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Anonymous A started this discussion 7 hours ago#133,237
what makes the right wing spectrum
consistently victorious throughout history?
I imagine that 10-20 years down the road the right will still have a strong majority and presence throughout the world but like how and why?
Anonymous B double-posted this 3 hours ago, 7 minutes later, 4 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,261
Then "globally victorious throughout history" what does that mean? Left wing and right wing are relatively modern concepts, in antiquity, there was no concept of left wing or right wing, it didn’t exist prior to the French Revolution. So it’s not possible to say that left wing or right wing politics were victorious when nobody was using. The terms left or right before the late 1700s.
So okay, before the 1780s, it’s impossible to say the right was winning because there was no concept of left politics or right politics. What about after the 1780s what happened?
Let’s start with World War Two: the Nazis in Germany, the Fascists in Italy, and the imperialists in Japan were all three right wing totalitarian governments. The United States has a left wing party and a right wing party that swap power every so often, so it’s neither left wing nor right wing, it’s both. The Soviet Union and China were both communist which are definitively left wing authoritarian governments. What happened at the end of World War Two was Germany, Italy, and Japan were defeated and Europe was split between the US and the Soviet Union. This made the US and the Soviet Union the two most powerful countries in the world. The US was the largest economy and the Soviet Union was the second largest economy.
Then the Soviet Union fell, Japan became the second largest economy, but ultimately fell off, now they’re not relevant. So today, the largest economy is the US and the second largest is China. China is still led by a communist party and the US still maintains a two party system.
Anonymous B triple-posted this 3 hours ago, 8 minutes later, 4 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,262
Then if you look forward towards the future, Europe had a history of using racial ideology to justify imperialism. Even though European empires are long dead at this point, cultural attitudes in Europe have not entirely changed because this propaganda was drilled into their heads for so many generations.
So now what’s happening is because Europe and America wealthier than other parts of the world, people stopped having children. A similar thing has also happened in East Asia. Although, East Asia has a much higher population so it can lose more people than Europe can. Since Asia has been catching up to Europe economically and technologically, and since Africa has been experiencing population growth, the presence of non-whites in white majority countries has been growing over time which has led to the rise of right wing reactionaries.
Right wing reactionaries are a reaction to changes in demographics that can’t be solved through government policy. Either Europe will stop immigration from Africa countries and remain majority white but suffer economically and depopulate or Europe will accept immigration from Africa and retain their economic advantage. But no magical solution where Europeans remain both wealthy and white majority will happen. So inevitably, the European right can only accelerate the decline of Europe and there is absolutely nothing in their power they can do to prevent the inevitable.
However, by western standards, most African nations are right wing, but since western right wing politics are based around racial ideology, this is completely dismissed and ignored, which will make it harder and harder for right wing populists to win elections in the west as the racial demographics of western nations inevitably shift.
Anonymous B quadruple-posted this 3 hours ago, 3 minutes later, 4 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,263
Of course, what right wing reactionaries will naturally do is try to start conflicts in non-western nations, try to stop aid to non-western nations, exploit non-western nations economically etc. Although, the problem is, those actions are what led to this in the first place. Part of forgiven aid is providing healthcare which includes access to birth control and abortion, people who have more money tend to have fewer children, and economic exploitation tends to lead to resentment and populist anti western political movements. Africa never had a higher population than Europe until after it was exploited by Europe. The natural impulsive reactions the west will take if led by racist right wing governments will cause short term suffering for the non-western world, but in the long term will just make the global demographic shift even more inevitable than it already is.
Anonymous B replied with this 2 hours ago, 1 minute later, 4 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,266
This is especially the case in Africa and in Eastern Europe. African nations have much higher birth rates than Eastern European nations. The poorest Eastern European nations have gotten to the point where the richest African nations are beginning to overlap with the poorest Eastern European nations. For example, South Africa has a higher GDP per capita than Ukraine does. However, the key difference is that Africa has more potential for growth than Eastern Europe since Africa has a growing population and Eastern Europe doesn’t. This means that in the event of a major conflict, the population in Eastern European nations will not recover since they have low immigration and low birth rates. However, African counties would ultimately be much more resilient to a major conflict due to higher birth rates. This means that even if the west did try to go to war with African states, while the causalities would be higher on the African side than the European side, this would absolutely not lead to a world where there are more Europeans than Africans because Europeans would not recover from their losses while Africans would easily recover.
