Do Societies Inevitably Collapse?

[nextgengranny]

A recent thread here in OT raised the question for me: Do societies inevitably collapse? Which led me to this piece on the topic:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse

One line in particular caught my eye:

Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence.

government loses control of its monopoly on violence

its monopoly on violence


I'm not a student of history, I lack the facility for it, so would be interested in hearing the thoughts of those more versed in it. Also: Thoughts/opinions on governments monopolizing/attempting to monopolize violence?

[Radene]

Escrito originalmente por ROATER:

Escrito originalmente por Radene:

Veeeeery mature.

As opposed to telling me to go find someone to label a Nazi if I want to convince myself of my head canon that I'm a hero for putting two and two together and recognizing the similarities between the current us administration and the great reset biden seems to be implementing and that article on the economic functions of fascism?

I like to think it was pretty mature by comparison, yeah.

And back in tinfoilhatland we are. I'm afraid I'm a persona non grata there, so I need to turn back at the border.

[Radene]

Escrito originalmente por ROATER:

Escrito originalmente por Radene:

And back in tinfoilhatland we are.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/nutrition/what-to-know-about-eating-cicadas-as-trillions-of-brood-x-bugs-set-to-emerge-in-us/ar-BB1fdf9O

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/29/1001603740/whats-the-best-way-to-eat-cicadas-a-chefs-insect-based-recipes

https://www.montclair.edu/newscenter/2021/05/19/cicadas-safe-to-eat-sustainable-delicious-recipes/

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2021/04/23/how-to-eat-cicadas

https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/05/05/cicadas-cooking-recipes/

Is it just me or did it just get real spooky in here?

You seem abuzz with excitement.

[Chunk Norris ☯]

Escrito originalmente por Radene:

Escrito originalmente por ROATER:

You asked me the other day to find a reputable a source (not a YouTube video) that proves the coliseum games of ancient Rome existed. I declined to do so because to believe anything less is conspiratorial, but I decided to oblige you here since most people in modern day think fascism is a rightwing ideology for some indecipherable reason.

Oh, the coliseum games in Rome existed, there never was a doubt about that. It was the content of that entertainment you claimed to have been factual that was being questioned. But I suppose you didn't understand my request.

As for your attempts to gain a moral high ground with which to discredit people you disagree with by trying to draw parallels between left-leaning political stances and the ideologies that are seen as villainous...

Why don't you just go and call people "fascist" directly? I mean, my guess is because you don't even believe that to be the case, so you need to invent some sort of a headcanon in which you're the good guy.

You're partially right, left leaning stances support the foundations for fascism but without supporting the violence element they aren't facists, although a good chunk tend to support the violence but call it another name. Without the violence element all they are is supporters of heavily regulated societies.

And you can get upset about the parallels but they exist and there's a certain type of thinking that leads to situation of fascism, not all roads lead to fascism. Turns out if you support a heavily freedom, de-regulated soceity you can't be a fascist....which is a good thing because fascism is a mark that society is collapsing.

To be honest the fact that the vast majority of people who support the foundations of fascism deny history is what scares me. I think that speaks a little of their inner dialogue of whether they're supporting agendas that are morally good vs bad and if you have to deny history or deny parallels in history that says something.

Fascism as it relates to society collapsing shows that these folks support lots of regulation but view the regulations as not applying to them or that they'll be given immunity. It supports the idea that there is a breakdown of law and justice, a breakdown of the very over-regulation that they support.

[Pixelpusher]

hope they all do

[SirKnechtalot]

Escrito originalmente por The Father ☯:

(Voter fraud is fairly frequent, but whether it's enough to overturn an election is another story)

That was the whole point of my littel rant. I didn´t say there wasn´t any attempt of actual voter fraud according to US code- so it wasn´t me carrying around the goalposts.

And the problem of money (campaign contributions) being "free speech" is something entirely different. I didn´t say the elections were "fair"- only (most likely) according to the self imposed rules (which should be the lowest denominator in that more and more failing society).

