Moderates don't Exist.

[Yukaphile]

Oh peddle your hippie talk somewhere else. Some pain is literally impossible to recover from. And if it is, the system is structured to such an extent that time, resources, money, and manpower will ensure they never get it. EVER. So what if we all fade into nothing? In oblivion is the PERFECT world. We are all equal. That's assuming that is what happens anyway. More and more in seems in recent years science is moving towards unlocking the secret on what happens to us in death. It seems as if something does indeed happen, but who knows what? Some kind of interior "thing" leaves. The cells remain active for a period after death, and the brain shrinks by three grams or something, who knew? Is it what we call the soul? Electromagnetism? Bottom line is we don't know, and yet I would assist a suicide, but let me emphasize this, only if there was no other WAY. All options had been explored, the pain is simply too hard to get past. But only then.

[Yukaphile]

This.

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

[AlucardNoir]

There have been AnarchoCommunist governments that never become oppressive or authoritarian, that only "failed' because a larger military shut them down. The Paris Commune and Catalnoia during the Spanish Civil War to name a few.

The Paris commune? I guess you're right, it never became oppressive, it was also never truly anarchist, and despite being a "commune" it still has quite hierarchical and bloody - and I don't mean it's end. The Paris commune took stuff the french government had claims on, and not just the land, but a few hundred cannons among other things. You don't get to take things from someone without that someone wanting to have "word" with you. That's why the Paris comune ended in blood and why the Soviet work camps were full in Siberia.

As for Catalonia... again, not really anarcho communist. There were anarchists, and there were communists, but they didn't really see eye to eye. Worse yet, the labor unions weren't really seeing eye to eye with the socialists and communist either, with nationalizations being a hot button topic for the political parties but not really something the unions were championing, quite the contrary. The real question is how things would have evolved should it had been left independent. My money is on the same way things devolved in Russia.

[AlucardNoir]

Oh peddle your hippie talk somewhere else. Some pain is literally impossible to recover from. And if it is, the system is structured to such an extent that time, resources, money, and manpower will ensure they never get it. EVER. So what if we all fade into nothing? In oblivion is the PERFECT world. We are all equal. That's assuming that is what happens anyway. More and more in seems in recent years science is moving towards unlocking the secret on what happens to us in death. It seems as if something does indeed happen, but who knows what? Some kind of interior "thing" leaves. The cells remain active for a period after death, and the brain shrinks by three grams or something, who knew? Is it what we call the soul? Electromagnetism? Bottom line is we don't know, and yet I would assist a suicide, but let me emphasize this, only if there was no other WAY. All options had been explored, the pain is simply too hard to get past. But only then.

1. I'm not a hippy.
2. That oblivion comment is either meaningless poetic sophistry or you believe in a soul, and I don't know which would be sadder.
3. And speaking of souls, it's not 3gr., it's 21gr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment
Fringe science, with "results" that have never been replicated since. And none of the other crap you brought up is any better.

People have been looking for a soul for a long time, if anyone found it we'd all know by now. There's a reason religions keep describing it as immaterial and supernatural, so they can't get caught when there is no physical evidence of the bloody thing.

As for the cells remaining active after death... you do realize you're a multicellular organism right? your cells aren't inteligent and bound to commit honorable suicide after the body dies. https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/when-we-die-does-our-whole-body-die-at-the-same-time/ They're cells, they don't have brains to decide that their life is now pointless and they should stop. They'll just complex chemical reactions that will continue as if nothing happened until they no longer have any fuel for said chemical reactions.

Seriously, accusing me of being a hippy when you peddle all this New Age pseudoscience crap?

[Yukaphile]

Why should we have found it? For all our clever intellect and gifts, we STILL haven't resolved some deep-seated and severe social issues that have been a plague since 100,000 BCE. Some have faded away as a function of time, like the aforementioned sacrifice, which hey, past rogue fringe fanatics like the cartels still clinging to ancient practices, is just amazing (that it's wiped out, not that they're doing that). I think all these older problems will dissolve as a function of time, but our own nature holds us back. Time and technology will help us along the path, but we haven't reached it yet. We are indeed, as Optimus had noted, still a YOUNG species with much to learn. In a cosmic second, we are barely a blink of an eye. Think about that.

