A 'false' intellectual?

[BurnedOut]

I have recently shifted cities and my roommate is vexatious in numerous ways - some of them I can tolerate, some of them unbearable.

One of his unbearable ways of life is an imposing demeanor when it comes to intellectualizing. He carries with him the odour of a Marxist but in reality is not one. He is a fierce critic of the caste system in India. I am unsurprised as it is not uncommon for students of my age and a little older to share this logic - we are ultimately of the 21st century's progressive stride. I don't need to necessarily explain what caste system is but if in case you are finding the term baffling, here you go.

---

His personality is motley, he is definitely a notch higher in his level of thinking, that I can assure but sometimes what I don't understand is his lack of amenability towards perspectives that are opposing his. If you have read Russian history to the bare minimum, you will stumble upon how the soviets managed to keep the communists interested throughout its ill-conceived schemes - dialectics.

The communists were infamous for using dialectics not as a method of a purer inquiry but as a source of rationalization which ironically trumps Hegel's and Marx's comment on human 'alienation'. In simpler words, when something bothers you, just stick to your guns and call the other perspective an imposter or some derivative of your perspective or even better - create a mishmash of both while keeping the dominant narrative as yours similarly to how democracy invalidates its own democratic values.

My roommate is one of such persons. For him, every narrative in India - political or social is marred with the caste system. While it may be true to some degree, India itself is a honest-to-god neoliberal economy and that is enough basis for any sane Indian intellectual to say that caste-system only critics are falling short of evidence to project their arguments for posterity.

As far as I have read about Indian history, economy and the socialist scene, I can say that the role of caste system persists but no longer as the 'grand narrative'. It is rather relegated to the position of a catalyst towards towards biased social functioning than being an active ingredient.

India has witnessed a surge of capitalistic line of thought pervading almost all stratas of society - there is secularization in the bloods of every profit-wanter although it may not be immanent until the amelioration of existing poverty. Even if the social biases are infamous for causing regularly unwanted incidents, these incidents are far from reality that is taking course.

Of course, it is a matter of debate if whether the backward areas should be considered or the progressive ones. I believe that if the dominant idea is strong enough, it will enough the hold of traditional thinking in time. Therefore, I believe that although caste system continues to play a role, it does not play as big as a role of state's raison d'etre or economic liberalization. An Indian villager may disagree with me but provide him with enough opportunities to be a capitalist, he will jump to the boat of secular economic dealings than a caste-system driven economy. This is evident from the growth of Indian economy. A truly enrapturing system of thought will survive the onslaught of progress, for eg. Racism and Nationalism but caste system as a system of thought and political economy is simply too inefficient to persist in the long run.

The fact that it lurks in the Indian society is not the failure of progress but the failure of inequitable development of the society. Take that off the board and you will watch caste system's remnants crumbling in no time. If the metros have managed to turn so secular in such short time in India, why not other areas?

---

But no, these ideas are not entertained by these propounders of caste-system-is-the-everlasting-sodomy theory won't buy these perspectives. They will call them capitalist or use Marx's dialectics to say, 'Oh, you see how the caste system has hidden itself behind these factors?'. This is being fake Gramsci and nothing else. Cultures always prevails in some manner or the other. They transmutate and not get destroyed in most cases of extremely popular cultures.

When you make the argument of caste system hiding itself behind other institutions - it is bullshit. Empirical analysis is no longer an obstacle in this era. Data collection has become easier and its sampling methods are improving. Evidence refutes this line of thought although does not simply eradicate it from reality.

---

Is an intellectual who constantly runs propaganda an intellectual anymore? Is not the job of an intellectual or a self-professed intellectual constantly refine his or her own theory? How blurred is the line between a seeker of knowledge or a person with just another hunger for power, a desire to establish hegemony through ideas?

 

[Black Rose]

How blurred is the line between a seeker of knowledge or a person with just another hunger for power, a desire to establish hegemony through ideas?

 

[scorpiomover]

I have recently shifted cities and my roommate is vexatious in numerous ways - some of them I can tolerate, some of them unbearable.

One of his unbearable ways of life is an imposing demeanor when it comes to intellectualizing. He carries with him the odour of a Marxist but in reality is not one.

He's in university? He wants everyone to think of him as an intelligent intellectual.

That way, he can believe that companies looking for the most intelligent graduates will hire him.

Also, he can then make arguments that young women fresh out of school should think of him as a super-intelligent guy who will get a 6-figure job because of his intelligence, and will then be more likely to have sex with him.

He is a fierce critic of the caste system in India. I am unsurprised as it is not uncommon for students of my age and a little older to share this logic - we are ultimately of the 21st century's progressive stride.

Not a fan of the caste system myself.

My own ancestors used to be banned from nearly all jobs in England for hundreds of years due to the Guild system.

But I don't think it's my place to tell other people how to run their countries and their lives.

His personality is motley, he is definitely a notch higher in his level of thinking, that I can assure but sometimes what I don't understand is his lack of amenability towards perspectives that are opposing his.

He probably thinks that if he's proved wrong once, that sets a precedent that he could be wrong about others, and that might damage his reputation.

