Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

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thomasglee
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Re: Truth

Post by thomasglee »

Bob Butler wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:06 pm
thomasglee wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:43 pm
Bob Butler wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 11:31 am


The attitude difference between being an extreme partisan and understanding any number of partisan positions is quite different. If you are seeking the alleged real objective truth, depending on how you view things, you end up in a different place.
John's right, you're agreeing with me, yet trying to say you're not. It's laughable.

There is only one truth. You may believe your truth and I may believe my truth, but we might both be wrong and the truth is something else.
There is a difference in attitude. Yes, there is one objective and final truth. But if you are partisan, you never look beyond the truth one has already found, one never learns and grows. If you care more about proving your partisan outlook correct than finding the truth, you do not learn or grow.

But I guess this is one of those ideas partisans block.
Just listen to yourself. You're delusional. Nobody has said anything other than there is only one truth. Which is true. Somehow you've extrapolated that out to mean that I only believe in what I believe is true. I've never said any such thing. As a matter-of-fact, I'll tell you that when seeing the TRUTH (not what I want, but the actual truth), I've been known to change my mind. You're so hellbent on being right that you cannot even participate in a spirited discussion that SEEKS the truth.
Psalm 34:4 - “I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.”

spottybrowncow
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Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

Post by spottybrowncow »

"Cast not your pearls before swine."

"Cast not facts before Bob."

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Bob Butler
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Re: Truth

Post by Bob Butler »

thomasglee wrote:
Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:43 pm
There is only one truth. You may believe your truth and I may believe my truth, but we might both be wrong and the truth is something else.
There may be a difference in scale. I have debated and discussed for a long time with people of different worldviews. Other than one person I suspect was a troll - switching from communist to Trumpist apparently to make the predominant blue people of that site mad - I have not encountered major shift in worldviews.

I quite believe there are minor shifts. There is considerable variance by the people of this site among people who are primarily of the red worldview. I can easily believe in minor shifts within the red worldview. Shifting from red to communist or religious to scientific would be most rare.

In some evangelical world views, God is the inspiration / author of the Bible, God does not lie, thus anything that contradicts the Bible must be false. A conflict between the Bible and anything outside is resolved in favor of the Bible.

To those who center on the Communist system, men can be placed into classes, the classes vie with one another in a certain order with an inevitable result. History has not shown us the predicted conflicts and results. Should one develop a theory with different predictions?

The red system teaches many lessons of how the Industrial Age worked. It makes an assumption that that the patterns learned from that time will continue to hold indefinitely. Mankind is into feeling groups superior, oppression, prejudice and violence. It is to be assumed that this pattern will continue.

The blue pattern assume that change can occur through non violence, protest and legislation, that democracy, equality and human rights are desirable, that cultures featuring superiority, oppression, prejudice and violence are undesirable.

Scientific systems assume that one should learn of the world by observing the world, that if a theory does not improve one should not just dismiss the contradictory facts, but enhance or replace the theory.

Again, within these five systems and so many others, there are many variations. These I will freely acknowledge. It is changing between major systems that is absurdly rare.

I guess the important question to me is whether one believes superiority, oppression, prejudice and violence desirable. If you think they are bad, can be removed from the culture, should be removed, and given the S&H cycles of crisis will likely be removed, the blue pattern will someday dominate the red.

I suppose superiority, oppression, prejudice and violence can seem like desirable or inevitable traits. Color me dubious.

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Bob Butler
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Writing on the Wall...

Post by Bob Butler »

Navigator wrote:
Wed Oct 13, 2021 5:37 pm
The point is that even when the "writing is on the wall", people still build seriously expensive weapon systems even after they are technically obsolete. Nobody seems to accept that tech has changed until AFTER their obsolete systems are destroyed.
It is common to go with demonstrated old theories - not just military ones too - rather than look at and learn from the newer environment. Applying Industrial Age lessons to the Information Age happens all the time. This divide between clinging to the old values and switching to meet the new environment is the basis of S&H crisis theory.

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Bob Butler
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Next Generation Sea War?

Post by Bob Butler »

On military equipment, a little more thought can be put in. In recent wars, the US has been able to suppress the other guy’s aircraft, while it is harder to suppress their missiles. Oh, they have systems like Patriot and AEGIS which can go a long way to stopping missiles, but the SCUD missiles from Saddam and the carrier killer missiles from China were / are harder to stop.

