Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

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Cool Breeze
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by Cool Breeze »

John wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:34 pm
Please respond: Are you or are you not a paid troll?
Of course not. Why would I be a "paid troll"?

As far as your religious sensibilities go, you basically (as a modern and unbelieving person, I presume, since you are a relativist) do not understand what religions are and what sin is. Does every "group" have individuals that sin, commit evil acts, etc? Yes.

Does every religion teach that these are OK or permissible? No. Bingo, you have your answer on what my point is. Please tell me you understand this. You don't seem to get that certain people and religions glorify heinous acts, while others call their members to repent from them. This is a basic understanding, but I think most moderns have been fooled into forgetting it, mostly because of their modern, consumer, luxurious life and lack of faith in anything, anymore.
It really sickens me to read all this crap. If you really are
a Christian, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Please respond. Is Jesus Christ God? If he is not, by what authority do you doubt or should I be ashamed of? By someone who doesn't even believe in the Holy Trinity and yet defines what Christianity is? That's more than bizarre, also being illogical, but I am used to it these days.

Cool Breeze
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by Cool Breeze »

John wrote:
Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:40 pm
So the issue of anti-Asian hate groups is really about black
resentment of Asians' success, and about competition among minority
groups (blacks and Asians) for resources.
It's funny that Bobby B will never admit this either. I find it amusing, and an effort in critical thinking, to consider the following, from an (in)famous person of the 1960s and 1970s, who saw this already happening very clearly, more than 50 years ago:
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM

6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.

7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, "politically correct" types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by "leftism" will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology. (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)

8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn't seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do here is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call "feelings of inferiority" and "oversocialization." Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.

FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY

10. By "feelings of inferiority" we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strict sense but a whole spectrum of related traits; low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have some such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.

11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among minority rights activists, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities and about anything that is said concerning minorities. The terms "negro," "oriental," "handicapped" or "chick" for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. "Broad" and "chick" were merely the feminine equivalents of "guy," "dude" or "fellow." The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights activists have gone so far as to reject the word "pet" and insist on its replacement by "animal companion." Leftish anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the world "primitive" by "nonliterate." They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)

12. Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual white males from middle- to upper-middle-class families.

13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology.)

14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.

15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist's real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.

16. Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative," "enterprise," "optimism," etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's problems for them, satisfy everyone's needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftish intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.

18. Modern leftish philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftish philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e., failed, inferior). The leftist's feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual's ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is "inferior" it is not his fault, but society's, because he has not been brought up properly.

19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that. Hisfeelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.

21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.

22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.

23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism.
Another phenomenal gem:
50. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.

Cool Breeze
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by Cool Breeze »

Great post, John.

But I keep wondering what you will say if there is no war by 2024? No war by 2028?

Do you have an answer?

John
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by John »

** 24-Mar-2021 World View: Wondering
Cool Breeze wrote:
Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:46 am
> Great post, John.

> But I keep wondering what you will say if there is no war by 2024?
> No war by 2028?

> Do you have an answer?
As you suggest, you've asked me this question several times, and I've
answered it several times.

There's no point in answering it again, since you simply ignore
anything I write and just post the same things over and over. The
same thing is true for many issues.

But if you'd like to know my answer, then it's simple: Just go back to
the last time you were "wondering," and see what I answered then.

Cool Breeze
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by Cool Breeze »

John wrote:
Wed Mar 24, 2021 2:24 pm
** 24-Mar-2021 World View: Wondering
Cool Breeze wrote:
Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:46 am
> Great post, John.

> But I keep wondering what you will say if there is no war by 2024?
> No war by 2028?

> Do you have an answer?
As you suggest, you've asked me this question several times, and I've
answered it several times.

There's no point in answering it again, since you simply ignore
anything I write and just post the same things over and over. The
same thing is true for many issues.

But if you'd like to know my answer, then it's simple: Just go back to
the last time you were "wondering," and see what I answered then.
I did, and am still looking for a real answer. Not, "It'll happen, eventually." Something like a real answer. When you're in the mood, of course.

Cool Breeze
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by Cool Breeze »

Tom Mazanec wrote:
Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:23 pm
The only thing that will matter ten years from now is whether and how
well the country survives the war with China.
So the war will definitely have been fought by 2031?
Tom, he thinks I'm trying to be mean when I ask this same question - but both you and I know I am not, I'm just curious and want people to think properly and correctly. John, apparently another member realizes what I have, and hasn't seen a real answer either. Is Tom also crazy or not paying attention? There's nothing wrong with being wrong, the key is talking about it. That's why I said, one should just assign probabilities. But for some reason you think that you can't be wrong, which I find rather odd.