Of course, it is a matter of debate if whether the backward areas should be considered or the progressive ones. I believe that if the dominant idea is strong enough, it will enough the hold of traditional thinking in time. Therefore, I believe that although caste system continues to play a role, it does not play as big as a role of state's raison d'etre or economic liberalization. An Indian villager may disagree with me but provide him with enough opportunities to be a capitalist, he will jump to the boat of secular economic dealings than a caste-system driven economy. This is evident from the growth of Indian economy.

England used to be ruled by warrior kings (the Plantagenets). They were replaced by businessmen (the Tudors), when it became clear that thanks to the Plantagenets winning wars and establishing peace treaties, England was safe enough that trade flourished, and so the needs of trade became more important than the needs of war.

By the 1600s, the caste system in England was being undone, because my ancestors were making a lot of money for the country.

Likewise, if you look at what happened with Ireland. Used to be bombed so often that no business would start there. Then after the Good Friday Agreement, there was a truce for 10 years. Businesses started seeing Ireland as a good place to put a business. By 10 years later, trade had flourished so much under the truce, that when the IRA did 3 more bombs, both sides said they were opposed to the violence, even the side that the IRA were fighting for.

Money-makers care more about money than religion and castes. If Microsoft or Google open a department in India and discover that the Dalets are brilliant at software development, their Indian executives would be employing Dalets.

Likewise, most social classes depend on money. Who would a Brahmin woman rather marry? A poor Brahmin or a Dalet who is a billionaire? Who would a Brahmin mother want her daughter to marry? A poor Brahmin or a billionaire?

If the Dalets became millionaires and billionaires, before long, they'd be the toast of Indian society.

The fact that it lurks in the Indian society is not the failure of progress but the failure of inequitable development of the society. Take that off the board and you will watch caste system's remnants crumbling in no time. If the metros have managed to turn so secular in such short time in India, why not other areas?

Mostly because the rural areas have a lot less infrastructure, like poor plumbing and poor roads, which makes it much harder to run a business and make money.

Once you build up the infrastructure so businesses can make money there easily, the rural areas will have the same evolutionary pressures as the metropolitan areas.

Is an intellectual who constantly runs propaganda an intellectual anymore?

Such a person a pseudo-intellectual, someone who wants to be thought of as intelligent, but isn't.

But if you call him a pseudo-intellectual, then you're saying that he's not really an intellectual. So they'll shout you down until you stop calling them that.

Is not the job of an intellectual or a self-professed intellectual constantly refine his or her own theory?

Intelligence is not a genetic trait. It's about making making more mental effort to figure out a better understanding and better answers.

The smarter person is not someone like Stephen Hawking. The smarter person is the person who spent more time thinking about the problem.

The smarter person usually turns out to be someone like Stephen Hawking, because people like Stephen Hawking usually put a lot more time and effort into thinking about physics than the rest of us.

But today, intelligence is valued so greatly in jobs, that a lot of people can make a lot of money, simply by garnering a false reputation.

A lot of companies will employ such people deliberately, simply because some people will be fooled by such a false reputation. Even if only 1 in 1,000 people are fooled, worldwide, that is still 7.8 million customers.

How blurred is the line between a seeker of knowledge or a person with just another hunger for power, a desire to establish hegemony through ideas?

Very.

The smartest guy in my university was just a lecturer.

The head of the department was the worst at maths in the entire faculty, and was a nice person, but not very bright.

In the modern world, we associate higher social status, more power & responsibility, and more pay with greater intelligence. But it's far more affected by drive and ambition than intelligence.

The top earners by MBTI income are: ESTJ, ENTJ, ISTJ and INTJ. INTPs are near the bottom. But no-one seems to doubt that INTPs have a much higher IQ than any of them, and that ESTJs have the lowest IQ of any of them.

So greater drive and ambition often lead to economic & career success that are often misattributed to greater intelligence.

 

[Daddy]

Discussion vs debate imo. One is open to an exchange of ideas/information/change and the other wants to prove that they are right. The other is closed off, until you "defeat" them; not worth the time and effort, unless maybe you are this guy and you are very patient -

 

[ZenRaiden]

It is 2021 and India still struggles with poverty, child labor, malnutrition, lack of education, basic needs such as clean water.
High child mortality rate

Poverty in India: Facts and figures on the daily struggle for survival

Two-thirds of people in India live in poverty living on less than $2 a day. This makes the Indian subcontinent one of the poorest countries in the world; women and children, the weakest members of Indian society, suffer most.

www.soschildrensvillages.ca

Two-thirds of people in India live in poverty: 68.8% of the Indian population lives on less than [imath]2 a day. Over 30% even have less than[/imath]1.25 per day available - they are considered extremely poor. This makes the Indian subcontinent one of the poorest countries in the world; women and children, the weakest members of Indian society, suffer most.

• High infant mortality
• Malnutrition
• Child labour
• Lack of education
• Child marriage
• HIV / AIDS

India is one of the world’s top countries when it comes to malnutrition: More than 200 million people don’t have sufficient access to food, including 61 million children. 7.8 million infants were found to have a birth weight of less than 2.5 kilograms - alarming figures for a country commonly referred to as the emerging market.