Anonymous B replied with this 2 hours ago, 3 minutes later, 4 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,268
@previous (C)
I know you have some type of weird obsession with humanoid robots, but in actuality technology doesn’t decrease human casualties in war. When you fire a missile the missile is intended to kill humans. Africans and European both have the capacity to manufacture missiles. Russia actually tried purchasing missiles from Egypt.
Anonymous B triple-posted this 2 hours ago, 4 minutes later, 4 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,274
If African nations really had militaries that were so inferior to western nations that there’s absolutely nothing they could do in retaliation and European nations would have acceptable losses, then somebody would be trying to invade Africa. But nobody is invading Africa. It’s not the entire reason but part of the reason why colonial empires ended is because the technological gap between western nations and African nations got smaller to the point where they’re not equal in terms of military might, but they have enough to deter invasion. And if that’s wasn’t the case then it wouldn’t be the case.
Anonymous B quadruple-posted this 2 hours ago, 3 minutes later, 4 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,275
Before the advent of gunpowder, Europeans couldn’t conquer Africans, and Africans conquered Europeans about the same amount as Europeans conquered Africans. For example, Spain was actually Islamic for hundreds of years because it was an African colony in Europe. Then gunpowder spread from China to Europe, Africans didn’t have gunpowder, that gave Europeans complete military superiority over Africa, and they completely conquered Africa. Then over the years, the international weapons trade grew, and more and more Africans gained access to weapons, and it became way too expensive for Europe to hold onto their African colonies. There isn’t any innate difference in intelligence that dooms Africans to be under the thumb of Europeans forever, and in fact, there are certain periods in history where Africans were capable of threatening the security of Europe.
Anonymous B quintuple-posted this 2 hours ago, 2 minutes later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,276
The thing people forget is, Europe colonized Africa in the late 1800s and it ended in the late 1900s. So Africa was almost completely under the control of Europeans for 100 years. But Spain was Islamic for 800 years.
Anonymous B replied with this 2 hours ago, 31 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,290
I said true and false are abstract concepts that don’t exist. Not everything is binary. It’s possible for something to be mostly true or mostly false but not completely true or completely false.
Anonymous B replied with this 2 hours ago, 1 minute later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,293
For example, some statements we accept as true "France is in Europe."
We accept that France is a country in Europe because it’s mostly true and in casual conversation everybody knows what we mean. But France isn’t completely in Europe.
Anonymous B replied with this 2 hours ago, 11 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,295
If someone said, "France is a country in North America" most people would have a gut reaction of, "No that’s stupid, France is European." But Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a part of France and it’s in North America, so it’s not 100% wrong. There are degrees of truth.
Anonymous C double-posted this 1 hour ago, 44 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,301
@1,420,299 (B)
It really doesn't, because once you determine whether "in" means "conpletely in", "mostly in", or "any part is in" you've completely cleared up any confusion.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 12 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,302
And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying, you gotta kinda go with it. Nobody is right 100% of the time, nobody is wrong 100% of the time. I think about things in terms of proportions.
Anonymous B double-posted this 1 hour ago, 35 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,303
@1,420,301 (C)
You’re only resistant to this because it’s not the way you think about things. But that has nothing to do with the way the world actually exists.
Anonymous C replied with this 1 hour ago, 25 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,307
@1,420,305 (B)
Yes, and no one denied the distinction.
What actually happened is that I said your example with France was a semantic issue, and now you're ignoring that point and trying to act like I denied continuous/probabilistic issues.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 2 minutes later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,308
Say in one case a is 60% true and b is 50% true.
Say in another case a is 60% likely to be 100% true and b is 50% likely to be 100% true.
How would you find either the probability that an and b is true or the degree of truth of a and b? You would multiply them either way.
The answer is 30% in the first case and 30% in the second case. They have a different meaning, in the first case the result is 30% true, in the second case it’s 30% likely to be true, but you can reason about the math the same way.