John
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by John »

Repetitive posts moved here

John
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by John »

** 25-Mar-2021 World View: Probability of war
Cool Breeze wrote:
Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:14 pm
> Tom, he thinks I'm trying to be mean when I ask this same question
> - but both you and I know I am not, I'm just curious and want
> people to think properly and correctly. John, apparently another
> member realizes what I have, and hasn't seen a real answer
> either. Is Tom also crazy or not paying attention? There's nothing
> wrong with being wrong, the key is talking about it. That's why I
> said, one should just assign probabilities. But for some reason
> you think that you can't be wrong, which I find rather
> odd.
As I've said, I believe that it's likely we'll be at war within the
next few years, but I can't prove it. Beyond that, I don't even know
what kind of answer you're looking for.

But instead of trying, I'll just relate it to a question that I raised
with you a while ago, which you completely evaded answering -- the
prediction of the Second Coming. I assume that as a devout Christian
you believe in the imminence of the Second Coming. If that assumption
is wrong then just say so, but based on many of your posts, I doubt
that it is wrong.

http://www.orthodoxchristian.info/pages/Parousia.htm

So, I need your help in understanding the kind of response you're
looking for from me about the prediction of war, and the best way for
you to educate me is to explain your reasoning as regards the
prediction of the Second Coming. Do you believe it will occur by
2024? Within the next ten years? Within your lifetime? Within the
century? Or do you believe that it will happen something, but you
have no idea when?

So tell he how you assign probabilities to the prediction of the
Second Coming, and that will help me understand how to answer your
questions about the probability of war.

Cool Breeze
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by Cool Breeze »

It will happen some time, but I don't know when. If I had to guess, my guess would be in my lifetime, but not in the next 10 years.

I haven't written books and made predictions on the parousia, nor have I made a forum about it, nor have I guaranteed anything about it. So it's not really a great analogy, but I've played your game even so. The point of the parousia is not to predict, so in that sense, you are missing a great deal of the theology around it already.

Are you admitting that you have religious devotion to your ideas though? That could be a big breakthrough here, John. Very interesting where we have come.

I read your Singularity article and it was interesting. I suspect you are a scientific materialist, which explains quite a bit.

John
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Re: Cool Breeze's Topic

Post by John »

** 25-Mar-2021 World View: Predictions
Cool Breeze wrote:
Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:10 pm
> It will happen some time, but I don't know when. If I had to
> guess, my guess would be in my lifetime, but not in the next 10
> years.
Since thousands of people have believed something similar for
the last 2000 years, and they've all been proven wrong, you must
have some reason to believe that "This time it's different." Do you
have such a reason?
Cool Breeze wrote:
Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:10 pm
> I haven't written books and made predictions on the parousia, nor
> have I made a forum about it, nor have I guaranteed anything about
> it. So it's not really a great analogy, but I've played your game
> even so. The point of the parousia is not to predict, so in that
> sense, you are missing a great deal of the theology around it
> already.
It's a good analogy because it provides a point of comparison. I guess
your point is that the Second Coming is entirely a matter of faith, with
no basis in reason or historical analogy. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

As an analyst, I would say that if 2000 years of predictions have all
failed, then they're likely to fail for the next 2000 years, unless
there's some reason to conclude otherwise.
Cool Breeze wrote:
Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:10 pm
> Are you admitting that you have religious devotion to your ideas
> though? That could be a big breakthrough here, John. Very
> interesting where we have come.
Not at all. When I set up my web site in 2003, my expressly stated
purpose is that I would post analyses and predictions, and leave them
there for all to see. If they had been proven wrong, then no
"religious devotion" would have helped. I would have dropped
Generational Dynamics like a hot potato, and would probably have gone
on to be a much happier person, with more friends. As things stand,
those analyses and predictions have always been right, so I'm stuck.

The prediction of a likely war with China is entirely analytical, for
reasons I've posted many times. Briefly:
  • Based on the cycles of history, Generational Dynamics predicts
    a world war around this time.
  • There were two world wars in the last century, and massive additional
    wars on every continent. In fact, there have been massive wars on
    every continent every century for millennia, so it's nearly certain that
    there will be massive wars and one or two world wars this century.
  • If there were a way to assign a numeric measure to xenophobia, then
    that number would be going up in China towards Japan, Taiwan, the Phillipines,
    Russia, India, Kazakhstan, etc. These numbers have been growing steadily,
    with no sign of leveling off. Applying the rule that "If something can't
    go on forever, then it won't," there has to be a war.
So the evidence for the Generational Dynamics prediction of war is entirely
analytical, and has no "religious devotion" component at all.
Cool Breeze wrote:
Thu Mar 25, 2021 4:10 pm
> I read your Singularity article and it was interesting. I suspect
> you are a scientific materialist, which explains quite a bit.
I don't know what a "scientific materialist" is, but it sounds
interesting.

Have you read Tom Mazanec's short story on the Singularity?

** 'Maybe we'll get it right this time' by Tom Mazanec
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... 090309.htm

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