll sling back.

But at the same time, this conservative demonizing has a tremendous cost. And the cost is that you are unable to accurately SEE reality. Which deeply alienates the other side and polarizes politics, since people accurately recognize they are not being understood.

It's like the left develops their own form of intolerance or bigotry. Instead of Xenophobia or Islamaphobia, it becomes Conservatiphobia.

In particular, I feel I see this a lot when progressives gloat about some political or cultural victory. I can understand celebrating a win, but if you're getting an ego rush from seeing bad things happen to your opponents, you've gone too far. I myself have done this. It just further polarizes things and shows conservatives that you are against them.

Leo's weakest point was his critique of government spending in favor of being more fiscally conservative.

In essence, what he is arguing against is called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which has become popular in progressive circles. We were taught it as economic students university. Leo is correct on this point that debt is a problem, but his solution of being more fiscally conservative I don't think gets to the heart of things.

The reasons I say this is because national debt is more complex than simply balancing your budget. It has to do with how money is created in an economy. I'm not sure how familiar @Leo Gura is with the technical details of the monetary system, but money is hardly "printed" anymore. It is created digitally through the fractional reserve system and commercial bank lending. There is a growing consensus among economists these days that this creates a situation where the more money is created, an even larger amount of equivalent debt is created simultaneously. Which inevitably leads to national debt.

If this theory of debt is true, it throws a wrench in Leo's argument. You cannot just save your way into a balanced budget. You must first adjust the monetary system itself.

The thing I'd like to see the most in part 2 would be a critique of environmentalism. When does environmentalism go too far? This is a strong issue for me and therefore one I am mostly likely to have a bias about.

Edited October 17, 2022 by aurum

[Bad_anarchist]

13 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

   My quick thoughts, his take on the immigration issues is solid, and Sweden/Scandinavia/Norway should be taking notes on his take.

   Also, definitely agree that most progressives and extreme democrats or Socialists overuse the race card. Most cases it's a nationalistic and ethnocentric issue, and differences in religious and political nationalism. Definitely agree when people call you a Nazi or Fascist or Racist, those words are dirty and triggers close mindedness real quick. If some of those objections to Leo are why not, by female Progressives/Democrats/SJW's, well, what do you think and feel when I call you a whore or slut? Well, not a good feeling, right? I got called that, and whatever civil discourse I had with a person goes out the window. DEFINITELY agree here that we need to stop using dirty words to label our oppositions or other different perspectives of our positions.

Trust me. Sweden has been taking notes and people have lived with the consequences of the leftist governments immigration policies for a while now, which is why the right won this election. 

[Ulax]

@Bad_anarchist Do you have any sources regarding the immigration issues?

I think I might have been rather green on immigration previously, and not been prepared to look into the systemic issues surrounding immigration. So, I would appreciate content on immigration.

[Raze]

https://theintercept.com/2022/06/13/progressive-organizing-infighting-callout-culture/

[AtheisticNonduality]

 .

Edited October 17, 2022 by AtheisticNonduality

[Danioover9000]

@AtheisticNonduality

48 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

 .

   Nobody is full stopping this thread!?

[Danioover9000]

@aurum

9 hours ago, aurum said:

Just finished the video, very much enjoyed it. Here's my analysis:

Leo's strongest point was that progressives tend to excessively demonize and misunderstand conservatives.

At lower levels of the spiral, "mudslinging" at your opponent is more appealing. And the mudslinging of stage Green does help to some degree, since it can appeal to stage Blue and Orange people. They are more likely to tune in to one of Kyle Kulinski's or Hasan's videos than a complex and respectful tier 2 conservation. And if some conservative is slinging mud at you, it's likely at some point you'll sling back.

But at the same time, this conservative demonizing has a tremendous cost. And the cost is that you are unable to accurately SEE reality. Which deeply alienates the other side and polarizes politics, since people accurately recognize they are not being understood.

It's like the left develops their own form of intolerance or bigotry. Instead of Xenophobia or Islamaphobia, it becomes Conservatiphobia.

In particular, I feel I see this a lot when progressives gloat about some political or cultural victory. I can understand celebrating a win, but if you're getting an ego rush from seeing bad things happen to your opponents, you've gone too far. I myself have done this. It just further polarizes things and shows conservatives that you are against them.

Leo's weakest point was his critique of government spending in favor of being more fiscally conservative.

In essence, what he is arguing against is called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which has become popular in progressive circles. We were taught it as economic students university. Leo is correct on this point that debt is a problem, but his solution of being more fiscally conservative I don't think gets to the heart of things.

The reasons I say this is because national debt is more complex than simply balancing your budget. It has to do with how money is created in an economy. I'm not sure how familiar @Leo Gura is with the technical details of the monetary system, but money is hardly "printed" anymore. It is created digitally through the fractional reserve system and commercial bank lending. There is a growing consensus among economists these days that this creates a situation where the more money is created, an even larger amount of equivalent debt is created simultaneously. Which inevitably leads to national debt.

