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War Room Lounge v94: I'd need to ice up when I wasn't pounding cakes in that kitchen

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sabretruth said:
I agree. Most comedy doesn't make me laugh. Of course there are exceptions (Big Lebowski, Trading Places, There's Something About Mary, Animal House, Office Space). In general, I find myself getting the most laughs from non-comedies: The Godfather, Goodfellas, Amadeus, Scent of a Woman, Burn After Reading (though I guess that would be considered a dark comedy).

In terms of TV, the only show I've found worth watching for comedic value is King of the Hill.



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Whoa, whoa.

Posting King of the Hill clips from Season 1?

That's a big no no. First one is good.
 
Ruprecht said:
Do American "evangelicals" really support televangelists though (I realise they are a large and diverse group)?
I thought Televangelists were more folk religion, like pro wrestling.
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They're all fake as fuck imo. At least the ones that simultaneously claim moral high ground then get behind Trump.

But I'm the wrong person to ask about differences between the groups. I think it's all bullshit.
 
sabretruth said:
I agree. Most comedy doesn't make me laugh. Of course there are exceptions (Big Lebowski, Trading Places, There's Something About Mary, Animal House, Office Space). In general, I find myself getting the most laughs from non-comedies: The Godfather, Goodfellas, Amadeus, Scent of a Woman, Burn After Reading (though I guess that would be considered a dark comedy).

In terms of TV, the only show I've found worth watching for comedic value is King of the Hill.

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Yeah, I do find a a reasonable amount of popular comedy series like South Park, Rick and Morty, The Mighty Bosh, Black Books, Flight of the Conchords, Pizza etc funny, but only for a couple of episodes. After that it's too much like hearing the same joke retold.
Movies tend to do a little better for that reason, if they are actually my style of humour (ie Brain Dead, District 9).
 
81500084_765661483842635_4022524296210415616_n.jpg
 
kpt018 said:
They're all fake as fuck imo. At least the ones that simultaneously claim moral high ground then get behind Trump.

But I'm the wrong person to ask about differences between the groups. I think it's all bullshit.
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I've known a lot of American fundies from a variety of denominational backgrounds, but the sort of fundies you get on the mission field are a pretty distinct group. Much more likely to be ultra pacifists with a love of other cultures than how I commonly see American "evangelicals" stereotyped.
 
Jack V Savage said:
I think you're misunderstanding here. It's not just about policy. Any attempt to rationally hash things out implies liberal values.

That brings up another problem with trying to participate in discussions from a right-wing perspective: Everyone feels a need to at least pretend to want to deliver in a liberal sense. You don't see people arguing that maintain a racial caste system is good on its own; you seem them implausibly claim that people who oppose that are actually supporting it but in reverse. You don't see people say that we should tolerate less material prosperity in exchange for more stability, stronger communities and clearer hierarchies; you see them say that their preferred politicians will actually deliver more material prosperity (through implausible means). The same fears you listed earlier are the real explanation for climate-science denial (since most people believe that the solution requires more social coordination, led by scientists), but people aren't willing to just say that; they have to frame it terms of (bad) scientific arguments. The pattern here is that real disputes over values exist, but they're hidden behind claims that are objectively false. So someone who believes in using evidence and sound reasoning to reach conclusions and in honesty as a virtue will be forced to one side of the discussions (it doesn't map perfectly with the ideological spectrum, as there is a branch of the left that also uses implausible claims about material benefits to hide values-based preferences).
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Rationally hashing things out is done in even the most illiberal contexts however. It’s not like rational debate is somehow absent from Nazi politics, corporation governance, and mafioso gatherings. If you have shared values, there’s usually plenty of incentive to rationally figure out how to further them. When that breaks down, it’s usually because you don’t genuinely have shared values — you are entering the realm of the political, where you start bargaining for advantage and forming friends and enemies.

The same issue comes up in terms of phrasing delivery ‘in a liberal sense.’ For millennia near eastern tyrants would declare how their reign delivered a bounty of good and freedom to all people in their land, restoring x y and z. Why? Propaganda. Every political order is usually incentivized to propagandize and secure consent and support from as much of the governed as possible. That means political speech is usually calibrated to indicate friendship towards a large mass of people and hostility towards only a hated, wicked minority of intolerables.