According to UNICEF, about 25% of children in India have no access to education. The number of children excluded from school is higher among girls than boys. Although women and men are treated equally under Indian law, girls and women, especially in the lower social caste, are considered inferior and are oppressed by their fathers, brothers and husbands. Without education, the chance of finding a living wage from employment in India is virtually hopeless.

• According to Global MPI Reports 2019 and 2020, 21.9% of the population was poor in the country or the number of poor was pegged at 269.8 million
• According to World Poverty Clock in 2021, roughly 6% or 86,799,498 (86.8 million) of the population are living in poverty.

Do you dispute the data from these websites?

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

This is what you do with fake intellectuals

 

[ZenRaiden]

I have recently shifted cities and my roommate is vexatious in numerous ways - some of them I can tolerate, some of them unbearable.

One of his unbearable ways of life is an imposing demeanor when it comes to intellectualizing. He carries with him the odour of a Marxist but in reality is not one. He is a fierce critic of the caste system in India. I am unsurprised as it is not uncommon for students of my age and a little older to share this logic - we are ultimately of the 21st century's progressive stride. I don't need to necessarily explain what caste system is but if in case you are finding the term baffling, here you go.

---

His personality is motley, he is definitely a notch higher in his level of thinking, that I can assure but sometimes what I don't understand is his lack of amenability towards perspectives that are opposing his. If you have read Russian history to the bare minimum, you will stumble upon how the soviets managed to keep the communists interested throughout its ill-conceived schemes - dialectics.

The communists were infamous for using dialectics not as a method of a purer inquiry but as a source of rationalization which ironically trumps Hegel's and Marx's comment on human 'alienation'. In simpler words, when something bothers you, just stick to your guns and call the other perspective an imposter or some derivative of your perspective or even better - create a mishmash of both while keeping the dominant narrative as yours similarly to how democracy invalidates its own democratic values.

My roommate is one of such persons. For him, every narrative in India - political or social is marred with the caste system. While it may be true to some degree, India itself is a honest-to-god neoliberal economy and that is enough basis for any sane Indian intellectual to say that caste-system only critics are falling short of evidence to project their arguments for posterity.

As far as I have read about Indian history, economy and the socialist scene, I can say that the role of caste system persists but no longer as the 'grand narrative'. It is rather relegated to the position of a catalyst towards towards biased social functioning than being an active ingredient.

India has witnessed a surge of capitalistic line of thought pervading almost all stratas of society - there is secularization in the bloods of every profit-wanter although it may not be immanent until the amelioration of existing poverty. Even if the social biases are infamous for causing regularly unwanted incidents, these incidents are far from reality that is taking course.

Of course, it is a matter of debate if whether the backward areas should be considered or the progressive ones. I believe that if the dominant idea is strong enough, it will enough the hold of traditional thinking in time. Therefore, I believe that although caste system continues to play a role, it does not play as big as a role of state's raison d'etre or economic liberalization. An Indian villager may disagree with me but provide him with enough opportunities to be a capitalist, he will jump to the boat of secular economic dealings than a caste-system driven economy. This is evident from the growth of Indian economy. A truly enrapturing system of thought will survive the onslaught of progress, for eg. Racism and Nationalism but caste system as a system of thought and political economy is simply too inefficient to persist in the long run.

The fact that it lurks in the Indian society is not the failure of progress but the failure of inequitable development of the society. Take that off the board and you will watch caste system's remnants crumbling in no time. If the metros have managed to turn so secular in such short time in India, why not other areas?

---

But no, these ideas are not entertained by these propounders of caste-system-is-the-everlasting-sodomy theory won't buy these perspectives. They will call them capitalist or use Marx's dialectics to say, 'Oh, you see how the caste system has hidden itself behind these factors?'. This is being fake Gramsci and nothing else. Cultures always prevails in some manner or the other. They transmutate and not get destroyed in most cases of extremely popular cultures.

When you make the argument of caste system hiding itself behind other institutions - it is bullshit. Empirical analysis is no longer an obstacle in this era. Data collection has become easier and its sampling methods are improving. Evidence refutes this line of thought although does not simply eradicate it from reality.

---

Is an intellectual who constantly runs propaganda an intellectual anymore? Is not the job of an intellectual or a self-professed intellectual constantly refine his or her own theory? How blurred is the line between a seeker of knowledge or a person with just another hunger for power, a desire to establish hegemony through ideas?

Personally I have seen people bring out Marx on this forum multiple times.

Before I answer you might want to write down list of things where he was wrong and where he was correct.

His work is old and over analyzed.

Noticed you actually did not address classism and marxism.

Here is a hint some of his equations are on point, but incomplete some are old.

Class by Marx was real tangible thing. Not even Milton Freedman disputed this.

Ill check your work in about a week and see if you got something correct.

How about that.

