See, there are plenty of things we can disagree on and have a rational conversation about.

Are important services better provided by private corporations or government departments?
Does your right to free expression override other people's right to freedom from harassment?
How can we manage the economy while protecting the environment?
Most of these come down to individualism vs collectivism, and that's far from a settled question; I personally doubt it can be settled... life is too nuanced.

But there are some questions that are settled. The vote is in and the answer is known, and if you disagree, well, you're just on the wrong side of history. You are the Catholic church arguing the earth is the centre of the universe.

If you think that it's ok to discriminate against gay people.... you're a moron.
If you think climate change is a hoax... you're a moron.
If you're a creationist... you're a moron.
If you believe in homeopathy... you're a moron.

I don't have to "convince" you that those things are true. Your opinion on them is irrelevant. So is mine. They are done. If I change my mind tomorrow and decide that creationism is real, it won't alter reality one bit.

This is the problem with Trump.

I disagreed with Romney. I didn't like him and I felt a lot of his ideas were bad. Hell, I'm not a huge fan of Clinton either. But it's possible to have a rational discussion on their stances.

Trump may have one or two semi-reasonable positions, but so what? They are completely overshadowed by all his awful positions.

Seconded. You can subscribe to feminism and individualism, or feminism and collectivism, or any other combination of these different schools of thought - one is not 'better' than the others in the sense that a hammer isn't 'better' than a saw or a drill.

The way that the internet is turning actual schools of thought and study into 'teams' to be on is the same mechanism that drives a lot of amateur identity politics. "I don't want to be on team feminist because that team is rude on twitter, so I'll be on team humanist" is a sentiment that works great in vlogs, but which kicks all the actual thought and theory behind humanism and feminism, respectively, to the curb in favor of team politics. This is not to say that we shouldn't have 'teams,' just that we can make up those teams without discarding years of high quality thinking and actual crisp definitions.

Agreed.

They managed to turn a treatise on Nietzsche's abyss and the nature of Anarchy & Fascism; into a one sided fairytale about extreme neo-conservatism vs pseudo-liberal collectivism.

& don't get me started on the fucking "eggy in a basket"!

V is supposed to be a god-damned monster, not a relatable hero.

Reading V after seeing this film was what made me truly understand why Alan Moore wants nothing to do with film adaptations.

Many self professed feminists believe it is about hating men too, but I assume "no true feminist" would ever do that right?

I wasn't trying to wilfully misunderstand you, but rather to pursue my whole contention about any political/social argument:

Individual People and specific arguments over ideologies always.

When the reverse is true and ideology is placed before people or the specific merits of an argument, the result is dehumanising and anti-intellectual (even if by the slimmest margins sometimes).

That's not to say that, where mutual understanding already exists, ideological terms are completely useless. But the moment individuals disagree, those ideological assumptions are going to get in the way of a productive dialogue.

My whole point I guess is that this seems rather anti-humanist if you will pardon the irony of taking an ideological position.
If as a humanist one believes that the optimal way is for everyone to be judged only on the merits of their individual words, deeds and capacity.

Rather than by culture, race, gender or some other involuntary and/or irrelevant factors.

Assuming you agree in principle with that definition of humanism in terms of goals, then what we are arguing here really is collectivism vs individualism.

You are suggesting we can get better results by pushing the "right" version of said ideology and suppressing the "wrong", correct?

I am arguing ultimately that we seem to get better results in the long term, by encouraging free and critical thought and allowing all ideas (no matter how egregious) a fair fight.

This puts me contrary to many tenets of the various feminist ideologies and concordant with others. Sometimes wildly so.

If I want to try to be a good humanist, I have no choice but to try and understand each on their own terms.

When someone describes themselves as a "Feminist", that could mean anything from "kill all men" to "women should have fundamental legal equality".

It seems almost as redundant as racial and cultural epithets, it tells me very little really important about you or how you really think, to know you are Black, or White or Asian or Polish, Spanish etc. etc. It's just another excuse to put an idea above the person in front of you or to not have to think too much about ones own.

i.e. Collectivist thinking.

I think this may represent the very antithesis of intellectual progress.

However I am a Hegelian and I just defined a Thesis-antithesis relationship............ That means the next great breakthrough should lie in the synthesis of the two.......

................

Collective individualism! All we should need is a mass movement of free critical thought and.....bollocks.