If there's a jar of marbles and 1/4th are red, 1/4th are blue, and 1/4th are green, and 1/4th are yellow there's no way to know which someone grabs if they grab blindly and randomly. There's a 25% chance of getting any specific color.
And this France question is not like grabbing marbles, because one is probabilistic and one is semantic. You seem incapable of understanding the difference.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 47 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,310
The reason why I’m switching between degrees of truth and probability is because languages is imprecise and what I’m getting at applies in both scenarios.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 1 minute later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,313
@previous (C)
I’m not confusing them. I never said France has a probability of being in North America or Europe. I was using the example that more of France is in Europe than North America. If you were randomly dropped in any location in France you’d be more likely to end up in Europe than North America. So when someone is talking about France they’re more likely to be talking about Europe than North America. There is a way to think about it in terms of probability. Semantics is based on probability.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 54 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,315
We don’t all come up with a rigid definition for where France is, we just have a general idea of what people usually mean when they say France, which is what I was getting at. The degrees of truth are analogous to probability.
Anonymous C replied with this 1 hour ago, 19 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,316
@1,420,313 (B)
You said there are degrees of truth on the matter, and there are not.
Truth is a property of facts, not semantics.
France either is or is not in Europe, depending on how the terms are defined. Vagieness of terms, and a poorly explained question doesn't change anything about the facts.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 43 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,317
@1,420,314 (C)
My point is that binary questions often aren’t really binary. Is France in Europe? Isn’t a binary question, but almost everyone you ever meet will answer it as if it is one. That’s what I’m getting at. The world isn’t really binary, you use binary to simplify the world to make it make sense to you.
If you want to have a clear and productive conversation you need to make sure you're speaking the same language, and that both sides have established what definition you are using for terms with multiple definitions.
Wording a question vaguely doesn't mean there's degrees of truth.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 4 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,319
@1,420,316 (C)
France isn’t in Europe or not in Europe based on how the terms are defined, because defining terms doesn’t change the borders of France in real life. It just changes the conceptual model you have inside your own head of what the word France means.
Anonymous B double-posted this 1 hour ago, 28 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,320
@1,420,318 (C)
Which is what I’m saying, you can’t actually do that, you always have to guess what the other person means based on what people usually mean.
Anonymous C double-posted this 1 hour ago, 1 minute later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,324
@1,420,322 (B)
No, it's simple enough to clarify terms beforehand.
Discussions where people are using different definitions are meaningless. That doesn't stop people from skipping the step of defining terms, and giving up on eatablishing a clear consensus.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 16 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,325
@1,420,323 (C)
What the definition means depends on what the words in the definition mean, which all depend on the definition of the words used in their definitions and so on. It becomes a circular problem. The only way out of it is guessing based on likelihoods.
Anonymous C replied with this 1 hour ago, 2 minutes later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,327
@1,420,325 (B)
It's not a circular problem because people do not learn language by starting with a blank canvas and reading the dictionary.
You start to learn by being in the world and seeing words relate to which objects and activities. Later on, you can use the terms you learned first hand to learn other concepts by checking the dictionary. It can define a new term in terms of worss you already learned.
The issue of France being in europe is a clear example of how easy this is to solve. I gave three examples of what "in" could mean, and once you pick one and explain it before giving the question all vagueness is cleared up. At that point, there's really no worss used in those three possible examples that have any vagueness that would confuse anyone.
Whether we agree that it is, or that it is not, depends on which of those three meanings of "in" we use. But once we pick on, there's no more confusion, and no one is trying to setermine the meaning of the words we used for any of those three definitions.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 39 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,330
What’s the difference between a door and a slab of wood? It depends if the slab of wood is on a hinge or not. What counts as a hinge? It’s all arbitrary. There will always be edge cases where people disagree based off of slight differences in experience and slight sensory differences. Like that dress that went viral a few years ago for example.
Anonymous C replied with this 1 hour ago, 37 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,331
@1,420,328 (B)
For the example we are using, whether France is in Europe, it is very clear.
Explain what you mean by "in" and we will both agree, and neither will need to clarify the meanings of constinuent words in any of the three definitions.
If the world is so messy, why would we agree for each of the three definitions?