 

[BurnedOut]

It is 2021 and India still struggles with poverty, child labor, malnutrition, lack of education, basic needs such as clean water.
High child mortality rate

Poverty in India: Facts and figures on the daily struggle for survival

Two-thirds of people in India live in poverty living on less than $2 a day. This makes the Indian subcontinent one of the poorest countries in the world; women and children, the weakest members of Indian society, suffer most.

www.soschildrensvillages.ca

Two-thirds of people in India live in poverty: 68.8% of the Indian population lives on less than [imath]2 a day. Over 30% even have less than[/imath]1.25 per day available - they are considered extremely poor. This makes the Indian subcontinent one of the poorest countries in the world; women and children, the weakest members of Indian society, suffer most.

• High infant mortality
• Malnutrition
• Child labour
• Lack of education
• Child marriage
• HIV / AIDS

India is one of the world’s top countries when it comes to malnutrition: More than 200 million people don’t have sufficient access to food, including 61 million children. 7.8 million infants were found to have a birth weight of less than 2.5 kilograms - alarming figures for a country commonly referred to as the emerging market.

According to UNICEF, about 25% of children in India have no access to education. The number of children excluded from school is higher among girls than boys. Although women and men are treated equally under Indian law, girls and women, especially in the lower social caste, are considered inferior and are oppressed by their fathers, brothers and husbands. Without education, the chance of finding a living wage from employment in India is virtually hopeless.

• According to Global MPI Reports 2019 and 2020, 21.9% of the population was poor in the country or the number of poor was pegged at 269.8 million
• According to World Poverty Clock in 2021, roughly 6% or 86,799,498 (86.8 million) of the population are living in poverty.

Sad but true.

 

[ZenRaiden]

 

[ZenRaiden]

It is 2021 and India still struggles with poverty, child labor, malnutrition, lack of education, basic needs such as clean water.
High child mortality rate

Poverty in India: Facts and figures on the daily struggle for survival

Two-thirds of people in India live in poverty living on less than $2 a day. This makes the Indian subcontinent one of the poorest countries in the world; women and children, the weakest members of Indian society, suffer most.

www.soschildrensvillages.ca

Two-thirds of people in India live in poverty: 68.8% of the Indian population lives on less than [imath]2 a day. Over 30% even have less than[/imath]1.25 per day available - they are considered extremely poor. This makes the Indian subcontinent one of the poorest countries in the world; women and children, the weakest members of Indian society, suffer most.

• High infant mortality
• Malnutrition
• Child labour
• Lack of education
• Child marriage
• HIV / AIDS

India is one of the world’s top countries when it comes to malnutrition: More than 200 million people don’t have sufficient access to food, including 61 million children. 7.8 million infants were found to have a birth weight of less than 2.5 kilograms - alarming figures for a country commonly referred to as the emerging market.

According to UNICEF, about 25% of children in India have no access to education. The number of children excluded from school is higher among girls than boys. Although women and men are treated equally under Indian law, girls and women, especially in the lower social caste, are considered inferior and are oppressed by their fathers, brothers and husbands. Without education, the chance of finding a living wage from employment in India is virtually hopeless.

• According to Global MPI Reports 2019 and 2020, 21.9% of the population was poor in the country or the number of poor was pegged at 269.8 million
• According to World Poverty Clock in 2021, roughly 6% or 86,799,498 (86.8 million) of the population are living in poverty.

Sad but true.

No, its sad that it even is true. Or that it is even possible to be true since there is no real reason for to be so.

 

[Minuend]

Damn, son. The one thing you can do to dramatically expand your understanding is to learn empathy. Learn how people feel and think. You seem to have this idea that some people strive to have an intellectual, accurate understanding of things. He seems to be knowledgeable, curious, surely he must want to have a more accurate understanding of everything. No, not really. All people have comfort zones they want to live within. Most people try to understand reality in a way that is in their comfort zone. You might perceive him as an intellectual, but he is as desperate as anyone to have a reality that aligns to his needs. He is just better at articulate and create ideas around it, making it seem he is superior. But he falls into the fallacies we all do

You need to fix that empathy blind spot of yours, it's the biggest factor that halts your understanding

 

[ZenRaiden]

Damn, son. The one thing you can do to dramatically expand your understanding is to learn empathy. Learn how people feel and think. You seem to have this idea that some people strive to have an intellectual, accurate understanding of things. He seems to be knowledgeable, curious, surely he must want to have a more accurate understanding of everything. No, not really. All people have comfort zones they want to live within. Most people try to understand reality in a way that is in their comfort zone. You might perceive him as an intellectual, but he is as desperate as anyone to have a reality that aligns to his needs. He is just better at articulate and create ideas around it, making it seem he is superior. But he falls into the fallacies we all do

You need to fix that empathy blind spot of yours, it's the biggest factor that halts your understanding

You know the guy?

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Marx himself probably had a lot of beliefs that people today would probably omit from "the Marxist lens" and why wouldn't they? A Freudian analysis is completely reasonable to do if you only use what is conventionally accepted about Freud's theories. A Freudian analysis is shorthand for "tying behaviors and thoughts to primal evolutionary reproductive instincts".