The result is that political speech always over promises on every axis, and it almost never openly affirms drawbacks. You mention some right wing examples; left wing examples are immigration (never, ever bad, never ever has a cost) diversity (never, ever bad, never ever has a cost) urbanization (never ever bad, never ever has a cost). If there are any costs, moreover, only an evil person would consider them a problem, and besides such costs shouldn’t ideally happen and something that shouldn’t ideally happen isn’t technically a real cost. Such is the dynamic.

I’d agree very much with your last comments about how debates often involve hidden value conflicts. My point is rather that technical rationality is usually never really at issue for either side in such discussions, which are proxies for contesting systems of social dominance—a fundamentally irrational power struggle. You can make purely technical policy arguments in a void, but if group A believes your ‘rational’ policy is being invoked to weaken and fuck them over politically, they won’t accept it. And this is often stated explicitly — climate change, for example, is perceived as another mechanism to shift mass western social power to a confluence of capital elites and their third-world tributaries. Tesla driving urbanites and the global capital flows they depend upon. Combined with promises about how really everybody is going to benefit and nobody is genuinely going to get screwed.. or at most, only a hateful minority will get screwed.
 
kpt018 said:
Wow, that is absolutely shameless.

How about this asshole:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/jim-bakker-trump-saved-054130880.html

You Must Love Trump To Prove You're 'Saved'

I really wonder if people were fucking stupid and had shit morals and Trump and social media exposed them or the current political environment is making people worse (or both).
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Gotta say that the quote isn't as bad as the headline.

“You know what? Trump is a test whether you’re even saved. Only saved people can love Trump.”

Also: "No, you gotta be really saved. You gotta forgive. You gotta be able to forgive. You forgive when you’re saved.”

I know he's a big Trump supporter, but that can be interpreted as "only someone who is saved can love a POS like Trump."
 
Trotsky said:
I would come with, but I kind of don't understand how Reddit works. It's really user-unfriendly.
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The mobile app is an easier way to browse and lurk. It would be a different experience then, say, the Lounge tho
 
Jack V Savage said:
Gotta say that the quote isn't as bad as the headline.

“You know what? Trump is a test whether you’re even saved. Only saved people can love Trump.”

Also: "No, you gotta be really saved. You gotta forgive. You gotta be able to forgive. You forgive when you’re saved.”

I know he's a big Trump supporter, but that can be interpreted as "only someone who is saved can love a POS like Trump."
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I think that's a generous interpretation, but it's possible.
 
Zankou said:
Rationally hashing things out is done in even the most illiberal contexts however. It’s not like rational debate is somehow absent from Nazi politics, corporation governance, and mafioso gatherings. If you have shared values, there’s usually plenty of incentive to rationally figure out how to further them. When that breaks down, it’s usually because you don’t genuinely have shared values — you are entering the realm of the political, where you start bargaining for advantage and forming friends and enemies.

The same issue comes up in terms of phrasing delivery ‘in a liberal sense.’ For millennia near eastern tyrants would declare how their reign delivered a bounty of good and freedom to all people in their land, restoring x y and z. Why? Propaganda. Every political order is usually incentivized to propagandize and secure consent and support from as much of the governed as possible. That means political speech is usually calibrated to indicate friendship towards a large mass of people and hostility towards only a hated, wicked minority of intolerables.

The result is that political speech always over promises on every axis, and it almost never openly affirms drawbacks. You mention some right wing examples; left wing examples are immigration (never, ever bad, never ever has a cost) diversity (never, ever bad, never ever has a cost) urbanization (never ever bad, never ever has a cost). If there are any costs, moreover, only an evil person would consider them a problem, and besides such costs shouldn’t ideally happen and something that shouldn’t ideally happen isn’t technically a real cost. Such is the dynamic.

I’d agree very much with your last comments about how debates often involve hidden value conflicts. My point is rather that technical rationality is usually never really at issue for either side in such discussions, which are proxies for contesting systems of social dominance—a fundamentally irrational power struggle. You can make purely technical policy arguments in a void, but if group A believes your ‘rational’ policy is being invoked to weaken and fuck them over politically, they won’t accept it. And this is often stated explicitly — climate change, for example, is perceived as another mechanism to shift mass western social power to a confluence of capital elites and their third-world tributaries. Tesla driving urbanites and the global capital flows they depend upon. Combined with promises about how really everybody is going to benefit and nobody is genuinely going to get screwed.. or at most, only a hateful minority will get screwed.
Click to expand...