It's over people, we have officially peaked as a species! I'm calling it

Didn't watch the video, but did skim the comments... Christ...

First off, moving to Canada and any other decent first world nation be it New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Iceland, Netherlands, Canada etc... not as easy as just packing up and moving. You need a very narrow set of skills to move to those countries. We looked into all this countries, and all of their entry requirements exceeded what we had to offer them. People always say if you don't like it leave, but that ignores several facts. It isn't we don't like it, we just think it can be improved, change isn't bad. Humanity isn't bad. Caring for those less fortunate isn't bad. Guaranteeing everyone a minimum level of affordable health care isn't bad. Working to insure that all workers get a living wage (the way we used to have before the employers/owners started getting greedy and redistributing more wealth to themselves), isn't a bad goal, in fact it's a very good thing. The famed clip from the Newsroom's first episode when he goes on about how America isn't great anymore but it used to be...

Of course the whole concept of American exceptionalism, or any nation exceptionalism is flawed. We are all humans on this planet. Being American doesn't make you superior to somebody born in China or Mexico, Ethiopia, Syria or anywhere else. Location of birth is an accident of timing... and if it is divine intervention by God that placed you here instead of Ethiopia where you may have starved to death with an inflated malnourished belly despite all your prayers, then God is an ass and not worth serving. So if he's not an ass, then it is pure accident that you are here and not there. To think oneself superior and better than somebody in another nation because of their location of birth, and the religion that comes with that location, is insanity. And I draw that all ways. The Muslims who despise Christianity for not being the true faith, and Christians who despise Islam for not being the true faith. You are your faith by accident of birth, be it location and/or parentage etc... all of which is getting away from the point. Which is simply that to say that Chinese worker doesn't deserve a job manufacturing something that you think you should be building is asinine and not respectful of their humanity and a complete lack of any sort of empathy. Christ, I have Aspergers and I have more empathy in my farts than the entire Tea Party Christian Right.

Yes we need to respect the individual, but "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"... and that quote is in context and not just a cherry pick sample. If it benefits just one and damages the many, then it is not a good thing. Most every faith in the world has some variation of the Golden Rule, to treat others the way you want others (not that specific person, but people as a general whole) to treat you. Christianity's Christ went further and said the greatest commandment was love, to show love to one another. Greed and selfishness is not love. Collectivism has many faults as well, but it isn't tyranny, and is certainly better for society as a whole in the long run than unrestrained greed motivated individualism. Like Pink Floyd's song, On the Turning Away, says, we are all "just a world we all must share". We can't turn away from the coldness inside towards others. We need to lift all of humanity up. Perhaps showing the Muslims love instead of hate and bigotry would convince them that perhaps Christianity isn't the enemy, that perhaps it is the answer, but showing them hate, and bigotry... and denying refugees trying to flee a horrible civil war is bigotry and hatred, and the fact that a rather disturbingly large percentage of the right can't see that isn't bigotry and hatred is scary beyond measure. I again find it amazing that people could lack that much empathy without a neurological disorder.

To invade others, tell them how to live their lives, to force democracy on them if they aren't ready, to insult them and belittle their faith, and all that isn't world building. It isn't reaching out with empathy. It's hate. It's bigotry and as noted by artician, it's what helps drive people to fly into buildings. They know that they know that their faith is the right one, and the lack of empathy to see that people of the Muslim faith have just as much faith in their religion as Christians have in theirs, that they have the same amount of knowledge and comfort from god that they are the correct faith, is what drives extremism.

And oh my god the guns. Guns would have saved the Jews. American mainland can't be invaded because too many people own guns... ask the Branch Davidians how well having not only military grade weapons but also training on how to use them worked for them against a slightly militarized police force, let alone an actual military. Yes, it would be incredibly hard, and resistance would probably eventually wear any invading force down the way the Taliban wore the Soviets down, or the Viet Cong did against the US Military might. So perhaps that can be counted as a victory, but would be long fought. Look, I support gun ownership. All I really call for is 1) allowing the CDC get back to it's job of collecting the data and finding out what's really going on with gun violence, and 2) closing the gun show loophole unless the CDC's investigation shows that it has zero effect, 3) you have to have a legal ID to own a gun and can't be on the no fly list, 4) the existing background checks kept the same, but also add a drug test, the right wants drug tests for welfare, then we should be testing for gun owenrship too. (I see little reason for "assault weapons" but aside from perhaps having perhaps a slightly better background check, I don't know if a ban yet needs to be called for, but I'm in the middle here.) Once we have have better data points from the CDC then we can really tackle the issue of gun violence. Yes, it will take years to get those answers, but I find it insane that the Republicans refuse to allow the investigation to go on, which says to me that they are afraid of what the data will show.