From my intro to economy understanding, a Marxist analysis would be shorthand for something like "political and social dynamics of people in relation to economic class". Sure Marx came to the conclusion that violent revolution was inevitable and advocated for it under the presupposition that afterwards things would be far better and it would reduce the net sum of suffering or some shit like that. But you don't need to have this in your present day analytical framework when engaging with someone to put yourself on a pedestal. Be charitable.

Despite the wild things she believed and said there's just so many things that his work opened up people's eyes to that weren't really popular before. Such as the existence of the middle class just as another tool for control. I certainly don't think it's a very helpful lens myself, because I don't want violent revolution, but there's a lot of merit behind it and in the right hands you can really make the bourgeoisie shit their pants.

But yeah onto pseudo intellectualism. Everyone's anti-establishment when they're young. It's no coincidence that as they get older they become more conservative. I actually don't believe this is due to aging itself. It's because they work their entire lives to get what they have and want to keep as much of it as they can.
You don't have to make a judgment about this person now, just disingenuously question their commitment to their beliefs and then wait a couple decades and see if they still have them and rub it in their face if they don't. This only works if they have a good degree.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Damn, son. The one thing you can do to dramatically expand your understanding is to learn empathy. Learn how people feel and think. You seem to have this idea that some people strive to have an intellectual, accurate understanding of things. He seems to be knowledgeable, curious, surely he must want to have a more accurate understanding of everything. No, not really. All people have comfort zones they want to live within. Most people try to understand reality in a way that is in their comfort zone. You might perceive him as an intellectual, but he is as desperate as anyone to have a reality that aligns to his needs. He is just better at articulate and create ideas around it, making it seem he is superior. But he falls into the fallacies we all do

You need to fix that empathy blind spot of yours, it's the biggest factor that halts your understanding

You know on second thought NOT having social skills might have evolutionary advantage. It means you will end up situations where you are really needed for skills instead of social skills.

Today employers and lots of experts say social skills is number one skill.
It makes their job easier not necessarily yours life easier anyway.
The implication is you have easier time getting to fit into your job description.
Realistically though maybe if you do develop social skills you end up around people who are nothing like you or even like being around you.

Social skills don't mean you are better person always or better at your job or better at thinking or even happier.
It might end up that the guy will learn some social skills and the next thing you know he will be running for president of local marxist party. Do you really really want that????? Especially since you all here show such extreme disdain for Marxism?
Do we really need another Lenin or God forbid Hitler.

Personally I think social skills are so overrated and so elaborate and complex they no longer serve any purpose. They just extra steps to achieve simple things you would have achieved regardless of whatever.

Climbing social skill pyramid means you are getting closer to the extrovert hill peak.

Does not mean you are necessarily achieving or doing anything better.

Also why get a job you don't want and hone in on your social skills, when you can simply aim to get a job you want.

 

[BurnedOut]

Damn, son. The one thing you can do to dramatically expand your understanding is to learn empathy. Learn how people feel and think

Well. He's gonna start a blog about anti-casteism. I asked him - 'why?' because Marcuse's statement of subversive/rebellious/dissenting literature being fed to public like it is just another spice in a dish. A little spicy, yeah? Good. It's just a condiment. Have it. Our bullshit-producing capitalistic economies don't care about it. Marx has become a meme now. Communists are synonymous with mass-murderers. Is that the reality about them?

Everybody has access to all kinds of literature they wish. That somehow does not change them, does it? Despite all the convincing arguments of Dems does not changing the dollar-whores of republicans. Does it?

It does not matter what I bark here. Marcuse's own 'One Dimensional Man' is deemed as 'subversive' and forgotten. Now Zuckerberg has the bloody cheek to rename his core company as Metaverse. What a fucking irony! He dreams of bringing Augmented Reality to this attention-whore of a world. Now, despite all the warnings of psychology of psychological alienation from reality are just tea-party arguments and nothing more.

What I am trying to say is that my friend as referred in the OP cheekily accepted that he 'only cares about establishing his own hegemony (Remember Gramsci?) of ideas and does not care about anybody's opinions whilst telling me that I am absolutely correct.'

 

[Puffy]

Damn, son. The one thing you can do to dramatically expand your understanding is to learn empathy. Learn how people feel and think. You seem to have this idea that some people strive to have an intellectual, accurate understanding of things. He seems to be knowledgeable, curious, surely he must want to have a more accurate understanding of everything. No, not really. All people have comfort zones they want to live within. Most people try to understand reality in a way that is in their comfort zone. You might perceive him as an intellectual, but he is as desperate as anyone to have a reality that aligns to his needs. He is just better at articulate and create ideas around it, making it seem he is superior. But he falls into the fallacies we all do

You need to fix that empathy blind spot of yours, it's the biggest factor that halts your understanding

You know on second thought NOT having social skills might have evolutionary advantage. It means you will end up situations where you are really needed for skills instead of social skills.

Today employers and lots of experts say social skills is number one skill.
It makes their job easier not necessarily yours life easier anyway.
The implication is you have easier time getting to fit into your job description.
Realistically though maybe if you do develop social skills you end up around people who are nothing like you or even like being around you.