[Radene]

Escrito originalmente por The Father ☯:

Escrito originalmente por Radene:

Oh, the coliseum games in Rome existed, there never was a doubt about that. It was the content of that entertainment you claimed to have been factual that was being questioned. But I suppose you didn't understand my request.

As for your attempts to gain a moral high ground with which to discredit people you disagree with by trying to draw parallels between left-leaning political stances and the ideologies that are seen as villainous...

Why don't you just go and call people "fascist" directly? I mean, my guess is because you don't even believe that to be the case, so you need to invent some sort of a headcanon in which you're the good guy.

You're partially right, left leaning stances support the foundations for fascism but without supporting the violence element they aren't facists, although a good chunk tend to support the violence but call it another name. Without the violence element all they are is supporters of heavily regulated societies.

And you can get upset about the parallels but they exist and there's a certain type of thinking that leads to situation of fascism, not all roads lead to fascism. Turns out if you support a heavily freedom, de-regulated soceity you can't be a fascist....which is a good thing because fascism is a mark that society is collapsing.

To be honest the fact that the vast majority of people who support the foundations of fascism deny history is what scares me. I think that speaks a little of their inner dialogue of whether they're supporting agendas that are morally good vs bad and if you have to deny history or deny parallels in history that says something.

Fascism as it relates to society collapsing shows that these folks support lots of regulation but view the regulations as not applying to them or that they'll be given immunity. It supports the idea that there is a breakdown of law and justice, a breakdown of the very over-regulation that they support.

You put a lot of effort in crafting this piece of bait, it's almost subtle.

I'm almost impressed.

[King Narwhal]

I mean, considering how the Sun swallowing the Earth would prolly count as society collapsing, I'd say yes, every society will eventually collapse, if not due to political reasons then due to the natural death of the planet.

[Holografix]

Escrito originalmente por Radene:

You put a lot of effort in crafting this piece of bait, it's almost subtle.

I'm almost impressed.

That's all they do. Sneaky, disingenuous bait.

[Chunk Norris ☯]

Escrito originalmente por SirKnechtalot:

Escrito originalmente por The Father ☯:

(Voter fraud is fairly frequent, but whether it's enough to overturn an election is another story)

That was the whole point of my littel rant. I didn´t say there wasn´t any attempt of actual voter fraud according to US code- so it wasn´t me carrying around the goalposts.

And the problem of money (campaign contributions) being "free speech" is something entirely different. I didn´t say the elections were "fair"- only (most likely) according to the self imposed rules (which should be the lowest denominator in that more and more failing society).

"Not a single claim of this lunacy has been proven- not even in Arizona. Not after spinning this rubbish story, not after recounting until the counters went on strike-never- because it´s a hallucination. A substitute reality most of us call "insanity"."-Sir Knechtalot. It's on page 16 if anyone else is interested.

It's pretty clear you've moved the goal post back. But as long as you don't want to repeat the previous lie, I'm good with it.

Your previous post also seemed to think that we're in a failing society because we're "tolerating the intolerable" that's a phrase I've heard before which means think what we believe or you're bad people. And I think that attitude is one of the things that leads to the collapse of a society.

Take Steam forums lots of people from different backgrounds. People from all over the world. People of all different religions, educational backgrounds, etc. There's bound to be people here who don't think exactly like everyone else.

In college I knew this foreign exchange student from Africa called Jibu, he was devout Muslim that hung around with my group on our many adventures. Some of the people in our group were gay, and according to Jibu religious text there was some major problems there. But Jibu was able to treat everyone in the group with tolerance and respect, and they did the same to him even the gay people who knew Jibu's religious had some very harsh feelings about their sexual orientation.

That was tolerating the intolerable according to the phrase.

And I think that's the type of thing that allows a society to function. We were all very different people, about half my group were foreign exchange students and we all got along and our little society functioned.

But if embraced the idea that we should cast out people who have have "intolerant" views you'd see a group like that fracture. If we attacked Jibu's religion we'd likely see a pushback from what was an otherwise incredibly peaceful dude. And if you saw that attitude permeate society, you'll see a collapsing of society.

