here's my full conversation with the computer engineer from stanford (michael) and a lady from yugoslavia (gordana) : https://web.facebook.com/groups/2204348403/permalink/10157110011088404/?comment_id=10157113986373404&reply_comment_id=10157157846753404
here is the cut and paste in case you can't access the link:
-------------- this was my initial coment:
the leftist's top agendas are more popular but they are playing checkers while the republicans are playing chess. many people who support medicare-for-all and solving climate change will be afraid to vote for a candidate who supports open borders, take their guns away, murder babies inside the womb, increase the government debt because of stupid free college tuition, and solves climate change by destroying the economy which causes poverty and suffering. i'm a right wing libertarian who support medicare-for-all because it saves us money and solving climate change because i don't want to participate in mankind's march towards the cliff (leftists should read my article "politics-for-dummies" (search "ian's knowledge bombs" on the web)) but i think it would be a good chess move for the left to get rid of their stupid free college tuition agenda (read "education-racket" in my blog) ). i also think leftists are "climate change realistic solutions deniers" because i never hear them shout THORIUM THORIUM THORIUM !!! the koch brothers celebrated when they saw the unrealistic solutions and extra baggage (free college tuition) of the green new deal (read "my-new-deal" in my blog)). i don't give a crap about abortion but the left should lay low on abortion for now (read "knowledge-bombs-on-abortion" in my blog) just like the republicans are lying low on gay marriage. the left should also just lay low on gun control and open borders and save those fights for another day. your objective should be to take down the king, not save all your pawns.
-------------- reply from michael:
lay low on abortion: right because it's not as if women make up half the electorate or anything. The rest of the civilized world has made up their mind on this a long time ago and it's only in places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the US that men still try and deny a woman's right to abortion.
I personally would love to "take everyone's guns away". It's just a macho bullshit delusion that guns make you safe. The statistics are overwhelmingly clear on this a gun in the home is far, far, more likely to be used on a family member or friend (either by accident or in a fit of rage) then to defend oneself. But that's why I'm not running for office. No democrat is running on a platform of taking anyone's penis substitute... I mean guns away.
I would also be all for Open Borders. I traveled in Europe a couple of years ago and it was amazing how easy it was to go from one EU nation to another. That's what the whole world should be like. But again no Democrat is arguing for that. In fact undocumented immigration reached all time lows under Obama. And some of the people who are most impacted by this ridiculous wall are right wing land owners in Texas and other border states. The Trump government which is supposed to be all for the rights of the individual goes in and seizes the land of American citizens who are close to the border in order to put up a stupid wall that will never be completed, will cost an insane amount of money, and won't do anything serious to stem illegal immigration which isn't even a big problem except on Fox News and other propaganda outlets.
-------------- reply from gordana:
Ian Crystal: I don't think anyone should lay low on the abortion rights in the 21st century. Conservative women can chose not to have abortion, nobody is denying them that option but they have no right to impose the same on other women. It is kind of bizzare that the US has similar approach to abortion like the sharia law countries. The rest of the developed world has abandoned the strict abortion laws a long time ago. Regarding public universities, the US is still on a solitary island among the developed democracies. If something is public, it is funded by the public money i. e. taxpayers. People have already paid for it. The same goes for public health. Of course, there are always private universities, private clinics etc, but the public ones have already been paid for. This is the peoples perception in the rest of the developed world
--------------------- my reply to michael:
Michael DeBellis i have no disagreement with everything you said. we all have different priorities so if you think protecting abortion rights, having open borders and making guns illegal is higher or the same priority than medicare-for-all then arguing that would be like arguing who which color is more beautiful. i also think morality arguments are useless because the native americans who wre massacred to near extinction were the good guys.the slaves were the good guys and i don't want to be a slave or massacred .also if an invading army is raping my wife and daughter in front of me i'm no going to say "haha joke is on you because we are the good guys and you are the bad guys". but that's just me. all i was saying is that if you have the same priorities as me, then you should play it like a game of chess and give up some of the low priority pawns to checkmate the king.