Social skills don't mean you are better person always or better at your job or better at thinking or even happier.
It might end up that the guy will learn some social skills and the next thing you know he will be running for president of local marxist party. Do you really really want that????? Especially since you all here show such extreme disdain for Marxism?
Do we really need another Lenin or God forbid Hitler.

Personally I think social skills are so overrated and so elaborate and complex they no longer serve any purpose. They just extra steps to achieve simple things you would have achieved regardless of whatever.

Climbing social skill pyramid means you are getting closer to the extrovert hill peak.

Does not mean you are necessarily achieving or doing anything better.

Also why get a job you don't want and hone in on your social skills, when you can simply aim to get a job you want.

I don’t see anything wrong with an individual pursuing a solitary lifestyle. If it makes you happy and you’re able to survive without your choice impacting others then fair enough.

If you were to scale this mindset beyond yourself to others though, I find it hard to believe human societies could function without valuing social skills and communication on some level. Even introvert jobs like computer programming in practice often involves social skills, as does any field where you’re collaborating or working with others in some way. It’s quite hard to avoid without being a hermit.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Our culture of criticism (I can only hope) has peaked. I have no idea what is being talked about only that people are criticizing something in a vague manner.

If you're going to criticize a lens of analysis, then it stands to question why? Why do you not want people to see the world in a particular way? Could it be because that specific lens of analysis challenges your way of life? Does someone in the top % of wage earners advocating for the annihilation of Marxist-like ideologies represent a moral/logical problem with it's premises, or does it represent a conflict of interest?

If you're going to criticize the inconsistency between someone's broadcasted "virtues" and their actions, is it a problem of morals or logic? Whichever determined, this is the hinge in which you can position yourself against such a person. On those grounds. Nothing more, nothing less.

Logically speaking, we should very well value social skills because communication is paramount to an efficacious society. Morally speaking, it's pretty arbitrary because socialization is not a necessity for any individual to live a good life. Communication I suppose is a more broad skill that you flat-out should have on a moral basis if you ask me, otherwise you are a detriment to yourself and others.

 

[Black Rose]

I visit a tech forum where they are mostly right-wingers and view leftism as such a threat as to deem America lost and have adopted anarchy as their new ideology. They have no loyalty to the USA because Trump lost. Space colonization is the only option.

Now I am a bit off-put by this. I don't like it. But I am not able to convince them why anarchy is political nihilism. People like that scare me. Nothing is beyond what they could do. The fear of anarchy is what most people come across besides totalitarianism that politically is anti Law. Its lawlessness.

Lawlessness is why ideologies fight. It is simply a fight over what should and should not be. The Law. Anarchy is any law that should not be. Any Truth that is not The Absolute Truth. An Ideology is defined by not being lies in the other ideologies.

We hate lies. So we fight them.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Damn, son. The one thing you can do to dramatically expand your understanding is to learn empathy. Learn how people feel and think. You seem to have this idea that some people strive to have an intellectual, accurate understanding of things. He seems to be knowledgeable, curious, surely he must want to have a more accurate understanding of everything. No, not really. All people have comfort zones they want to live within. Most people try to understand reality in a way that is in their comfort zone. You might perceive him as an intellectual, but he is as desperate as anyone to have a reality that aligns to his needs. He is just better at articulate and create ideas around it, making it seem he is superior. But he falls into the fallacies we all do

You need to fix that empathy blind spot of yours, it's the biggest factor that halts your understanding

You know on second thought NOT having social skills might have evolutionary advantage. It means you will end up situations where you are really needed for skills instead of social skills.

Today employers and lots of experts say social skills is number one skill.
It makes their job easier not necessarily yours life easier anyway.
The implication is you have easier time getting to fit into your job description.
Realistically though maybe if you do develop social skills you end up around people who are nothing like you or even like being around you.

Social skills don't mean you are better person always or better at your job or better at thinking or even happier.
It might end up that the guy will learn some social skills and the next thing you know he will be running for president of local marxist party. Do you really really want that????? Especially since you all here show such extreme disdain for Marxism?
Do we really need another Lenin or God forbid Hitler.

Personally I think social skills are so overrated and so elaborate and complex they no longer serve any purpose. They just extra steps to achieve simple things you would have achieved regardless of whatever.

Climbing social skill pyramid means you are getting closer to the extrovert hill peak.

Does not mean you are necessarily achieving or doing anything better.

Also why get a job you don't want and hone in on your social skills, when you can simply aim to get a job you want.

I don’t see anything wrong with an individual pursuing a solitary lifestyle. If it makes you happy and you’re able to survive without your choice impacting others then fair enough.

If you were to scale this mindset beyond yourself to others though, I find it hard to believe human societies could function without valuing social skills and communication on some level. Even introvert jobs like computer programming in practice often involves social skills, as does any field where you’re collaborating or working with others in some way. It’s quite hard to avoid without being a hermit.