And yet it is an innate truth to our existence THAT WE ARE GOING TO DIE. Where and when and how and why. And the way we deal with it. Look, if you're genuinely frightened about it and I prodded a sore wound, I apologize. The fear of death is also a way we need to cope, and reflect, and so on. I confess to feeling those once, not just fear, but borderline panic contemplating my own morality. But that was then and this is now. I'm not entirely sure I believe in a soul, but I am open to all possibilities. If it does exist, it is some form of energy or so on that we have yet to truly grasp and understand. The reason I'd slammed you as a "hippie" is this view you have that ALL life, no matter WHAT the cost, must be maintained. No matter what. "All costs." Life is too sacred to give up. To me, that's simply too high since all costs might be too many, and again, true tolerance doesn't come from agreeing with people who share your views, but those you disagree with. And I believe some pain is so severe, life is simply not life anymore, not worth living, all that made it joy is gone and you are now an empty shell that can NEVER come back. Those are admittedly few and far in between, but in the end, I think it'd have been kinder if they had died ultimately. I've heard of those stories. It is as scary as it is heartbreaking. Worse yet is to realize OTHERS HAD DONE THAT TO THEM. The hell is wrong with us you DO that to somebody?! Here's a question I'd like to give you with sincerity. If we just cease to exist when we die, then why do we remember everything up to this point? Where does that go? What is it? Nobody seems to know, and yet, it's a way I find this all comforting. It's nature. We're all equal before it, and we better start realizing that. We are all children of something greater, far bigger than all of us, the universe, whatever you wanna call it. And, well... the vid said it best.

"On the contrary, death is the ultimate fairness. Rich and poor, young and old, all are equal in death."

[Antiboyscout]

There have been AnarchoCommunist governments that never become oppressive or authoritarian, that only "failed' because a larger military shut them down. The Paris Commune and Catalnoia during the Spanish Civil War to name a few.

No, they just fractured into a hundred competing factions and turned their guns on rival communes instead. The infighting between the communes during the spanish civil war is legendary.

[TGLS]

I don't have any particular thing to post to quote here, but to AlucardNoir:

1) Nazi isn't an acronym. Please stop spelling it like it is.
2) If I understand your argument about why Communism is worse than Nazism, it's because more people were killed by Communists than Nazis. I don't think that holds water. You expand the area where you are counting atrocities from, as well as using an expanded timeframe. The only fair comparison (without engaging in counterfactuals), probably would be Hitler against Stalin, which Hitler wins, even with antiquated pre-Soviet Collapse statistics.
3) Most of this is irrelevant. After a certain point, the actual numbers become meaningless. It's not as if the mass murder of "only" 10 million people when someone else killed 11 million people makes you some kind of paragon of virtue.

[Yukaphile]

I mean, I agree the Soviets were worse, but at the same time, you CAN be a Communist and be anti-Soviet. I know many among my inner circle. And death count means nothing except to the living who will feel the guilt or worse yet, shrug it off. At least the dead have their peace in death and freedom from this awful place.

[AllanO]

Every Election I can member (they start with 92) the General Election candidate perceived at the time as the moderate lost.

I question that that was true, if Hillary Clinton was a moderate then so was Barack Obama both because she was see as continuing his policies and because when they ran against each other in the 2008 primary as I recall they were quite close. Hillary Clinton and her husband were seen as politically close so if she's a moderate he probably is, they chose Gore (who you are presumably labeling a moderate) as the Veep and so on. Now you said "at the time" I think likewise looking prospectively the same conclusion results. Bill Clinton was a Democratic governor of a conservative southern state (Arkansas), therefore was perceived as a moderate Democrat just like Mitt Romney was perceived as a moderate Republican because he was a Republican governor of a liberal Northern state. George W. Bush sold himself as a "compassionate conservative" clearly trying to moderate an image of conservatives as hard line and advocating for things like comprehensive immigration freform that were seen as moderate as I recall, Barack Obama talked about hope and change but at the same time called for bipartisanship and admired Reagan for his ability to motivate and reach a broad swath of the electorate.