Unless you are nearly a pure Native American, then you are a refugee to the US.

The primary problem here and around the world is poverty and lack of proper education. This drives people to crime and extremism in religion which makes them susceptible to acting out terrorist acts, be it in the name of Allah (as is the public perceived norm) or Christ (ala the Planed Parenthood terrorist attack, the 2011 Norway attacks, etc). We need to address the growing income and wealth gaps. The way to doing that isn't by giving those at the top even more tax breaks and losing regulations (which is funny thing to complain about, too many regulations here in the US, meanwhile the same people complain about the low quality Chinese goods that aren't safe due to low regulations and poor labor conditions etc). We need to push education, and proper STEM programs, not deflated science trying to force Creationism in via so called "Intelligent Design" or "teaching the controversy" stick to the actual science. Don't object to the "new math" if it's teaching better fundamentals of understanding what the numbers are actually doing even if it doesn't teach the shortcuts we were taught... and lots of the stuff people complain about is just the fact we don't skip right to the shortcut that works. Yes, it works, but it helps if they better understand the underlying fundamentals of the numbers and the actual math. Again, change isn't a bad thing, to object just because you don't understand or don't like it compared to the simplified shortcut we all learned doesn't make it bad. Reading also needs pushed, and understanding of logical fallacies and logical and faulty thinking.

I believe that a post scarcity world is impossible due to the nature of humanity. There are far too many greedy people that will never want the world to get to that point. However, that should be the noble goal. Post scarcity society has many issues, but perhaps by the time we actually got there we'd be able to solve them.

TLDR: Basically it all comes down to empathy. To view everything as the others view it. I get the fear and panic and all that the right has, and not just because I once upon a time was a right wing evangelical Christian who called those who received food stamps lazy bums, who said that Democrats and the liberals just wanted to keep the poor trapped so they would always need help. Yes, I was there and that helps, but I can still empathize with them without that past. I've never been a Muslim raised in a nation dominated by Islam, but I can still empathize with the way they see what the US is doing to them, the way they have to see people like Donald Trump and the scary amount of Americans that support him. It's easy to see why some are driven to extremism. I can empathize with that Mexican who just wants a better life and knows that Mexico can't give it to him so he has to risk it all to try and immigrate to the US. I can empathize with the Chinese worker who has been given an opportunity to build something, to escape the poverty... for while perhaps still poverty, less poverty than before, and I'm thankful that I got that opportunity, and I'm sorry that somebody in the US doesn't get to do it, but I'm a human too. Empathy. Learn it. It can be learned, neurological disorder or not.

We can do whatever we want in our country. Just as you can do whatever you want in yours. Don't like America or Americans then go to your router and block the CIDR from ARIN.net and you'll never see another one.

Every country should have pride in their country. That's why we stay in our respective countries and will die to defend our country and way of life.

Individualism is freedom
Collectivism is social retardation and revisionism.

So enjoy whatever you want, if you like Islam then by all means be one.

But as an individual I can hate whoever I want and think however I want and associate with whoever I want. That's the freedom of individualism.

Sadly seems you've fallen victim to weak minded movement pushed by political correctness known as Collectivism. And the proof is collectivists HATE individualism and us that stand up for it and will die for it.


And no the word "refugee" don't exist to Americans, we don't run. We all take up arms.

A quote often misattributed to Japan general, but still rings true regardless:

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass"

with political correctness and collectivism group think destroying individualism and making individualism a bad word labeling them "racist, misogynist, intolerant,etc" the world is slowly turning into what was seen in the movie "Idiocracy".

Now you add this type shit to mix and you will have the mentality of Idiocracy combined with the culture of humans shown in Wall-E.

Herd of like minded tolerant sheep fatties on hoveround mobility scooters.