My main point is that social skills are becoming a sort of fetish. Even females love guys who are socially more skills.
This obviously becomes a sort of competition of evolution.
Socially competent means more likeable. Which is from biological point great.
Let peacocks spread their feathers is a good thing. I am not against socializing.
But socializing is extremely boring for me. Not fun and predictable stuff on repeat.
I mean there is only so many things you can say and so many things you do socially.
I am not against socializing as such, but its getting increasingly intense.
By intensity I do not mean that people just trying to be more social, but I am kind of confused most of the time in social settings. I am not exactly retarded socially, but I am not seeing any point in most social situations.
I get that people have innate need to express themselves, but most conversations seem like some sort of arena for social exchange of some sort that rarely has much value. I am not even sure it makes sense to talk to most of the people I talk to beyond doing stuff. Like what the hell is happening in conversations anyway?

What counts as social and why anyway?

Social at work, sure its easier to have good mood and have some mutual understanding? Is that really socializing though? I am not certain....
I am thinking its all about people just being pricks and people trying to outwit the pricks. I mean if you have to stick your head up someones ass to get the job done that is beyond reprehensible and stupid. Better just smash a keyboard over their head. Honestly I rather talk like normal human than act super super nice and fake.
Its exhausting to tip toe around sensibilities and its an impossible task too.
Surely you don't want to make people feel bad, because you suck at social stuff, but still.
But this whole social thing seems to be getting to level of "lets make it in to something it really is not"......

 

[scorpiomover]

I visit a tech forum where they are mostly right-wingers

I had been given the impression that such a thing could not exist.

Are you sure that it's a tech forum and not a forum for cowboys who eat lots of red meat?

 

[scorpiomover]

Like what the hell is happening in conversations anyway?

Semiotics.

If you think of humans as super-advanced AIs that share information like they belong to a Borg Collective, everything makes a LOT more sense.

Most conversations follow the same patterns as MQTT messages, as if humans are computer systems communicating with each other via a message queue called "the air", that sends and receives messages, which everyone in the vicinity hears.

The conversation has a start message, and an end message. So you know when it begins and when it ends, just like a computer sending & receiving messages via an MQTT queue.

Then each message has a start indicator and an end indicator, like a full stop in a written message.

If there are multiple people in the conversation, and it's not clear which person the message is meant for, you add the username the message is for.

E.G. "SM, you look pale today." You could just say "you look pale today". But then you might mean me or cog or puffy.

People will also say something every few minutes, even if it's meaningless, like a Ping message. It reminds people that you're still in the conversation. That way, if you stop talking for 10 minutes, they know the conversation is over and don't spend 3 months waiting for a reply. In MQTT, when you log in, you send a KeepAlive number that says how long the broker should wait before assuming you've broken off the conversation and are doing something else, without bothering to tell anyone.

Humans spend a lot of time talking to each other, because we're a Hive mind. You can go out and find out if bears and lions are dangerous by trying to poke a bear or put your head in a lion's mouth. But that's dangerous and it would take you a lot of time and money to go to Africa just to find that out.

A cheaper and much safer alterative is to talk to other human AIs that have met bears and lions already, and can tell you what they're like.

An even easier option is you can watch a documentary that another human AI made.

It's much quicker and safer for each human to experience some part of physical/spiritual reality, and then tell each other about the results. That way, one human can learn a lot more about reality than he normally would learn by himself/herself.

Humans can even share and discuss ideas so that they can come to a solution by combining their brain power.

 

[onesteptwostep]

You know I saw a video on the Indian caste system a while back and I was actually very taken aback at how as a political philosophy, it's one of the more self-sustaining ways to govern. The caste is more of a system where the duties are segregated so that the 5 castes are dependent on each other. I think the basic understanding of the caste that we learn of is that it is a pyramid, a hierarchy of power, but it's more of a hierarchy of duty. It doesn't necessarily promote freedom, but it does create a harmonious society- which is why I guess India, or the subcontinent, was incredibly very peaceful for extended periods of times, even if there were multiple policy entities within the subcontinent. The hierarchy of duty I think reflects a philosophical and religious inclination, something which I don't have a clear grasp of yet, but I think a more closer look at the caste system would be wiser before anyone criticizes it. I'm not saying the way things are good, but I think it's better to understand where the Hindus are coming from before criticizing it.

Here's the video, it's pretty fun view:
The video is basically an essay on the superficial political philosophy of ancient India and China.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

@onesteptwostep ,
How much of what you're saying accurately represents reality, and how much of it is instilled into culture by the dominant class?
Reincarnation and karma for example are used to justify the caste system (not saying this would discount it entirely) and many other deplorable things. If someone is being raped, then it must be karmic justice from a previous lifetime. If someone is trying to transcend their place in society, it's because they don't know their place.

The Bhagavad Gita is full of this sort of postulation in support of these ideals. Unsurprisingly, many high class people that are secular or different religions also endorse the Gita.

No doubt there are elements at play here that bring stability, but is that isn't saying much and is a pretty low bar to me.

