The absurdity of modern debate

I don't know what it may have been like in the ages not written about in our history books, but today debate sucks

Why?

Is it because people suck?
What exactly is it about us that makes us so incapable of moving forward
What is it about us ho!ding us back so much?

Recently the Greek pm was met by European and IMF officials to discuss loan repayments
A while ago lagarde said "I'm happy because I'm going to get my money back" in response to news that Greece had promised a repayment plan... That plan is now about to expire.. And Greece will likely go crashing and but ing out of the euro very possibly taking the whole EU with it.... He described the recent meeting with Ms Lagardé and other as "unprofessional"... That does not surprise me... The first time I saw Lagardé was the 2013 G20 summit where she had to my surprise a seat at a round table among presidents and prime ministers of the worlds most powerful countries... The picture in the newspaper I saw, showed her gold tanned faced smiling into a camera phone, taking a selfie.... WE ARE ALL DOOMED UNLESS WE CAN WORK THIS OUT

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

The answer is self interest..

Its so extremely pervasive now that the question HOW exactly we go about changing that needs to be asked more than ever... It seems self interest has dumbed society down so severely that even debates themselves become about self interest... People believe whatever suits their self interest now, no matter what the issue, without any concern for the bigger picture...
Its beyond shameful and scary, to say the least...

Just wondering, when we will get our act together, and collectively start putting the nail in the coffin of selfishness....

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

Ah, but working it out goes so far back. I discovered this Youtube channel that gave brief videos of the great thinkers of yore: Sartre, Marx, Adam Smith, Thoreau, etc. A major, major issue then and now is the dissatisfaction with the modern world, the segmented jobs separated from any satisfaction or sense of ownership in the work. It was behind the Romantic movement, the Communist movement, and more. (And today many radical movements) Yet that dark spirit those thinkers fought against is stronger than ever in our modern world, manifest in the vast and horrific technocratic systems that are now rising up to govern us, and manifest in the financial system that would enslave the Greeks, just as it enslaves future generations of American children through hopeless and exponentially climbing national debt. We all understand, once we see it is merely ideas that control us, that we all have the ability to reject these ideas. The challenge (which Marx and others failed to fully answer having seen these problems) is to determine the system to replace this current mess once it becomes untenable. How to organize freedom? How to create structure as natural to the human spirit as a flower is to the natural world? That alone is the challenge we must rise to.

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

I call it "pie mentality" - when we see that there is only one pie with only a certain amount of slices - only one world with a certain amount of resources, we must take as much as we can and that means preventing others from having any at all.

If we thought that there was a pie with infinite slices, then we could take from that pie without inherently taking from anybody else.

a reply to: SystemResistor

So how are you working to perpetuate the idea of a "pie with infinite slices", pie for everyone?

Because right now the future looks BLEAK, to be honest with you...
We need to do something amazing, as individuals and collectively to start changing things for the better... Not just policy... Because no matter how great the policy is, so long as we continue to have pervasive unenlightened attitudes in society, civilisation will inevitably erode and probably violently destroy itself one way or another...

The least we could do now is stop supporting these unenlightened attitudes through our media and education and even the policy itself...

a reply to: tridentblue

Well said.

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

In the world we have today, easy access of information and instant comunication across the world, wouldn't it make sense to open the debate to everyone who wanted their voice heard on any subject they want to help solve? There is no way a small groupp of individuals with their oown self-interests can accoadate everything of one another and get what they want too. So how does it get solved? remove them from the equation (mediator) and offer advice on any subject as to how to solve it. As a democracy should be, every voice has the chance of being heard.

It would be as simple as this: A government posts issues relating to one topic in a thread. It succinctly explains the situation from all sides involved and what each wants. Ot provides documents and links to related information to help know more about the situation (could be tens of years in making, or a simple ratification or proposed law, etc). They continue to debate the issue with one another while anyone can post on the thread as to the best way to solve it from their point of view. Over several months or so I imagine many solutions or advices are posted, the best ideas get votes (similar to ATS threads), then the best ideas are proposed in a seperate thread for each but still under the main OP (Original Problem). These three are solutions are made public knowledge so even if you weren't involved in the making of it you could read the final solutions and weigh in.

