• Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Since this article is regarding USA, it’s worse than that. We are living in the golden age of insanity.
    Delusional religious people and sociopathic Nazis have taken over USA.

    For the civilized world there are warning signs, but insanity is unlikely to take control.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        It not only gave way, it actually paved the way.
        Brainwashing about American individual freedom ideals, have become idolization of billionaire sociopaths as the ultimate expressions of individual freedom.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        “Dark Ages” comes from Renaissance and Enlightenment scholars saying, “Thank God we’re so smart. Those people were morons.”

        Also, it was after Rome really fell apart, darker times then the Empire certainly.

      • shneancy@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        in a way i think yes. in the dark ages at least any insane cults and ideas couldn’t spread far. if your village or castle happened to have dark ages version of ben shapiro then his words aren’t going to go far (unless they infected the local ruler as well, and even then it’d still be contained within your area, or your country at worst). If you were on the receiving end of insanity you could always just kind of– pack up and move to another village, walk 30km away and you’re like a new man! Worst case scenario find your way to a port, fuck off to another country - passports or border control did not exist, passage was often granted for free to those able bodied that joined the crew for the voyage.

        obviously i’m romanticising here a bit, modern medicine and technology makes day to day life easier. but it also makes other things much harder. our privacy is going extinct at an alarming rate, freedom of movement across borders belongs to distant memories of our great grandparents, (unless you’re french) your protests will be ignored and/or vilified, and if you dare care about other humans and speak up about it you can be labelled as a terrorist in some places

        i do truly hope that those years of unrest aren’t here to stay…

    • freedom@lemy.lol
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      2 months ago

      I’m starting to believe natural selection didn’t just get us to where we are, it kept us here.

      The genetic variation in the human brain will lead to more and more good and bad variations generation after generation. Stupidity used to have deadly consequences, now it’s just poverty (or the White House).

      Our society wants to be inclusive and accepting and liberating and safe, but what if that just doesn’t work with our current make? What if these mild deviations and mutations only progress forwards when the weak traits perish? We don’t have that mechanism anymore so weak and dangerous personality traits persist and continue to vote.

      It’s a scary thought, but I can’t see anything wrong with the logic, especially observing how it’s taking hold across the globe.

      • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        There is a social media aspect to this. We have amplified the worst behaviors and reenforced them with monetary gains. We broke the incentive structure in America where being a doctor was the highest calling. The media is also incentivized to spew division, we’ve basically made money the greatest reward in society, and only award it to the worst people. Its a really effective way to skew the sociopathic tendencies of the masses.

        • eldebryn@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Frankly, between blaming welfare and going for eugenics or blaming capitalism and going for socialism I’d much prefer the latter.

          • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            That was the early America I grew up in. We were taught to value the garbage man. We were taught to value anyone contributing to society. We were also taught to contribute to society. We had the history channel and uniform education where we all agreed on what happened in the past. We had media that would highlight noteable people and positive events in communities. You used to get the local TV spotlight by being a good person not a bad person. Anyway, the list could go on, but we could make America great again by bringing back some of the more socialist policies and educational practices that we had not even 20-30 years ago. We’ve been a socialist country since we decided public education for all and created social security. You don’t have to keep ramming the division part dude. You can just advocate for popular socialist policies. It’s way easier. Medicare for all. Improve public education, increase access to information, restore local media.

            Seriously, a lot of you leftists are more detrimental to socialist policies than any of the right wing. Think about how you advocate. The only difference between capitalism and socialism is how we allocate the capital and align it with social values.

            • eldebryn@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Don’t fucking tone-police me. I’m not a politician idgaf about being palpable or “appealing to all sides”.

              Being rude doesn’t make someone wrong and appealing to everyone doesn’t make one right either.

              I want socialism, education and welfare and decent living standarda for all. I want fascists and the multimillionaire class to stop existing. That’s it, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it.

              People need to be willing to accept that their votes have been supporting fascists and going against their best interests and they need to be willing to consider a different perspective for that. It’s not my responsibility to cater to those that spent their lives shitting on the very possibility of critical thinking.

              • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                Seriously though… what about a Democrat voter who is gay, but works for a Palantir founder because it makes the most money? What about people who are opposed in votes and ideology but complicit in actions? What of the millions of well off, well educated democrats who won’t sacrifice anything to oppose the fascists? I honestly hold them complicit as well. Fascism is totally fine as long as their QoL isn’t diminished. What do we do to convince those people? The ones who vote status quo while it gets worse every year? The slow enablers of fascism?

          • kreskin@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Does blame itself matter though? Can we steer opinions with such a thing and make real change or is that ability an illusion, and blame a …verbal masturbation?

            • eldebryn@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              I’d argue it does. You can’t improve things if you don’t first identify what the root cause of the problem is.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        It is not genetic, USA is not an old enough country to have had any significant genetic evolution.
        It is instead as Richard Dawkins has described Memetic.
        Americans have a tradition of being extremely proud of being free, this feature has been advertised as the most significant thing about USA to Americans to a degree that is akin to brainwashing.
        While freedom admittedly is a good thing, the way Americans praise it religiously has turned out to be toxic.
        Because sociopathy is now seen as the ultimate expression of individual freedom, so sociopathy is widely admired as a virtue.
        This combined with how sociopathy is often rewarded economically, because exploiting people and grabbing all the money for yourself is considered being smart, and the #2 thing religiously praised in USA is money that also reward sociopathic behavior.

        This is all about social standards, and the values of society, and has nothing to do with evolutionary shortcomings.
        That said, the way some people here claim you are pushing eugenics is completely baseless.

        But contrary to your thinking, it seems to me that evolution favor the intelligent more now than it ever did. The demands to intelligence to do well in society are ever increasing, and doing well is an advantage when wanting to have children.

      • kreskin@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I’m starting to lose hope in the progress of humanity at all. I am pretty sure we wont solve our critical problems. We just arent capable of doing so as a group. And we will keep bombing and burning until the planet cant sustain itself any longer. We are not really progressing in our social infrastructure and philosophies at all-- we might as well be humans from 5000 years ago, only sedentary, holding iphones and bathed in chemicals all day.

        • freedom@lemy.lol
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          2 months ago

          You’re the one bringing up eugenics buddy. Reading comprehension: the long lost art.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          That’s a conclusion you pulled out your ass, and is not supported in what he writes.