There's another word for that...bigotry. The intolerance of people with different beliefs. The more tolerant a society is, truly tolerant, the better it is. Problem is, people are trying to take over the word of bigotry and to change it's mean to mean "believe, what we believe or else"

[King Narwhal]

Really tho, all societies will collapse eventually.

Someone along the line who comes into power will be a tyrant, someone will begin trying to abuse the system for their own personal gain, someone will push too far, and everything will break down. It's inevitably going to happen in every nation at some point, even if it takes hundreds of years, because people aren't perfect and all it takes is one bad apple to spoil everything.

[Radene]

Escrito originalmente por King Narwhal:

Really tho, all societies will collapse eventually.

Someone along the line who comes into power will be a tyrant, someone will begin trying to abuse the system for their own personal gain, someone will push too far, and everything will break down. It's inevitably going to happen in every nation at some point, even if it takes hundreds of years, because people aren't perfect and all it takes is one bad apple to spoil everything.

People have this idea that tyrants become tyrants for their personal gain and entertainment. It does sometimes happen, but in practice, it tends to be more complex than tyrants being maniacally-snickering, mustache-twirling cartoon villains.

I've long entertained the idea that in many cases the tyrants were political idealists who truly believe they're doing "what's best for the nation", that their action will make their nation "great", either by restoring some lost historical glory, or placing it onto the map as a new great power player to shake up the status quo. In addition to that, they tend to also believe that nobody else can be trusted to "do it right"; so they cling to power because, well, L'Etat, c'est moi! and anyone else getting in power would undo the great vision and so on and so forth.

That's why political idealism can be so dangerous if allowed to roam unrestrained, without a critical check. Especially since in this quest to "greatness", destruction of another group/ethnicity/nation/etc is often being sold as imperative.

[SirKnechtalot]

Escrito originalmente por The Father ☯:

It's on page 16 if anyone else is interested.

It´s post #236 (in case anyone is sorting the pages differently). It revolved around the ludicrous Q-Anon rubbish story of how merica is being hijacked by satanists "stealing" the election by ... well lots of spun stories which´re delusional rubbish to begin with.

Escrito originalmente por The Father ☯:

It's pretty clear you've moved the goal post back.

Oh rly? ^^ I didn´t came up with some made up rubbish claim that failed even before broken america`s courts (yeah all those rubbish claims made up&paid by Trumpalumpa Inc.)

Escrito originalmente por The Father ☯:

That was tolerating the intolerable according to the phrase.

Nice little anecdote . It seems this guy wasn´t realy interested in pressing his religious nuttery (most likely he was smart enough to understand it´s rubbish anyways). Since you´ve obviously no idea about the origin of this phrase: i didn´t invent it- some inteligent guy did. His name is "Karl Popper" and he´s elaborately explaining his intolerance toward the intolerant in various books. Maybe you´ll read them before making up some nice little anecdote in order to "debunk" this.

Escrito originalmente por The Father ☯:

There's another word for that...bigotry. The intolerance of people with different beliefs. The more tolerant a society is, truly tolerant, the better it is. Problem is, people are trying to take over the word of bigotry and to change it's mean to mean "believe, what we believe or else"

Obviously i pay little consideration towards the oppinions of amusingly dumb people prosletizing stupid ideas in random forums.

You can believe whatever you want and since i know how you like to portray yourself as some "reasonable" (xD!) US conservative maybe you´ll at least try to impress.

POTUS 45 clearly violated US code §2385 several times. This gang of lunatics pushing this amusingly dumb "recount" in Arizona´re demonstrating the meaning of "insanity" according to the dictionary.

Since neither the Republican party nor the US judicial system is able or willing to enforce the law upon the idiots (stupidity won´t protect you from punishment where i live) we can clearly
see how the Broken States´re disintegrating right now. I mean you aren´t even embarassed by this mad self humiliation. And please don´t demolish you keyboard. Because in the end only facts´re what matters. No funny story or nice little anecdote, no PR speech or or spin doctor talking point. Tolerating this crap for too long`re the reasons of many important self inflicted problems prevalent in mercia these days.