Likley the three will kind of merge together and there may be one or two issues or solutions that are split amongst voters. Several masters of political/economy/law etc. would likley contribute the most to the work, but everyone could contribute thoughts or ask questions and the community would either help or a moderator within the government could moderate the thread. Any off topic posts or irrelevant would be deleted and people could be penalized for doing certain things, leaving those whom actually care and have thoughts to brainstorm the problem out.

But together we each can pitch in as it evolves from one to another and another as people add ideas and other ideas are shown by some to not be the best (with evidence, data, not opinion). So if there wasnt a clear winner for solution by public vote 2 or 3 would go to the politicians and would be reviewed. Each party would recieve one they must agree upon, though after they agree, they could make changes if all parties agreed to each change.

There are problems with this method like multiple nations doing their own, or do they do it together? would all countries have a say? Is it likley for citizens from two or more countires to work together to solve their own problem? Would we still have our own biased to our own nation when coming up with solutions? Would government ever allow people to have so much say, even if many contributors are well versed in the areas in comparison?

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

humans? you mean the funny looking creatures ?

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

Doomed ? You mean like this?

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

Some people believe collective selfishness with no regard for others, or the whole, somehow leads to something good.

Or at least its a good excuse..

a reply to: iDope



(with evidence, data, not opinion). opinion is pointless

that is a good advise you gave there

Your title should be "The absurdity of POST-modern debate."

Our dysfunction and their dysfunction in a crazy world, along with so many other factors contribute to why debate falls short.

iveybusinessjournal.com...

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

I believe that in a sense you may be correct. The debates which people mistakenly believe are important, those enacted between political blocs, financial institutions, and the like are all taken up with personality cultism and nonsense, as we have seen over the last ten years, as political discourse collapses into the absurd, as you so rightly point out.

However, the important debates are happening at street level, and they are, where they are possible at all, as vibrant and crucial as they ever were.

a reply to: iDope

Good points but . The system is there and could work up to a point .It's this notion of progress to be better that comes into conflict with reality .A group of stay at home mom's using Skypt to conference with one another could come to a better and quicker political decision then these "Tools" (politicians) we have at present . The system we have now allows hidden powers to pull the strings of the system . These clowns who are foisted upon us is the real problem for a peaceful prosperous population .

Trying to go back to the good old days we would find ourselves still stuck in a system that sucks .A system that keeps the good out or at bay while the corrupt can move in and take over .We don't need leaders ,. we only need to be left alone .we can solve the local problems ourselves just fine .we can build the necessary contacts and structures that go out to others .we can avoid the places we don't want to go and ,welcome the ones we want .

We have the tech to do it easily .We are the people and they are the artificial structure they built to drag us to the mess we are in and that will collapse .

And as some journalists joke among themselves..."Politicians don't govern using facts, studies or common sense".

Most People do not know how to debate.

Because right now the future looks BLEAK, to be honest with you... We need to do something amazing, as individuals and collectively to start changing things for the better... Not just policy... Because no matter how great the policy is, so long as we continue to have pervasive unenlightened attitudes in society, civilisation will inevitably erode and probably violently destroy itself one way or another... The least we could do now is stop supporting these unenlightened attitudes through our media and education and even the policy itself...

Violence is falling and quality of life is rising throughout the entire world, and has been for the last 100 years or more. There's a decent book by Steven Pinker called "The Better Angels of our Nature" that goes into this in depth. I highly recommended it. Might just turn that frown upside down.

I don't know what it may have been like in the ages not written about in our history books, but today debate sucks

If you want to read good debate, I implore you to read Plato. Currently I am reading the Republic and it is great, Gorgias is another great book for debate, or Meno if you want a good laugh.

Though, I agree. I recently had a thought about this, that people nowadays seem to have their own interpretation for words in the English language. These interpretations differ from their actual meaning. Now, there is usually a "sub-culture" per-se, on facebook or other internet-based media sources, that share that same interpretation of a particular word, lending validity to that individual's interpretation of that word. Thus, this encourages the illiteracy of those people because they now believe that a certain word means something based on group-validity.

So, when two people of different "sub-cultures" use a particular word in a dialogue with each other, they could be on totally different wavelengths with each other. They they derive different meanings from each others' arguments because they understand one word to mean a different thing to each of them.

This mass media and internet illiteracy is my opinion as to why I have to have discussions anonymously on this forum, rather than on facebook or the like. Because, for the large part, people (on those sites) don't know the real definition of half the FNG words they're using, leading to confusion, anger, resentment, and "unfriending" (lol).

Just my take on it.