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0 pointslordfrito2y ago0 comments

> As many in the West disparage or undermine those values, they are doing the work of Putin and Xi (at times, I'm sure, led by their disinformation campaigns).

I don't have evidence, but my gut says that's not by accident. This slippery slope we've been heading down for the last few decades (no more right and wrong, all values are equal, anyone who says otherwise is a problem/oppressor/colonizer) look to me like a well funded / coordinated / long term political warfare campaign in order to build a country of "appeasers". People who refuse to stand up for anything -- we all know that's how bullies win.

I often wonder how much of what we're doing to ourselves is actually being funded by bad actors, fake patriots, etc.

I don't trust any free news. Someone is paying for a message to be delivered to my eyeballs, and I don't know who that is. Maybe 1% of stories are from bad actors, maybe it's 25%. Who knows? The answer matters -- a lot.

No one trusts anyone anymore. We've lost faith in our government and each other. No better way to conquer a nation than from within.

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AnimalMuppet2y ago· 2 in thread

> no more right and wrong, all values are equal, anyone who says otherwise is a problem/oppressor/colonizer

But that whole view is self-contradictory. If all values are equal, what's wrong with being an oppressor or colonizer? By calling people oppressors and colonizers, they are saying that some things are wrong. Their position destroys itself.

wolverine8762y ago

Or you misunderstand their position. Taking someone's argument to a logical extreme and calling them hypocrites is about a rhetorical game, not about meaning and truth.

AnimalMuppet2y ago

Strawmanning someone's position is about a rhetorical game. Fairly representing someone's position and pointing out that it is logically contradictory is exactly about truth. Self-contradictory positions cannot be right. (Now, you may be able to remove the contradiction without destroying the whole position. But it has to be flawed.)

You see this in formal philosophy. If the conclusions of an argument disprove the premise, then the premise is wrong.

In this case, we aren't dealing with a formal position. We aren't even dealing with the clearest-spoken advocates of a position. We're dealing with culture warriors whose specialty is yelling, not clear argument. Nevertheless, there are people out there who say that, if you say one culture is better than another, then you are a Nazi. This is not taking their argument to a logical extreme. This is listening to their words. And based on that, you can say that that position shows that they aren't thinking, because it's absurd.

But you're right, you can't go too far with it. The worst, most thoughtless advocates of a position only let you say that those advocates' position is flawed. They don't tell you anything about the steelman version of the position.

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