 

[ZenRaiden]

@onesteptwostep ,
How much of what you're saying accurately represents reality, and how much of it is instilled into culture by the dominant class?
Reincarnation and karma for example are used to justify the caste system (not saying this would discount it entirely) and many other deplorable things. If someone is being raped, then it must be karmic justice from a previous lifetime. If someone is trying to transcend their place in society, it's because they don't know their place.

The Bhagavad Gita is full of this sort of postulation in support of these ideals. Unsurprisingly, many high class people that are secular or different religions also endorse the Gita.

No doubt there are elements at play here that bring stability, but is that isn't saying much and is a pretty low bar to me.

Either the cast system works so well, that means everyone India gets what they want so even if you are in the lowest class of society everyone is happy.

Or.... its a system fueled by fear.
Fear that people of lower classes don't have everything and so they will go and take it fairly and squarely the way capitalism works.

Or the even worse upper echelons of society are so corrupt that if they undo social cast system, they know the ones below them will become thugs and corrupt like they are.

Or maybe all three above depending on who you ask.
Or maybe all three are part real, part in peoples heads, but the fact is those in lower classes have lot lot less.

 

[onesteptwostep]

@onesteptwostep ,
How much of what you're saying accurately represents reality, and how much of it is instilled into culture by the dominant class?
Reincarnation and karma for example are used to justify the caste system (not saying this would discount it entirely) and many other deplorable things. If someone is being raped, then it must be karmic justice from a previous lifetime. If someone is trying to transcend their place in society, it's because they don't know their place.

The Bhagavad Gita is full of this sort of postulation in support of these ideals. Unsurprisingly, many high class people that are secular or different religions also endorse the Gita.

No doubt there are elements at play here that bring stability, but is that isn't saying much and is a pretty low bar to me.

There is no 'dominant class'. Also another pointer to add is that, the cultural notion of the caste system we have today are from the British, who created a makeshift system copying the old social order which was in the region, and to recreate it to suit their colonial needs. (Divide and conquer, subjugation, so on)

From what I gleaned over from wiki and several other youtube videos is that in reality, it's hard to say whether the current skeleton of the caste system is reflective of the one they had 2, 3, 15, 20 centuries ago. I would assume things developed and evolved, or reverted over the centuries.

Let me illustrate to you how some of the caste thing works because I can infer from your usage of phrase 'dominant class' is somewhat.. well, very misleading. In one video, the system was made so that only the smallest caste was able to read, and that they were basically the philosophers of society, or the Hindu priests (1). After them came the ruling and army (2), then the merchants and the craftsmen (3), then the slaves and servants (4), and then the 'untouchables' (5). Note, apparently only the merchant class and downward would be able to use currency and to render services. What this means that, if the lower castes did not want to feed the upper castes, especially the highest caste, it was within their economic power to do so. The upper castes existed only to get rid of the veil that was separating them from the true nature of the world. They didn't really hold any political or economic power, but a metaphysical status of someone trying to be freed of appearances (as in, appearances as Kant points to when we perceive reality.) I guess the highest class just had power in terms of "Hinduism" rather than any conventional values such as capital or 'might'. But to exist, you literally need all these components. You need some sort of political power to maintain a society, and you need economy because you need to eat. So the different castes would need to provide the services to the other castes.

But it's a fragile system because, anytime some invader came through the Indus valley, they were pretty much overrun and subjugated. But an interesting tidbit is that the new rulers couldn't hold power for too long because the people in the Indian subcontinent had an incredibly rooted culture of Hinduism that they never took on other belief systems so that their social structure would realign for them to be ruled as subjects like in other regions. So they generally fall back into their old ways.

In the beginning you asked how much of this is true in reality.. I really couldn't tell you. But what I can tell you is that, even if India takes on the belief of capitalism, and have capital change their religious culture into a secular one, I don't think Hinduism will die out because there's a philosophical zenith in Indian society which secularism is unable to budge. Hinduism has had a philosophic hegemon on Indian society for such a long time I find it hard to see it change. Modi, the current PM is a hardcore Hindu, for one, with wide support. So unless we see a more secular political leader, we'll probably never see India remotely come close to budging from their philosophical disposition.

 

[EndogenousRebel]

I don't see any reason to contradict you on these points when I'm sure anyone who's lived in that region can point out specifics of what we're getting wrong.

I will say that it hardly matters what cultural benefits there are if it costs liberty to get it. I for a fact know that there is at least traditionally, a prohibition to intermarrying between castes. If I recall, there is a way for someone from a higher class to transcend you along the castes, but they risk ostracization as a result. This isn't even considering "untouchables" who are considered sub-human and casteless.

The higher caste definitely receive more wealth and respect in society. You may see admirability and vital functions in a ideal society, and to a degree I agree. But this is an over abstraction I'd say. Humans will always corrupt the system, and in a caste system, it is very much dictate that people who are most afflicted can't do anything about it.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Yes, I do think the payoff or difference is that you sacrifice a lot of freedom to maintain that kind of society. I do think it's what differentiates Hinduism and the general culture of individuality of western civilization.

I don't necessarily think it's positively admirable, but I do get a sense of wonder when I understand the system.