There is also what Spacex calls reusability. If you can deliver bombs and rockets from aircraft or drones it is a lot cheaper than using missiles. You can reuse the delivery device. This has worked when fighting lesser powers. It may not work as well if two major powers go at it.

There is also China’s inability to construct decent carrier planes. The improvements to the air bases near Taiwan began about the same time China cancelled their next generation of carriers. They simply could not build aircraft that could launch from carriers and carry a full load of fuel and weapons. Thus, they were not fighting even with the US. Upgrading their land bases could reflect their giving up on carriers. How much should Taiwan worry about fixed position bases in range of intermediate range ballistic missiles?

So it is unclear that a new style of sea warfare has developed.

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Bob Butler
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Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

Post by Bob Butler »

spottybrowncow wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:56 pm
"Cast not your pearls before swine."

"Cast not facts before Bob."
Some facts. China gave up on carriers, so as a result have to enhance their ground bases. Older theories go obsolete, which should give conservative thinkers pause. It explains why the conservatives have tended to lose crises in the S&H American sequence. Now where are the facts in your post? If you cannot deal with facts, revert to name calling?

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Bob Butler
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New and Old Perspectives

Post by Bob Butler »

Cool Breeze wrote:
Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:51 am
As Martin Armstrong shows over decades, the Dems hit lower highs and lower lows. Leftism always collapses, the problem is that they take so many people down with them, it's sick.
One of my favorite articles, Constructing a Logical Argument, includes a long list of fallacies which supposedly should be rejected. Among them are ‘Ardgumentum Ad Novitatem’ and ‘Arumentum Ad Antiquitatem’, basically it is new and innovative idea, or it is an old and traditional idea. If you accept the premise of the article, either form of argument is bogus. You need to argue for something on its merits apart from any claimed virtue of age.

But this leaves apart observations of history. I have often pointed out that in the various S&H crisis, the greatest problems of the culture are solved. New ideas triumph. This includes rejecting colonial imperialism and kings in the Revolution, getting rid of slavery, growing industry and enabling expansion in the US Civil War, and government regulation of the economy and eliminating isolationism in FDR’s time. Innovative ideas growing and changing the country have made America what is is.

The opposite is suggested in Cool Breeze’s quote. If I go out of my way to justify the illusion, innovative thought is often submerged in the unravelling. Conservative thinkers can for a time get used to quashing new ideas and think that new ideas are bad. Stagnant and innovative thought is one of those things which is part of the cycles. You expect conservatives to dominate in the unravelling, liberals in the crisis. It seems to be there is a denial on this site that we are in a crisis, a time when we fix and change stuff.

But there is also the way groups judge things. If tribal thinking is thought of as neat, racism, oppression and violence goes with it. Most people reject these things as part of the culture. These are seen as problems to be solved. But if you think tribal thinking is cool, they are features to be celebrated.

Let’s just say the ‘leftism always collapses’ statement is questionable. It is too early in the crisis configuration to judge that yet again the problem will be solved by newer thinking, but it is also early to say that we will stick with Industrial Age thought.

Cool Breeze
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Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

Post by Cool Breeze »

spottybrowncow wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:56 pm
"Cast not your pearls before swine."

"Cast not facts before Bob."
That's all that can be said. These types continually say "We're just not doing it right." Even though we've done the experiment for centuries with the same lines, the same starvation, and the same failure. Spotty is wise, of course.

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Bob Butler
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The Tide Turning

Post by Bob Butler »

Cool Breeze wrote:
Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:42 am
spottybrowncow wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 6:56 pm
"Cast not your pearls before swine."

"Cast not facts before Bob."
That's all that can be said. These types continually say "We're just not doing it right." Even though we've done the experiment for centuries with the same lines, the same starvation, and the same failure. Spotty is wise, of course.
It is wise to disregard facts when you cannot win an argument? That's called losing the argument and giving up on your ideas.

I see history as cyclical, along the S&H lines. There are times when the do not solve problems and individual greed are dominant. The bulk of my adult life was spent in an unravelling. I know what that mindset is like. There are also times when the country is put ahead of the individual, when the culture reinvents itself. Refusing to see the tide has turned is not wise.

FullMoon
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Re: Polyticks: Bob Butler's Perspective

Post by FullMoon »

Thinking that current conditions represent a turn for the better, rather than worse, is the better choice if wisdom is the opposite of your goal. Broad social contract decreed by small groups of dogmatic, interconnected self-serving groups. A tale told before of great hardship, comrade.

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