--------------- my reply to gordana:
Gordana Gogic-Janjic an egalitarian society does not automatically work (venezuela, greece, china, soviet union, etc ...) but it it can also work (norway, sweden, canada, etc. ...). the question is will it work for america? i analyzed this in my blog and my verdict was inconclusive (search "ian's knowledge bombs" on the web and search politics-for-dummies in the table of contents. also, arguing about abortion is like arguing which color is more beautiful. there is no scientific or logical argument to determine if the baby in the womb is human or not. both sides have valid opinions. search "knowledge-bombs-on-abortion" in the table of contents in my blog for more of my explanation.
----------------- reply from gordana:
Ian Crystal China and Soviet Union did not work because their so called communist leaders abused socialism, turned it into dictatorship. But it is a long story. I grew up in former Yugoslavia so I know what it was like (although Yu was defined as a "soft" communism). Regarding Latin America, the complexity of internal struggles and USA's dirty games made them fail. And boy, they were dirty! I have seen these games during the breakup of Yugoslavia. On the other hand, European countries function quite well with equal opportunities (though some have been struggling recently with neoliberalism and extreme right). In the past, the US povided much more opportunities to its people, no reason not to have it again. I understand that the obstacle is the people's perception which has been manipulated by US media, under the influence of corporations-politicians marriage. For decades US people have been hearing about "thorny monster" from Russia interchangeably called communism and socialism, their mindset has been successfully manufactured to reject anything associated with socialism, and having been deprived of elementary school knowledge about global geography and history most of them are today unable to make a reasonable judgment about geopolitics. I am happy to see how progressives have started openning people's eyes since 2016.... And abortion is also a matter of perception. There is an ongoing debate about personhood or selfhood and when it begins. I would personally chose abortion ONLY as a last resort, i.e if the pregnancy could kill both me and the baby, and if I put myself in the shoes of a raped teenage girl or a poor and sick woman whose pregnancy could kill both her and the baby, I don't really see any "pro-life" reasoning for keeping the pregnancy. Again, I respect everyone's belief, conservative and religious women can do as they chose, but for god's sake they have no right to push me in the same direction
------------------- reply from michael:
Ian Crystal I agree with a lot of what you said but I would quibble a bit with calling the Soviet Union or China egalitarian societies. Chomsky has talked about this. If you google "Chomsky Lenin youtube" you can find several videos on this topic. His point is that Lenin (and even more so Stalin) were far outside what most Marxists originally believed. Lenin and the Soviet Union embraced the term "socialism" because at the time it had so much power as something many intellectuals recognized as a force for good (Hitler used the term for the same reason and of course was also the opposite of what most people meant by that term). And for similar reasons, the people who control the corporate media in the US and the world also wanted to associate the Soviet Union with socialism because it helped them paint socialism as equivalent to Totalitarianism when in fact for most Marxists and socialists the opposite is true, one of the core principles of socialism is democracy and putting power into the hands of the people rather than a small elite.
Also, regarding Venezuela, that's a complicated issue but part of the reason they are in so much trouble is that they relied on oil to fund their very ambitious programs and the price of oil fell drastically. Also, (and the same is true for Cuba) it is hard for a small South or Central American nation to institute true socialism when the most powerful nation in the world (the US) is doing all it can (often via illegal and unreported actions carried out by the CIA) to demolish their economy and government. The things the US did to Cuba over the years are just insane. We talk about stopping terrorism but the US has been one of the greatest supporters of terrorism against nations like Cuba. We've supported people who planted bombs, violently attacked Cuban agricultural and tourist sites, attempted to assassinate Castro, etc. Castro and the leaders of Venezuela are far from perfect but their faults pale compared to the things that the US has done against them.
Here is a clip where Chomsky talks about some of this. There is a long winded question at the beginning, he starts talking at around minute 3 and the stuff about how the Soviet Union was a benefit to those who wanted to discredit socialism in general is toward the end.