Anonymous B double-posted this 1 hour ago, 58 seconds later, 5 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,333
But this is actually a real problem: if you ask different sources how many countries there are in the world you will get different answers. Because different countries recognize the existence of different numbers of countries.
Anonymous B triple-posted this 1 hour ago, 57 seconds later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,334
Like Taiwan for example. Everybody has strong opinions about that, but if you put that aside for a second, you can acknowledge that not everyone agrees if that’s a country or if that’s a province of China, and some of the parties that disagree on that are nation states.
Anonymous C replied with this 1 hour ago, 12 seconds later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,335
@1,420,330 (B)
The question of the dress was about how the brain perceives shadows and color. Some wouldsee different colors because their brain was trying to adjust for a shadow or not.
That's not degrees of truth or even semantics, it's a trick of neurology.
If you really wants to settle what color was being displayed on your screen you could use a dropper tool and get an exact hex code, which many people did in fact do.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 27 seconds later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,337
@1,420,335 (C)
Right but there are different types of cameras with different sensors and the same object will appear as different colors under different lighting even if you use a camera. A white piece of paper under a red light will look red no matter what camera you use, but the paper isn’t red.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 32 seconds later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,339
@1,420,336 (C)
Taiwan doesn’t change depending on what definition of a country you use. Changing definitions doesn’t change anything about the actual island itself it only changes what you think about the island.
Anonymous B double-posted this 1 hour ago, 3 minutes later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,340
There’s a quote I think is relevant to this:
Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."
Anonymous C replied with this 1 hour ago, 17 seconds later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,341
@1,420,337 (B)
If you are talking about limited information, like not knowing what camera was used, or how the environment distorted the colors then yes that could be indeterminate and probabilistic.
But what have you proved here? I never denied proabilistic/indeterminate issues exist.
What I actually said was that you are confusing semantic vagueness with probabilistic matters (at least for this France question). You've still made that mistake if you find an unrelated tipic that really is probabilistic.
Yet the author of that tried to explain their reasoning anyway.
You could stop thinking about everything in life because ultimately there's the Cartesian question about demons manipulating our minds, but accepting that broad philosophical view isn't an excuse to give up on all formal academic subjects.
Anonymous B replied with this 1 hour ago, 1 minute later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,345
@previous (C)
Is it what I would do? What if it’s what I would do sometimes and not other times because there’s only a probability that I take it seriously or don’t take it seriously.
Anonymous B double-posted this 1 hour ago, 2 minutes later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,346
Things with a zero probability can happen by the way. If you have the set of all integers and pull one number out and you get 6, the chance of that was zero, but it happened anyway. So what can be said about that?
Anonymous C replied with this 1 hour ago, 1 minute later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,347
@1,420,345 (B)
Imagine someone is caught stealing, and in their defense they explain that the security guard can't really be sure they stole because everything could be a hallucination.
It's not that they are certainly wrong in some grand philosophical sense, but anyone would recognize they've only brought up this topic because they want to avoid accountability.
And that's what you're doing. You don't understand the differences between semantic vagueness and probabilistic reasoning, and you refuse to admit the difference, so you've beought up some some grand philosophical idea that questions everything to avoid admitting you were wrong.
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 1 hour ago, 12 minutes later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,350
@1,420,347 (C)
The only reason why the scenario you outlined is silly is because the security guard should know that it is more likely that they’re not hallucinating. Which means you don’t understand probability yourself.
Anonymous D double-posted this 1 hour ago, 1 minute later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,351
You think probability isn’t rational but you just don’t understand that binary logic is nothing more than a consequence of probability when you set all the probabilities to 100% or 0%. It’s not actually fundamental.
Anonymous D triple-posted this 1 hour ago, 52 seconds later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,352
Quantum mechanics for example is probabilistic. Our world isn’t binary, there’s a physical limit to how small they can make transistors before quantum tunneling causes inconsistent results.
Anonymous D quadruple-posted this 1 hour ago, 49 seconds later, 6 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,420,353
Binary isn’t actually real, certainty is just a consequence of very extreme probabilities which tend to happen when you get larger and larger systems. We’re actually very enormous relative to the quantum scale.