The "integration" of foreign cultures into Danish society should not be blamed for the current political or economic state of the country. Particularly when it is the very xenophobia (to put it generously) expressed in that sentiment which is more likely at the root of those difficulties. The historical success of the economic model in Denmark was not dependant upon the monoethnic values that existed in the country before the current influx of immigrants. Although it's fair to say that the collectivism inherent in the tribal attitude of Nordic countries was key in smoothly implementing and maintaining successful socialism in the region, it is not fair to blame new immigrants if it falters. Perhaps true integration would have been beneficial to the system, rather than segregation and blame.

Puting all that aside, the US would never, could never, implement Nordic socialism. It is true that we are a different culture with a very different set of goals and challeneges. If socialistic policies were implemented it would be a distinctly American Socialism. In speaking of political or economic systems we often err by contextualizing them in absolute terms. As if "socialism" means only one thing. But the fact is that the democracy we practice in the US shares little with the democracy practiced by the ancient Romans. When speaking of socialism, we need to put it in context. Is it post WW2 Swedish socialism? Modern Sri Lankan socialism? These are necessarily different things. Similarly, it is possible to implement modern US Socialism as a system that is uniquely reflective of our culture. In theory anyway. In reality, the challenge of employing socialism in, arguably, the most individualistic culture in the world, may be insurmountable.

Im not racist, problem is political correctness want's to erase preference. I don't find them attractive. That's not racist. I have 3 black women that work for me. I hired them, but I'd never find them attractive. You can't choose a preference. And if I find it very unattractive then that's a preference not racism.

but sjw collectivism folks will try and spin it any way they can to get their way. So spin it however, I know what it is, and that's all that matters.

Individualism will always destroy Collectivism.

I'm prejudice but that's because its human nature. I find black women disgusting ugly. But that's just me, I can't see them any other way. Its ugly. I don't like dark tanned women either.

Moron political correctness sjw mongs need to quit labeling preference as racism. I personally find idea of 2 guys rutting gross, heck even Jim carrey puked in his movie after seeing it. Many find it gross, but that's just personal preference.

I won't tell others how to live, but I want to live my way and no sjw PC retard will get me to do otherwise.

Political correctness sjw, want to force everyone into collectivism. That is the sheep herd mentality, unable to think for yourself, everyone copies same morals and ethics and tolerates all.

That is not human

Individualism is human, individual choices, prejudices, morals, ethics and do not tolerate those that try to brainwash you into collectivism.

Even Morgan Freeman recently stated humans are bigoted and must be so its our nature and has allowed our survival and evolution and progress. If we eliminate bigots and force collectivism human progress stops. Evolution ends, no more survival of the fittest, but Mike Judge's idiocracy comes true in a collective political correct society.

Political correct and sjw should be banned and instantly removed for being antihuman, anti freedom and anti individualist. Sjw and PC are true hate groups more lethal and crazier than any fundamental religion.

They are the real terrorists

Do better, eh? No problemo.

China: Try reading the actual study (from your first link).

Conclusion:
A timely two-dose MMR vaccination schedule is recommended, with the first dose at 8 months and the second dose at 18–24 months. An MR vaccination speed-up campaign may be necessary for elder adolescents and young adults, particularly young females.

In other words, what's needed is more vaccination.

How Vaccines Harm Child Development: They don't.
First, the article is by Russell Blaylock, who believes "he former Soviet Union tried to spread collectivism by covertly introducing illegal drugs and various sexually transmitted diseases into the United States." He also hangs out with Alex Jones and Pat Robertson.
Second, almost everything in it is bullshit. He even falls back on the "vaccines cause autism" bollocks that was never true and had the idiot shill doctor that made it up stripped of his credentials.

Measles vaccines kill more people than measles, CDC data proves
Holy shit, that's terrible. Oh no, wait, it's a complete misrepresentation. No-one died from Measles, BECAUSE THEY WERE VACCINATED AGAINST IT.

Stop getting your medical information from quacks, liars and homeopaths.

Nailed it dude!

The only angle I feel hasn't really come up so far is the idea that private enterprise and public governance could easily be regarded as two manifestations of the same "real" social dynamic: Establishment/challenger (or master/slave if you want to get fully Hegelian about it)

Like, why do we even develop governmental systems in the 1st place?

I have yet to conceive a better answer than: "to curb the destructive excesses of private wealth/power."

Why would we champion personal freedom? I would say: "to curb the destructive excesses of public wealth/power".