Noam Chomsky - What Was Leninism?, March 15th, 1989
---------------- my reply to gordana:
Gordana Gogic-Janjic yes lenin and stalin abused socialism i wrote an article about that based on chomsky's speech. but real socialism which is libertarian socialism will still takes away people's property which i think is against human nature. too many people prefer to own property so it's going to be a blood bath if you take away their property. even if socialists are correct that owning property is immoral, i think they will lose even if they have the majority because their soldiers are composed of homer simpsons and noam chomskies who couldn't hurt a fly. the right wing psychopaths think it's ok to kill socialists because the ultimate goal of socialists is to take away their properties. just like it's ok to shoot a thief invading someone's home (search "ian's knowledge bombs" on the web and search "socialism-demystified" in the table of contents). regarding bernie's agenda which is not really socialism, i also wrote about it - search "politics-for-dummies" in the table of contents. my disagreement with socialists boils down to human nature and chomsky said human nature cannot be scientifically studied so nobody really knows that's best for a country we are all just making our best guest. i'm just a low intellect compared to chomsky but i think even albert einstein needs advise from a vegetable vendor if it's safe to go in the slums or not because it's not in the books or taught in universities if there are people in a particular slum who would mug einstein and rob him.
------------------ my reply to michael:
Michael DeBellis i stand corrected. i agree china and soviets were not egalitarian. i used the wrong word. i agree with everything chomsky said in the video i heard him say these things in the other videos. most of the knowledge bombs i wrote in my blog i learned from chomsky.(search "ian's knowledge bombs" on the web and search "socialism-demystified" in the table of contents). regarding bernie's agenda which is not really socialism, i also wrote about it - search "politics-for-dummies" in the table of contents. my disagreement with socialists boils down to human nature and chomsky said human nature cannot be scientifically studied so nobody really knows that's best for a country we are all just making our best guest. i'm just a low intellect compared to chomsky but i think even albert einstein needs advise from a vegetable vendor if it's safe to go in the slums or not because it's not in the books or taught in universities if there are people in a particular slum who would mug einstein and rob him.
---------------- michael's reply:
Ian Crystal So I know I keep arguing little points you make but it's because you are making good points and I think (unlike many of the people on FB) it is possible to have an intelligent discussion with you. Plus, I just like to argue! ;-) BTW, I'll look for your blog. You probably know this and perhaps you are just being modest but you can include links to your blog in comments. I have my own web site and blog as well although I use it mostly for computer science stuff but in other forums I put links to relevant blog posts on my site all the time.
So my one quibble with your last comment is when you said "Chomsky said human nature can't be studied". I know he has said things that are close to that but IMO that's not exactly what he said and the difference is important.
I would paraphrase what I think he said as follows: The status of science dealing with human nature at this point is very tentative. Sciences such as psychology and even more so sociology and anthropology are at about the point where physics was in the time of Galileo before Newton. We have some good data on some issues but the amount that we don't understand and in fact don't even have working hypotheses that are widely accepted and being tested far outweighs the things we know, by several orders of magnitude.
As a result people who look at Evolutionary Psychology or other science and try to make claims about what science tells us we should do in terms of politics are just deluding themselves. What invariably happens is they cherry pick the science that supports the political positions they already believe. The best reasoning regarding political issues right now can be done simply with common sense, agreement on a few basic principles (e.g., the suffering of any sentient creature is something to be avoided), and attention to the actual data on how nations and corporations behave, not on the corporate view of the main stream media which is highly skewed due to their bias in favor of large corporations.
But that isn't the same as saying human nature can't be studied scientifically. In fact in several of his books on Linguistics and Cognitive Science Chomsky talks in depth about human nature. One of his recurring themes is the difference between Plato's question and Orwell's question.
Plato's question is how can we understand the universe as well as we seem to. This definitely gets to human nature and Chomsky's answer (in part) is that we have innate capabilities such as language that are part of our genome and that can be utilized for ways that exceed the initial evolutionary drivers for these capabilities. This is what biologists call an exaptation. Some phenotype that evolved for one purpose but turned out to be useful for others.