The difference in terms of promises is "God is bestowing His favor upon my regime and providing prosperity for all" vs. "these tax cuts for me and my friends will lead to more investment, which will lead to faster economic growth, which will benefit everyone." Trump may be pushing back toward the former.

And immigration is a good example there. The benefits are material and easily describable (economic growth, higher wages, less crime), while the drawbacks are psychic and illiberal, and thus not considered something that can be openly talked about (a feeling of reduced centrality of your tribe, feelings of inferiority). So people who oppose it try to frame it in liberal terms, making transparently bad arguments that it is actually a negative in a material sense. "It increases the supply of workers so it drives wages down," naturally drives someone who is taking the argument seriously batty ("it also affects demand, stupid!"), but that hides the real argument. If you take everyone at their word and value correctness and honesty, you pretty much can't help but take the pro side of the argument. If you try to read between the lines and address the real argument, that offends nativists even more than pointing out that their claims fail the reasoning and evidence tests!

And, yeah, we're on the same page with your last paragraph.
 
Zankou said:
Rationally hashing things out is done in even the most illiberal contexts however. It’s not like rational debate is somehow absent from Nazi politics, corporation governance, and mafioso gatherings. If you have shared values, there’s usually plenty of incentive to rationally figure out how to further them. When that breaks down, it’s usually because you don’t genuinely have shared values — you are entering the realm of the political, where you start bargaining for advantage and forming friends and enemies.

The same issue comes up in terms of phrasing delivery ‘in a liberal sense.’ For millennia near eastern tyrants would declare how their reign delivered a bounty of good and freedom to all people in their land, restoring x y and z. Why? Propaganda. Every political order is usually incentivized to propagandize and secure consent and support from as much of the governed as possible. That means political speech is usually calibrated to indicate friendship towards a large mass of people and hostility towards only a hated, wicked minority of intolerables.

The result is that political speech always over promises on every axis, and it almost never openly affirms drawbacks. You mention some right wing examples; left wing examples are immigration (never, ever bad, never ever has a cost) diversity (never, ever bad, never ever has a cost) urbanization (never ever bad, never ever has a cost). If there are any costs, moreover, only an evil person would consider them a problem, and besides such costs shouldn’t ideally happen and something that shouldn’t ideally happen isn’t technically a real cost. Such is the dynamic.

I’d agree very much with your last comments about how debates often involve hidden value conflicts. My point is rather that technical rationality is usually never really at issue for either side in such discussions, which are proxies for contesting systems of social dominance—a fundamentally irrational power struggle. You can make purely technical policy arguments in a void, but if group A believes your ‘rational’ policy is being invoked to weaken and fuck them over politically, they won’t accept it. And this is often stated explicitly — climate change, for example, is perceived as another mechanism to shift mass western social power to a confluence of capital elites and their third-world tributaries. Tesla driving urbanites and the global capital flows they depend upon. Combined with promises about how really everybody is going to benefit and nobody is genuinely going to get screwed.. or at most, only a hateful minority will get screwed.
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I'm just making an observation: JVS seems to equate Liberalism with Enlightenment principles whereas you are referring to Egalitarianism. For the save of clarity, you both should try to substitute "liberal" with something more precise.
 
Ruprecht said:
It's not like reddit isn't similarly infested with identity politics. Although there are more echo chambers, and left-wing echo chambers in particular now that they've booted a lot of the alt-right.
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They probably have more terrorists posting, too.
 
Higus said:
I'm just making an observation: JVS seems to equate Liberalism with Enlightenment principles whereas you are referring to Egalitarianism. For the save of clarity, you both should try to substitute "liberal" with something more precise.
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You're pretty much right about me, though I think "Enlightenment principles" is *less* precise. I also think Zank is picking up my meaning. Liberalism as I'm defining it does imply a rejection of anything but technocratic or democratic authority and an indifference to the claims of identity groups, which is part of what he's pushing back on.
 
If anyone wants to see a once in a lifetime event, @Rational Poster and I are teamed up together arguing against the TS in the deutsch bank thread right now
 
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