Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "Wendigoon"
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" You would have to go back to hunter/gatherers to have any semblance of the autonomy he identifies. "
Even that seems to be a stretch. Hunter-gatherers live on the brink of survival, and in such societies there is no place for "individuality". If you don't fit in, the shaman might try to cure you, but if that doesn't work, you are on your own, or more likely dead.
It's also funny, that he considers religion, the pursuit of arts or knowledge to be the products of our civilization, and essentially a wasted effort. The thing is, that peoples who supposedly live the "perfect" life on the very edge of survival do invest heavily in all that stuff.
At least partially because it binds them together into a more coherent society (partially because they are bored, just like we are).
Kaczyński is like Marx. He got a more or less correct picture of his present, predicted the very immediate future to some extent, but he's just as likely to fail in the long term.
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@poopymcmonke " * justify ecological destruction* "
The assumption that technology inescapably leads to ecological destruction is unfounded.
For example, whales were hunted to the brink of extinction, because early industrial societies needed oil for lamps, but technology fixed it. We have lots of whales nowadays.
The same with European bison, beaver, moose, deer, eagles, bears, even wolves.
So it's not a one-to-one correlation. Far from it, actually.
" requires extremely dense (therefore ecologically and socially unsustainable) populations to function "
That's also untrue. I live in a rural area, and more and more city folk move in almost each year. Because they can afford to do so.
When I was young, there was no sewer system here, you had to dispose of your own trash, the road was bad, almost impassable at times.
Nowadays we have fiber network. Many people can afford to do lots of their work out of home, and even if they have to travel to work, it doesn't take any more time than your typical commuting time while living in a city.
" Convenience culture disgusts me "
I'm not a fan either, but it's not like I'm forced to live it, is it?
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@black_hand78 " Ted meant over socialized as in, in the internet and social media "
Internet was barely a thing, as far as I remember, the term social media appeared only after the normies went online, which was many decades later.
So he couldn't have meant that.
I think he meant "oversocialized", like in the society trying to force you into its universal mold too much. And in that case, he was simply wrong, just like he was wrong with his "diabetes" example.
It just so happens, that people develop diabetes so often, because our genes are finely tuned for scarcity of food, not for abundance. So it was the primitive life Ted preferred which promoted those genes, and it's our life that selects against them.
It's the same story with being "oversocialized". Primitive societies have very strict social norms, while a whacko like Ted was accepted in our society, because it was assumed, that he didn't hurt anyone.
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@troybaxter That's not what I got. For me it looked like he thought that modern people engage in religions, because they have everything easy. Like in, if they were pressed for survival, they wouldn't have the time or energy to do it.
Of course I think he was wrong on that too, and he did prove himself wrong, when he invented this rabbit god for himself.
He was also wrong thinking that primitive people do not worry a lot, because so much of their life is out of their control. The thing is, that people invent ways of trying to make random more predictable. Even if they know it's irrational, they will still do it. Pilots, gamblers or sailors tend to be quite superstitious, because it gives them (us) at least an illusion of control.
So when a bad thing happens, it's not just because it happened. It happened because you said something or you did something "wrong" and the gods got offended.
Every unfortunate event seems preventable, even if it really isn't.
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By the time he started interfering with the captain's decisions with regard to navigation , not trivial stuff, but exactly the thing she was responsible for, I immediately was like: "It would have never happened on my watch!"
And when he overridden her decision to terminate the trip, I think he'd have ended up literally arrested. Bound up, possibly gagged, if he insisted on shouting. (Until she commanded me not to do it. She's the boss, so I'd listen to her direct orders.)
If someone was lost, she'd be held responsible, not him. Even if it was his fault, she'd be blamed. You never, ever, question the captain's authoring on the water , until you have all the reasons to do it and are literally ready and willing to take over.
BTW - I'm very rebellious by nature. It's just that even rebellious people don't fancy drowning all that much, usually at least.
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I listened till the end, where you summarized that the right side of the graph emphasizes the individual over the collective. In that sense, fascism and it's various kinds should not be placed on the right. A nation is a collective, hence extreme nationalism is obviously a strongly collectivist ideology, it's just that it doesn't care as much about other nations.
To reinforce this reasoning - Monarchism is a legit right wing ideology, and it's been said that it emphasizes nations. That's plainly false. The kings did not care one bit about the nationality of their subjects. Richard the Lionheart was very happy to rule over Anglo-Saxons, and he allowed their nobles to advance in the society. At the same time, he was often at odds with France, which were people of his culture. (Also, Austrian Habsburg dynasty ruled over half of Europe, the British queen was German, all sorts of cases like that.)
Even later, when the concept of nation already fully crystallized, the monarchs still allowed for the advancement of their subject who were of different nations. For example, Frederic the Great discouraged accepting ethnic Germans into his cavalry, and stated that either Poles or Hungarians should be preferred. The national oppression was introduced when the traditional monarchy was on its way out, and was turned into national democracy, where some people were allowed to vote based on their nationality, while others were not.
But that's a move to the left !
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