Curb Your Authoritarianism? The 2016 Conventional Wisdom Thread (Elections, Part 6)

Changing my prediction. England leaves EU, markets collapse, Cubs beat White Sox in World Series, Trump elected, World War III, world ends.

I still don't think the GOP gives him the nomination. Desperate times, man

There are clearly a lot of people in the world who need to be told that there are quicker and less painful ways of committing suicide than doing so at the ballot box.

feeling a little less positive about how things might turn out in November

http://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.2200745.1421947005!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpg

The FT OpEd post making the rounds concludes with:

Thirdly and most significantly, we now live in a post-factual democracy. When the facts met the myths they were as useless as bullets bouncing off the bodies of aliens in an HG Wells novel. When Michael Gove said the British people are "sick of experts" he was right. But can anyone tell me the last time a prevailing culture of anti-intellectualism has lead to anything but bigotry?

Is that ever not true?

http://gawker.com/trump-delivered-his-scotland-press-conference-surrounde-1782552300

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CltzHqGXIAAtCNL.jpg:small

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CltzHqpWQAA8zs0.jpg:small

he just tweeted that people in Scotland are "going crazy" about the vote and how proud he is that they "took their country back", making me wonder if he knows that Scotland was very strongly against it or even what Brexit is in general

he doesn't know shit iirc

OTM. He didn't even know what Brexit was when asked about it, what, two weeks ago? It's gonna be so rad having someone with so much curiosity and such a thirst for knowledge in charge of our nuclear arsenal.

I'm at the point where I'm convinced that we have a subconscious understanding of our impending doom as a species re: cataclysmic climate change and some among us are doing what we can to speed up the process.

old lunch otm

btw this is why you don't vote for Jill Stein and Gary Johnson:

https://twitter.com/EdwardTHardy/status/746260079645720576

Never act as if your vote doesn't count.

indeed, in the interview with Michael Wolff in the I think the holllywood reporter a few weeks ago, DJT was clearly bullshitting when asked about Brexit.

I don't think voting for Stein or Johnson is the problem. I think the problem will be people voting for Trump to "send a message" who don't really think he could win, as you see with some of the Brexit voters. I also have seen unverified accounts that the voter turnout for people 18-24 was abysmal compared to everyone else; I am looking for a demographic breakdown of voter turnout to verify this but am having problems finding any useful information (the breakdown of what percentage of a particular demographic is easy to find but I can't find voter turnout broken down by demographic group).

maybe this is just me desperately trying to connect the dots, but it feels like at the very moment that WWII is passing from living memory (anyone who was an adult at the end of the war would be at least 89 years old now), people are finding their way back around to forms of politics that the nazi defeat had discredited for generations.

for my whole life i felt like the "never again" stuff almost needn’t be said because america—much less europe—wouldn’t slip en masse into the same kind of reactionary, vengeful politics that produced WWII. but i don’t feel confident of this anymore, and i start thinking about futures where my neighbors (or myself) are herded into concentration camps.

vast majority of european political history driven by reactionary vengeful (and xenophobic/intensely tribal) politics

so we're seeing a return to the mean imo

or is it the median? whatever

it is definitely "mean" in more than one sense

maybe this is just me desperately trying to connect the dots, but it feels like at the very moment that WWII is passing from living memory (anyone who was an adult at the end of the war would be at least 89 years old now), people are finding their way back around to forms of politics that the nazi defeat had discredited for generations.

This seems super otm. Add decades of substandard public education to the mix and a resultant de-emphasis on understanding history and critical thinking skills and this is what you get. IMO, people should be constantly asking themselves what 'civilization' even means and why it exists and how it's perpetuated rather than just assuming that shit will be okay no matter what, who cares, vote for Trump and jerk off in the street like a dumb ape while firing an assault rifle into the air.

I don't know a ton about Europe but as best I can tell it was basically defined by tribal warfare on scales from local to continent- and world-spanning for a thousand years

on a related note, I am seriously considering getting a gun

I mean maybe there haven't been civilizations in the last two millennia that haven't spend most of their time and resources on plundering and despoiling abroad and bloody fratricide at home?

I am seriously considering getting a gun

you have children, plz don't do this

i have that thought every couple weeks but in the end the fear of my family getting hurt always edges out my fear of the US degenerating into some kind of post-apoc the road scenario. but if it starts to look like civilization is truly breaking down... xxp

a thousand years

think you can track it back a little further than that, more like 2,500 years (at least)

xp

I think the fact that so many people appear to be stubbornly, willfully ignorant is a big difference. Too many people apparently just don't give a fuck for no reason. Post-factual era indeed. We are in the era of people demanding proof, then just dismissing said proof because it does not conform to their expectations or beliefs. People don't vote because who gives a shit. Or vote for people who act like they don't give a shit, which is not giving a shit squared.

as per usual joni mitchell otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWwUJH70ubM

josh, none of those things are particularly new...

xpost

(also, that's the worst joni mitchell song.)

the fact that there was actually a vote instead of some insanely bloody mass uprising is progress of some sort...

xp

i like that joni mitchell song but i understand why some ppl find it kinda... idk what don't you like about it? it's kinda corny? but she's still otm. it's hard to be grateful for what you have.

I think what is new is that it has never been easier for anyone to be educated, or to find the facts, or to seek out answers to questions they might have. We have no excuse other than just rampant assholery.

b/c it's one of the joni songs that really just reduces to cliché. and it has a awkward melody. and i hate the way she sings the "pave paradise" alliteration.

she's capable of much, much more.

xpost Facts have never been more widely-available but how many people have the ability/time/wherewithal to sift through the equally widely-available bullshit to even figure out what's true?

And when you have people like Trump who will say a thing and then say pretty much the exact opposite of that thing a day later like that was his position all along.

I like how Trump was in Scotland talking about how excited the locals were about leaving the EU, somehow totally oblivious to the fact that Scotland voted to remain

'somehow'

I can't tell if he is a bigger dick or a bigger dummy.

Certainly the inexplicable distrust of Authority or experts makes it difficult to process information. If you are paranoid or prone to conspiracy theories, who can you trust? Certainly not the people promising answers or facts.

xpost It must not have been in this morning's Google News printouts about himself.

lol

The increasing dismissal of 'facts' and 'experts' is, I fear, the thing that will ultimately lead to me building myself a nice lean-to out in the woods somewhere and living off of twigs and berries until I mercifully croak.

Good morning!

Talk us off the ledge Alfred

you have children, plz don't do this
― Οὖτις, Friday, June 24, 2016

If you are paranoid or prone to conspiracy theories, who can you trust?

josh, none of those things are particularly new...

Everything from global warming to gun ownership to every statement from the "lie-beral" media is handwaved away by a growing segment of the American public now. That seems to be to be a sort of recent development?

Facts alone won't change your mind if you have an entire belief architecture erected against them. Shit, the majority of a perseon's beliefs are inherited & reinforced by family and social means, not concluded.