Orwell's question is how we can be capable of knowing so much about the universe but why most of us are so deluded about the basic facts of politics. Of course Chomsky has written on this at length in books like Manufacturing Consent.
-------------------- my reply to michael:
Michael DeBellis thanks for the interesting knowledge. scientific knowledge is very important in making socio-economic decisions but i agree with thomas sowell that it has to be reinforced with consequential knowledge. i feel there are so many important knowledge and experiences that you and chomsky don't have with the common people that is very vital to making the right choices on how our society should work. i spent 10 years trying to capture those knowledge into written words. i wrote it because i want to be wrong so i was hoping my genius leftist friends will read it and tell me where i'm wrong instead they will just get angry after the first paragraph and tell me my writings are pseudo science garbage. facebook blocks the link maybe because blogger is owned by google but it's always the first item if you search "ian's knowledge bombs". it's well organized into a table of contents (i wish chomsky's writings are organized this way). i'm basically like a vegetable vendor educating einstein about the ways of the slums to keep him safe. it's actually easy to explain why humans are so incredibly smart when it comes to finding out the chemical components of a star billions of lightyears away yet become stupid in the supposedly much simpler economic policies. that's because nobody gets hurt with scientific findings but a supposedly simple decision whether to be settled farmers or nomad herders is very complicated because of human nature. in fact the crusades started as muslim and christian settlers battling against muslim and christian nomads from the east who had to migrate to the west because of climate change. so they were contending whether the now limited land should be for grazing or farming. it wasn't about religion it was about way of life. when chomsky quotes lincoln saying wage labor is different from slavery only that it's temporary, the fact is so many of my friends think i was a slave for having to read all those books in school so you can only imagine if i tell them about chomsky they will really feel sorry for chomsky even if these are folks living in poverty. chomsky thinks everyone has the same standards and expectations or human nature as him. but i don't blame him i used to go crazy at my childhood friends in the slums who will never lift a finger to do the very simple things that will improve their life. even as simple as throw their trash in the garbage can so they will have a more decent place to live. then i realized they were not really suffering they were perfectly fine. in fact i was the one suffering because i was asthmatic and allergic to heat and humidity which gives me soar throat and sinusitis. i used to feel sorry for my security guard friends because if i were in their shoes i will rather commit suicide out of boredom sitting for 8 hours a day doing nothing. so i encouraged them to go to trade school and try to be a plumber or electrician which i enjoy but they thought i was crazy. they told me not only they feel so lucky, they feel guilty or sorry for the maintenance personnel of the concominium who has to be fixing stuff. i was dumbfounded. no wonder why security guards are always smiling. so even the supposedly common sense agreement that the sufferings of sentinent creatures has to be avoided is not common sense after all. first of all suffering cannot be measured with a scientific instrument. suffering is also a very complicated concept because why would obama or my dad who has 2 masters degree in the university of wisconsin smoke 5 packs a day knowing it will make him suffer from lung cancer? this reply to you may seem long but it's actually just a dot in the wall of my blog. what really baffles me is that chomsky is supposet to be a genius but he thinks most people will work and go to school even if they don't have to. it also baffles me that he thinks we should live in a society where people can't own properties. i won't disagree that owning property is immoral but that's like forcing my dad to quit smoking because it gives him cancer.
-------------------- michael's reply:
Ian Crystal On your point about Chomsky and I not having experience of common people. Chomsky grew up in a working class family as did I. After high school I paid my way for college and when I went back to school to study computer science I worked at night and went to school during the day. And I managed to achieve some small bit of success by working by butt off although I usually enjoyed my work because it was so intellectually interesting and for the most part I worked with other highly motivated, interesting, smart people.
And I don't see how anyone can claim Chomsky is not in touch with common people. He is 91 years old and still traveling the world visiting 3rd world countries and indigenous peoples. I've read and personally heard so many stories about how Chomsky will talk one on one with working people, activists in Palestine, etc.