If this theory of debt is true, it throws a wrench in Leo's argument. You cannot just save your way into a balanced budget. You must first adjust the monetary system itself.

The thing I'd like to see the most in part 2 would be a critique of environmentalism. When does environmentalism go too far? This is a strong issue for me and therefore one I am mostly likely to have a bias about.

   Also looking forward to his take on environmentalism, as the energy bill here and its cost is becoming more and more a drain in the UK's economy.

[Danioover9000]

@thepixelmonk

15 hours ago, thepixelmonk said:

lmao what? leo is not an illustrator. before AI tools he paid people to do his thumbnails.

   Side tangent, but it's true. Leo's been experimenting with A.I. drawing programs and seems to disregard those artists that designed his thumbnails and is okay pushing some of those types of illustration jobs out of the market for more people to become artists. The problem is that it's like supporting A.I. programs that analyze chess and other board games into the market, and some to most abuse those tools and cheat instead of properly learning chess. It just doesn't raise the overall standards of quality of drawing and performance; it retards it a bit and encourages short cut taking and quick fix chasing than developing skills of observation and patience and work ethic.

[Danioover9000]

@Osaid

15 hours ago, Osaid said:

Somewhat unrelated, but interesting synchronicity that Leo and Teal Swan's new video that day had the exact same type of thumbnail, planet Earth with an eye sticking out.

   MOTHER GAIA!!!?

[something_else]

3 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

Side tangent, but it's true. Leo's been experimenting with A.I. drawing programs and seems to disregard those artists that designed his thumbnails and is okay pushing some of those types of illustration jobs out of the market for more people to become artists. The problem is that it's like supporting A.I. programs that analyze chess and other board games into the market, and some to most abuse those tools and cheat instead of properly learning chess. It just doesn't raise the overall standards of quality of drawing and performance; it retards it a bit and encourages short cut taking and quick fix chasing than developing skills of observation and patience and work ethic.

Leo's video thumbnails are like one of the only things I can think of right now that could probably be totally replaced by an AI artist. AI art is exceptional when you want a single image that looks impressive, needs to vaguely represent a topic, but doesn't have any extremely specific details or requirements that require human levels of communication.

More power to him if that's what he's doing. A good artist would see this as a new tool to enhance their work. To follow your chess analogy, many great chess players use chess computers to enhance their own skill. AI is a tool used extensively by the masters of chess.

Our goal should be to make fields easier to get into, not gatekeep new people from joining a field by keeping it artificially difficult. What you are doing is just a really silly form of gatekeeping.

[Danioover9000]

@something_else

1 hour ago, something_else said:

Leo's video thumbnails are like one of the only things I can think of right now that could probably be totally replaced by an AI artist. AI art is exceptional when you want a single image that looks impressive, needs to vaguely represent a topic, but doesn't have any extremely specific details or requirements that require human levels of communication.

More power to him if that's what he's doing. A good artist would see this as a new tool to enhance their work. To follow your chess analogy, many great chess players use chess computers to enhance their own skill. AI is a tool used extensively by the masters of chess.

Our goal should be to make fields easier to get into, not gatekeep new people from joining a field by keeping it artificially difficult. What you are doing is just a really silly form of gatekeeping.

   However, by oversimplifying my issue as some form of gatekeeping is ridiculous. Life is a series of tradeoffs, and while it's noble to try to make one field of human endeavor accessible and easier to get into, the tradeoff is that some values like work ethic, patience, observation, skill, competency, understanding, beauty, excellence, are now more difficult to teach and train as those 'obstacles' and 'gate keeping elements' are no longer there, while fostering an attitude of the quick fix from just the sudden increase in convenience.

   Yes, I agree that convenience is increased, but at what cost? Contemplate that before giving me a cookie generic answer.

[something_else]

34 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

@something_else

   However, by oversimplifying my issue as some form of gatekeeping is ridiculous. Life is a series of tradeoffs, and while it's noble to try to make one field of human endeavor accessible and easier to get into, the tradeoff is that some values like work ethic, patience, observation, skill, competency, understanding, beauty, excellence, are now more difficult to teach and train as those 'obstacles' and 'gate keeping elements' are no longer there, while fostering an attitude of the quick fix from just the sudden increase in convenience.

   Yes, I agree that convenience is increased, but at what cost? Contemplate that before giving me a cookie generic answer.

Those values are then just learnt at higher levels of abstraction. And they’re open to more people. What you are doing is literally just gatekeeping, I’m sorry. There’s no other way to put it.

”Those AI artists making better art than me with less effort aren’t real artists”

[Danioover9000]

@something_else

40 minutes ago, something_else said:

Those values are then just learnt at higher levels of abstraction. And they’re open to more people. What you are doing is literally just gatekeeping, I’m sorry. There’s no other way to put it.

”Those AI artists making better art than me with less effort aren’t real artists”

   Those chess players performing much better than me, by cheating using A.I. chess programs to pick the best variations. They're real chess players.

   Why does gatekeeping exist?