(And in case you consider an answer pls, pls try to impress.[Don´t be lame- i´ve heard most of the talking points anyways.])

[King Narwhal]

Escrito originalmente por Radene:

Escrito originalmente por King Narwhal:

Really tho, all societies will collapse eventually.

Someone along the line who comes into power will be a tyrant, someone will begin trying to abuse the system for their own personal gain, someone will push too far, and everything will break down. It's inevitably going to happen in every nation at some point, even if it takes hundreds of years, because people aren't perfect and all it takes is one bad apple to spoil everything.

People have this idea that tyrants become tyrants for their personal gain and entertainment. It does sometimes happen, but in practice, it tends to be more complex than tyrants being maniacally-snickering, mustache-twirling cartoon villains.

I've long entertained the idea that in many cases the tyrants were political idealists who truly believe they're doing "what's best for the nation", that their action will make their nation "great", either by restoring some lost historical glory, or placing it onto the map as a new great power player to shake up the status quo. In addition to that, they tend to also believe that nobody else can be trusted to "do it right"; so they cling to power because, well, L'Etat, c'est moi! and anyone else getting in power would undo the great vision and so on and so forth.

That's why political idealism can be so dangerous if allowed to roam unrestrained, without a critical check. Especially since in this quest to "greatness", destruction of another group/ethnicity/nation/etc is often being sold as imperative.

This is actually a very good point. I've always been against the idea of extremism in any form due to concerns such as this. The further an idea or stance is pushed, the harder it is to find someone at that same level of extremism, and thus fewer people who would "share the vision" brought about by nutcases. This would also explain why "thought police" is a common idea among said "visionaries" to maintain order.

Keeping balance matters in all aspects of life, including political. Tilt too far, everything comes tumbling down.

Also, what does "L'Etat, c'est moi" mean?

[Radene]

Escrito originalmente por King Narwhal:

Also, what does "L'Etat, c'est moi" mean?

Paraphrased, "I am the state".

[Chunk Norris ☯]

Escrito originalmente por King Narwhal:

Escrito originalmente por Radene:

People have this idea that tyrants become tyrants for their personal gain and entertainment. It does sometimes happen, but in practice, it tends to be more complex than tyrants being maniacally-snickering, mustache-twirling cartoon villains.

I've long entertained the idea that in many cases the tyrants were political idealists who truly believe they're doing "what's best for the nation", that their action will make their nation "great", either by restoring some lost historical glory, or placing it onto the map as a new great power player to shake up the status quo. In addition to that, they tend to also believe that nobody else can be trusted to "do it right"; so they cling to power because, well, L'Etat, c'est moi! and anyone else getting in power would undo the great vision and so on and so forth.

That's why political idealism can be so dangerous if allowed to roam unrestrained, without a critical check. Especially since in this quest to "greatness", destruction of another group/ethnicity/nation/etc is often being sold as imperative.

This is actually a very good point. I've always been against the idea of extremism in any form due to concerns such as this. The further an idea or stance is pushed, the harder it is to find someone at that same level of extremism, and thus fewer people who would "share the vision" brought about by nutcases. This would also explain why "thought police" is a common idea among said "visionaries" to maintain order.

Keeping balance matters in all aspects of life, including political. Tilt too far, everything comes tumbling down.

Also, what does "L'Etat, c'est moi" mean?

The problem I see is people don't look at the "balance" correctly and things are labeled as extremism that really aren't. When measuring extremism you can't simply pick a point in the middle and call that "sane" Take America. According to the media there's lots of extremism on the right, but the right supports traditional values and laws that have been in place since the founding of our nation.

There's nothing extremist or radical about supporting laws that have been in place for centuries. Whereas politics has shifted to the left so even "moderate" politics has some extreme views. Extreme to the baseline of who we are as a nation right now and who we've been in the past.