The 1992 there was actually a non-moderate running, Ross Perot, but he was not a Republican or a Democrat so that probably explains his loss as much as anything.

Basically every US political race since 1992 except 2016 has been a case of two moderates attempting to win the presidency, so the only possible outcome has been for the moderate to win. The media calls for moderates because it reflects the opinion of the majority of the people, now there is no single opinion the majority hold but the closest to it is the combination of moderate independents, moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, they all want moderate politicians (or rather politicians most of whom's policies would be called moderate in that election cycle but with some policies that are not so moderate) but are not that politically engaged. The politically more active people are often not that moderate and so the media reports on how candidates have to take a more doctrinaire line in the primary and then swing to the centre in the general election because that is what they need to do to win the actual election.

Now actually everyone has a complex mix of political views and so there is indeed no moderate political view. However in fact the views we take as moderate are the ones that most people can live with such that they do not take to the streets or otherwise completely disengage or feel unrepresented by politics. Choosing a politician is often a matter of ordering a pizza, the pizza that gets ordered to be shared between a large group of people is not the one topped with anyone's favourite combo on it, because one person's favourite is unpalatable to the majority. The argument that the media is the one leading to moderates is the argument that we would have anchovies on the common pizza if only the media was not so anti-anchovy rather than admitting that lots of people don't like anchovies. People of strong political opinion (on all sides) often believe everyone does or would agree with them, but are held back by some nebulous outside forces like the media.

The political process is a matter of people being engaged and convincing other people to adopt the policies you think make sense, then those policies actually working when implemented and everyone adjusting their opinion from there and so on. What is moderate or not changes from election to election as the political landscape changes and the change in that landscape is often driven by more committed and decisive political action by people. So indeed trying to triangulate a moderate opinion is foolish; you pursue the agenda you think makes most sense/is most justified, tempered by a question of what you think you can actually get done in the current landscape, remembering the landscape itself is subject to change over the longer term.

I am not sure the media's description and use of the term moderates actually reduces to the sort of being a definite position you can aspire to the videos suggests rather than a sort of classification of the dynamics of the race at a particular moment. I think the discourse is complicated and contradictory.

The US system has been remarkably stable for 200+ years, except for that one civil war, and has seen the non-violent transfer of power over and over again. It may yet fall to internal tyranny yet, but so far it has gotten along. The system of checks and balances are indeed a mechanism that tends to moderation and prevents any actor from dragging things to some dramatic change and this indeed is to the benefit of the status quo of course it also makes it hard for some special interest to drag things to their benefit all at once. However even if the US system sort of enshrines incrementalism this does not mean that dramatic change is impossible. Just to pick up on one of the themes of the video if switching to single payer health care is an example of a significant change then it seems like an example of a significant change that is perfectly possible to achieve under the American electoral system. I do not think comparisons to Weimar Germany makes much sense at this point, although perhaps I am naive.

[LittleRaven]

But like the Centrists of Weimar Germany if push comes to shove they will deem the far right the lesser evil because at least their insanity is amenable to Capitalism.

Well, sure.

The Nazis say "We're going to take away your freedom of expression. We'll burn your books and regulate your art. We're going to raise your children as robots of the state, and we'll probably have to kill a lot of your fellow citizens. It's terribly unfortunate but it's the only way to ensure a better tomorrow."

The Communists say "We're going to take away your freedom of expression. We'll burn your books and regulate your art. We're going to raise your children as robots of the state, and we'll probably have to kill a lot of your fellow citizens. It's terribly unfortunate but it's the only way to ensure a better tomorrow. Oh, and we're going to have to take all your stuff."

It's that last bit that's the kicker.