Also, I'm not aware of Chomsky ever saying he wanted to completely abolish personal property. If you know of such a quote please let me know. It's one of the things I like about him is that while he has high ideals he is also a pragmatist. He got a lot of flack from people on the left for encouraging people to vote for Clinton in the last election. Chomsky is an anarchist which he defines as someone who thinks power is never a given, it must always be justified. I agree with him.
I do agree with you that I think he has a bit of a biased view of the world having worked in academia all his life. Having worked in the business world I've come to realize that to get certain things done you need hierarchies and you need someone who is responsible, not a committee who don't have enough authority or responsibility. Someone who you can point to and say: it's your butt if this fails. So I'm skeptical when he talks about workers councils and things like that.
But at the same time I think it's a big mistake to look at the way the world is now (or at history) and assume it always has to be this way. The few millenia of recorded history are microseconds in the span of geological time, e.g., the time it takes for significant evolution of complex long lived species. If the human race can manage to not destroy itself in the coming decades I think there is great potential that we could eventually create a much more egalitarian world. There is a great book by the anthropologist Christopher Boehm called Moral Origins where he describes what we know about tribes as they existed before agriculture, i.e, what our "human nature" was like before culture and it was surprisingly VERY egalitarian.
BTW, you keep mentioning something you've written which I take it is published on the web. Why don't you just include a link if you reply to this message? I would like to take a look.
----------------------- my reply to gordana:
Gordana Gogic-Janjic i agree with you about US atrocities and their dirty games. I witnessed them firsthand in the Philippines in the 70s and 80s through their proxy marocs. the reason why we filipinos are more forgiving is because we are aware that if the US gives up it's imperialistic ambitions then a much greater evil can easily emerge considering how the next in line candidates are treating it's own citizens. and the reason why i'm more forgiving about the US being less egalitarian is because anyone who comes from more normal countries would think the US is like paradise and it's very easy for anyone to have a very enjoyable and prosperous life. i wrote a play to illustrate this (search "ian's knowledge bombs" in google and search "hamiltons-american-dream" in the table of contents). i think we have similar views on abortion i also think it should be legal to abort the baby to save the life of a mother. my point is that i think it is normal for a person to feel the fetus is already human and it is normal for them to feel it should be illegal to kill the fetus. although i agree they should not be imposing their feelings on others, it is wrong to label them as anti women's choice. example i even think people who think i'm evil for eating innocent cows and chickens are better people or more evolved human beings than me even if i will kill them if they take away my right to eat fried chicken and prime rib.
------------------------- my reply to michael:
Michael DeBellis my replies to your arguments is what' i've been writing in my blog all along because they are very common arguments (search "ian's knowledge bombs" in the web). i'm not saying i'm right. at best my world view is just another perspective but i think it's a perspective that honorable leftists should take a look at to prevent more of their blundering efforts to do good. as i keep saying leftists are always correct from a moral standpoint. the advocacies of leftists are like me telling my dad to stop smoking because it causes cancer but unfortunately human nature always trumps idealistic principles.
by common people i didn't mean economic status. i meant common in the spectrum of discipline, morality, or being humane. homer simpson and che guevarra belong to the same econmic class but homer is common and che guevarra is rare. you and chomsky and a very few rich and poor will probably work hard even if you can just take what you want from the communal storage or there is no risk/reward but that is very very very rare in my experience and observation. this is the root of our disagreement. of course i could be wrong but this is my strong belief. i can't take this issue lightly because so many times here in the philippines i just want to ask a quick question from a government office but of course nobody ever answers the phone and i have to line up the for hours. leftists might think i'm just a crybaby because according to bernie sanders, lining up for food is a good thing (just kidding i know he meant relative to starvation). i see the phone in the office and i ask if it's working and they say yes so i ask why nobody answers when most of them are just sitting around talking to each other they look at me as if i'm some naive idiot who does not know how the world really works. of course if that was you and chomsky you will be very enthusiastic to answer the phone and assist your fellow human being even if there is no consequence if you don't. unsatisfied customers of a government office can't just go to the next door to the competition and buy a better and cheaper burger. i think this is what really scares people who are already content with their health insurance (it's in my articles socialism-demystified and tony-stark-has-a-heart). i think this is the root reason why bernie dropped out of the race. and i'm sure if it was you and chomsky or susan surandon in the government office complaining you will most probably be treated with utmost respect because of your charisma and they will immediately assist you and make it look like they are correcting the problem so of course your world view will be very different from mine or the common people.