Or something to that effect at the very least. The idea of a society with either absolute personal, or absolute collective sovereignty seems hellish to me. And probably unworkable to boot!

There seems to me a tendency in the history of societies for these two types of power to dance either side of equilibrium as the real power struggle unfolds i.e. between reigning establishment and challenger power groups/paradigms.

Right now the establishment is both economic and governmental. The corruption is mutually supporting. Corporations buy and control governments, governments facilitate corporations ruling the market and continuing to be able to buy them.

The circle jerk @blankfist IMHO is between government and private dynasty and moreover I strongly believe that in a vacuum, one will always create the other.

Pure collectivism will naturally breed an individualist challenger and visa versa.

People are at their best I think when balancing self interest and altruism. Too much of either tends to hurt others around you and diminish ones capacity to grow and adapt. (being nice is no good if you lack the will and capacity to get shit done)

It seems natural that the ideal way of organising society would always balance collective state power, with private personal power.

Libertarianism (even the superior non anarchist version) defangs the state too much IMHO. Some collectivist projects such as education, scientific research and exploration I think tend to be better served by public direction. But more importantly I expect the state to referee the market, just as I expect public transparency to referee the state.

Total crowbar separation between the three: public officials cannot legally own or control private wealth and cannot live above standard of their poorest citizens. Private citizens cannot inherit wealth legally, only earn and create it. The state cannot legally hold any secret or perform any function of government outside public view unless it is to prepare sensitive legal proceedings (which must then be disclosed in full when actioned).

In the age of global communications this kind of transparency may for the first time be a workable solution (it's already near impossible to keep a lid on most political scandals and this is very early days). There is also the possibility of a steadily de-monetised market as crowdfunding and crowdsourcing production models start to become more advanced and practical than traditional market dynamics. e.g. kickstarter style collective investment in place of classical entrepreneurial investment.

The benefits and dangers of both capitalism and socialism here would be trending towards diffusion amongst the populace.

And then there's the whole Meritocracy vs Democracy thing, but that's really getting into another topic and I've probably already gone on too long now.

Much love

you do realize that anarchism is incredibly diverse right?
it is not some rigid dogmatic approach to structural societies.
the political philosophy can stem from a strict individualism to a pure collectivism,yet both can be an anarchist philosophy.

i will post some lectures that can clarify our discussion much more competently than i ever could.

because it seems we are getting snagged on definitions.
i use the classic definitions and you retort with the "americanized" and no matter how many words we type to each other...if we are not on the same page in regards to the most basic of agreements, "definitions", then we will always be in the weird loop-d-loop of circular reasoning.

we will probably still disagree but at least we will understand each other better.

@Trout, it's not just "private" vs. "public" that's troublesome, it's words like "collective" and the idea that the children shouldn't "belong" to the family but instead the communities.

This is collectivism vs. individualism. It's a debate as old as society itself. She knew exactly which words she was choosing.

I wouldn't say anything, I don't think that it would be particularly effective. We all have our own idea of what morality is, and Stalin's is a very complex result of innumerable factors like upbringing, disposition and circumstance, and it would be a bit self important of me to think that I could argue that out of him. He lived, acted, died and left his mark on history. The paremeters set forth by the physical world and the collective actions of everyone else who has lived either as a contemporary or since has judged which of those actions have value and will live on. It's a messy process, certainly, but it's just how things work.

In other words, you don't have any argument as to why Stalin should adopt your morality and abandon his own. If you do I invite you to post it here. How can you escape Ravi's charge that atheism is incoherent in the absence of any such argument?

Thankfully, we seem to be heading in a direction that diverges considerably from that Stalin would espouse. I think that a certain evolutionary tendency towards beneficial collectivism is responsible for that.

Mind you that I'm not arguing for a one world government here, but rather I think that a sense of connection and personal responsibility for the wellbeing of everything else on this planet, ecosystem and all, will bode well for how I and my descendants experience this thing we call life.

It's only one of many competing survival strategies, and nothing more.

So if Hitler had won and the world was in the grips of his totalitarian regime, this would just a particular evolutionary tendency playing out? What makes one better than the other?

"Do you believe that there has ever been a case where slavery has been justified, and do you believe that there has ever been a good reason for anyone to butcher a toddler with a sword?"

Why is it wrong to do either of those things?