Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
"We shouldn't worry our pretty little heads with The Big Issues and just let The People In Charge handle it" reads as a pretty fair summary of Kaiserguard's entire politics.
Don't read the news
- Thread starter Tahuti
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Tahuti
Writing Deity
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Well, we are in charge collectively, with the corallary that no one is charge. I don't want this thread to degenerate 'no-you-not-me' battle, though I think the status quo is actually far closer to your politics than mine. No person in a given polity has a decisive sway, so there are not really people in charge we can leave political decisionmaking down to.
Kennigit
proud 2 boxer
Aaaaw
No one has called me pretty before
No one has called me pretty before
KMRblue1027
Deity
Isn't he a monarchist? That makes so much sense now.
Paul in Saudi
Emperor
Do not read the news from upstate New York this morning. Prayer is needed.
==eta==
They were found safe.
==eta==
They were found safe.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
The system works against you using knowledge that works against the system. So it's going to take a lot of personal work to stay personally informed.
What's helpful about the forums is that we have people with and without coherent ideologies pulling information from the same and from different sources, and we can at least touch the moods of this plethora. It's like having sensor towers up in SC2.
What's helpful about the forums is that we have people with and without coherent ideologies pulling information from the same and from different sources, and we can at least touch the moods of this plethora. It's like having sensor towers up in SC2.
Each individual social media post has just as much of an agenda or slant as a news story, if not more. The benefit is in the ease with which you can access multiple points of view (as compared to just reading the same old morning newspaper), but you aren't obtaining that benefit unless you actually seek out those multiple points of view.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Kaiser, how close to home do you think news becomes relevant?
For instance, plane crash in Ukraine. No one I personally know was involved. The link I have is many from the Netherlands died and I live in the Netherlands. Now I don't count that as being relevant. If none from my country had died it would not alter the extend of the tragedy.
Here's the thing though. In my opinion we should be emphatic creatures. Empathy only is effective outside our direct social circles.
For instance, plane crash in Ukraine. No one I personally know was involved. The link I have is many from the Netherlands died and I live in the Netherlands. Now I don't count that as being relevant. If none from my country had died it would not alter the extend of the tragedy.
Here's the thing though. In my opinion we should be emphatic creatures. Empathy only is effective outside our direct social circles.
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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I'm not sure what this post is about.
But is prayer actually ever effective?
I remember a study into its effectiveness carried out in the C19th (iirc). Some guy realized that the health of the UK royal family was prayed for every Sunday in a hundred thousand parish churches. Surely, he reasoned, if prayer had any effect, it would be apparent in the good health of members of the royal family.
After allowing for such things as medical care and diet, he found no such effect: the royals were no healthier than anyone not the subject of such well-wishing.
Of course, the effects of prayer may be confined to the one who prays. Don't let me stop you. (I knew you wouldn't.)
Tahuti
Writing Deity
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Considering I know people who were directly involved in the crash (i.e. had friends die during the crash), I would have heard of it regardless whether it was reported in the news. In my case, the news is pretty relevant as well.
Empathy may only be effective outside our social circles, yet it is within our social circles empathy is developed.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
Prayer is effective in the mind of the one doing it. Like meditation. It has bugger all effect beyond that.
Paul in Saudi
Emperor
It has great effect. It give calm, it aids in understanding it clear the mind. I am surprised an educated person would not know that. It will not bring little girls back, it will not help you draw a queen to finish out a flush.
Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
In your case. But what about mine?
I disagree about the development of empathy. Within your social there is less need for it, just because of your direct involvement. If you limit the information you recieve beyond that you will decrease your ability to emphathize if that's even a word.
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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Hmm. I took you to be referring to some piece of news. And calling for prayer as a response to it.
(I'm not an educated person, btw. Hope this clears up any confusion you may have on the subject.)
Paul in Saudi
Emperor
Forgive me, I am not trying to be cryptic. A pair of little Amish girls were kidnapped in upstate New York this morning my time. They have since been released and are being cared for.
I found it to be a horrid story even in a week of horrid news.
I found it to be a horrid story even in a week of horrid news.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Fascism was dependent on hierarchical control of the media. It had outright censorship. It's not what we have today, if if mass media is more concentrated now that it was in the past. Which is something I won't even discuss, because I don't have the data to judge on that.
That the press (and mass media in general) existed in the modern age was an inevitability of the modern age, because of its technology. Fascism used it, might have been "enabled" by it, but was not an inevitability stemming from it. Proof: it didn't take hold in all states. It only took hold where it captured state power (due to specific circumstances in exact country) and afterwards suppressed democracy and used that state power to control the media in order to prevent any adversaries from challenging the new ruling clique.
The fact that they felt they had to take control of the media to remain in power says a lot about the role of mass media: that far from being an enabler of totalitarian regimes, it is a threat to such regimes, one they will try (and may succeed) to control in order to remain in power. A free media (as in freedom of speech, of the press and all that) is a threat to all static hierarchies.
The solution to a situation where the mass media is already largely subservient to those in power is not to simply struts on your "local wise men", because those take their cues from above anyway.
A bit off-topic, a commentary on the politics of corporatism/fascism vs. democracy. The corporate aspect of the fascist state was just a way to freeze relations of power. Mussolini and his fellows were essentially opportunists making their ideology as they went. If the corporation looks about your needs (bread and circus!), why would you want to stir things? If you do then you surely must be a malfeasant, and will justifiably be arrested and "disappeared"...
But as it turns out every time some regime has this bright idea, a lot of people out there, in every age and in every place, want more than just bread and circus. They have their own ideas about how to run their life, often the lives of others also. In the absence of social mobility, that will turn into frustration and a dedication to overthrowing the system. The hierarchy will propagate itself through the usual nepotist ways, and other ambitious people (many of them likely smarter) who are denied access will be busy finding ways to overthrow it. It may take a few generations, but the end result has always been the same.
Democracy, for all its flaws, at least short-circuited this cyclic mess into short cycles that hopefully are managed without damage to society as a whole.