as i stressed in my article "my-street-cred", i don't think the people that chomsky meets are common. my feeling is that they are rare impressive people with leftist personalities or else they would be symbiotic beneficiaries of the power ellites just like the filipinos, hawiaans and alaskans (it's in my articles thank-god-filipinos-are-prostitutes and leftist-harming-the-palestinians). even if they are common people, they will be in their best behavior because chomsky is charismatic just like a church member giving 20% of their income to the church because the leader is very charismatic (search quiboloy in youtube). unlike me when i was a kid i won't even let my friends borrow my bike because twice they pretended they were mugged and my bike got stolen but later i found out they sold it. chomsky has not lived in the slums and be neighors with a guy who everyone respects and adores but regularly beats up his kids in front of the whole neighborhood (read my article knowledge-bombs-on-marijuana-and-duckling-care). as the saying goes, a leftist is a conservative who hasn't been mugged.
i stand corrected on libertarian socialism not allowing ownership of personal properties such as cars cellphones and houses. i didn't quite understand chomsky when he was talking about property rights. leftists should wisen up and always make it clear at the beginning of any talk related to libertarian socialism that people are still allowed to own personal property. leftists should practice talking to common low intellects like me in a workplace democracy such as factory line workers and janitors who might not be that detail oriented. thanks for correcting me. now i will have to make a lot of corrections in my blog.
chomsky did say a libertarian socialist society should not have any form of money or currency which baffled me because i don't see how it's going to work. oh well he is a scientist so i just have to trust him when it comes to technicalities and mechanics i can only argue with him from a point of view of a vegetable vendor englightening einstein that it's not safe for him to go in the slums because of his lack of knowledge on human nature.
i do agree with you about the need for hierarchy and that evolution is gearing towards a more egalitarian society. but to me it won't be because of chomsky's speeches but because of the very institutions chomsky is trying to dismantle. just like the internet was born out of the evils of war, technology will force society into a more socialistic society. so trump is practially the biggest vehicle for socialism because he cut taxes which allows corporations to invest more on technology (just kidding). example i think it was the factory machines that sparked the abolishment of slavery, not the gettysburg address.
whenever i hear a company or industry is suffering because of overbuilding or overproduction, it gives me the feeling that technology will one day force society into socialism. isn't over building of houses a good thing? i get astonished whenever a financial analysts shouts sell sell sell on a stock whenever the company has too much invetory. so at some point we can just overproduce everything and make it free for everyone. i think yanis varoufokis shares my sentiment when he said the 3d printers might be the only hope for mankind.
facebook will block any comment or post i make that has a link to blogger. but if you search "ian's knowledge bombs" on google it will be the first item in the results. it's ian-crystaldotblogspotdotcom if you know what i mean. it's well organized in a table of contents. i hope you can point out more technical errors and look past my unprofessional and unethical gimmicks. displaying my true colors reinforces my views on the realities or imperfections of human nature which is my core argument against socialism. many intellectual leftists dismisses my writings because it's poorly written i tell them the ancient writings on caves have more spelling and grammatical errors yet scientists will walk over fire to try to decode or understand them. understanding human nature of today is just as important as understanding ancient humans. the common human of today don't write they just do tiktok. so i'm trying to be the bridge.
(for more of my knowledge bombs, click the "ian's knowledge bombs" banner at the top of this article and choose any article in the table of contents that piques your interest)
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