Decline of the West???

How should society be organised, if at all?

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Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:24 pmI told you correctly that the banks are owned by almagamations of shareholders,
Shareholders are not Jewish or Zionist? Really? Who's pushing money through Wall Street, only rich goy Nazis and nobody else?

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:24 pmnot a cabal of Jews.
Jews are idealistic about their Messianism and racial-tribal identification. They act in their best interests, as does every other biological group qualifier in existence.

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:24 pmWhy did you write a bunch of weird shit about noticing stuff instead of just aknowledging your error?
Because dealing with Slander and Defamation, requires that I "put you in your place" so-to-speak, knock you down a few pegs...which comes effortlessly.

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:24 pmI corrected your mistake about who runs the Fed and what their religion is, you ignred that too.
You made a bad and false counter-argument. As-if the United States FED would decline an order from Janet Yellen to raise or lower interest rates...(they wouldn't)

Because the US Executive Branch has power over the FED, and can dictate terms to it. Banks require Military protection, to exist.

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:24 pmI asked you how you think the CCP is a race. It's a political party, how the fuck ycould it be a race? Your response, something about "all one race" that had nothing to do with the point.
The CCP is comprised of racially pure, homogeneous ethnic Han Chinese.

They do not allow outsiders into their Government.

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:24 pmYou keep trying to insult me with accusations of jewishness, that's because you kind of are a bit of a nazi.
It's because you kind of are a bit of a yid.

That's why you took it personally when I sarcastically claimed that Zelensky is an Israeli puppet sent to blood sacrifice millions upon millions of Slavs to their death, in order to re-summon Satan onto Earth.

Unable to 'read the room', you were triggered, because of your identity, to defend your kinsmen from racist hill billy redneck NAZIS!!! Foolishly you attacked...without knowing your opposition. I am not racist, not a hill billy, not a redneck, not a nazi, and so you have literally no worthwhile slander. Instead you only expose yourself.

So if I make a joke at Jewish' peoples' expense, it means I hate them? You hate everybody you joke about? You hate everybody you criticize? Maybe to a simple-minded, buffoon, I suppose so.

Again, Philosophy means that nobody is immune from criticism, least of all "God's Chosen Ones". (As if God can't pick a new favorite? Or the Israelites can't muff it up and fall out of favor? As-if things never change?)
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Maia wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:54 pmGermanic is a linguistic term, and the English language is a Germanic language.
If English is so Germanic, then why are the letters we using mostly Latin???

:?: :shock:
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Dontaskme wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:47 pmSignposts never move.

They only point to nowhere, and never to themself, in the same way, the eye can never see itself. Nothing is apparently happening, or changing or declining or advancing or appearing to be better or worse, except in this conception, a story told by a fool, full of noise and fury, signifying nothing.
An enlightened human being doesn't 'see' with his eyes.

He sees with his mind. So, yes, from the perspective of the mind, the eye can "see itself". This is why Self-Consciousness is possible, for some select few.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Sculptor wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:53 pmThe economic philosophy of Milton Friedman has crippled the West.

Whilst it has created the environment for billionaires to thrive, this has led to mass inequality, the decline in access to healthcare, housing, and personal safety for the majority. ALl this whilst society has managed to blame ordinary people for their laziness; the superrich enjoy their yachts and other technical goodies secure in the knowledge that all you need to do to earn large sums, of money, and have that money grow, is to have large sums of money.
The only people that have to actually do work, are people who have no money.

Meanwhile, China and the other BRICS economies are growing.
Can you say more about Milton Friedman?

What should the poor and middle class do...presuming that people have the motivation and ability to organize politically to change the course of direction of society?
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pmSo what? Some people argue that the Earth is flat.
So...they make more convincing arguments than yours.

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pmThat's not an over-generalisation. It's a fact. Borders are made up. People, goods, intellectual property and wealth moves across them.

Instead, you are conceptualising it as many separate societies so that you can cherry-pick the individual cases which justify your argument.
That's literally a logical fallacy. Over and above the fact that it amounts to confirmation bias.
It's a logical fallacy to over-generalize too.

We are not "One Society" on Earth. Biology is divided into Species, which are Classes of Behavior

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pmI am not arguing that. I am arguing about the general trend.

DESPITE any localized occurrences of raising; or falling.
So...which direction is the West headed?

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pmThat's a non-sequitur. If evidence, facts and global trends over 2 centuries doesn't make the case - what will?!?
I already countered your position with promethean's.

If there's no class mobility, then who cares about "steady progress of centuries"? People still suffer and die in the same, if not worse ways, than ever before. "Progress" does not necessarily mean "better lives", for the many, for the underclasses. Homeless people are still addicted to heroin, fentanyl, opioids, whatever 'progressive' pharmaceuticals are in market.

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pm
Wizard22 wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:54 am So what if middle class "standard of living" goes up...in the West? This isn't what other people necessarily mean by rise or fall. And it certainly doesn't apply to everybody, by class, by culture, by religion, etc. Even, given your argument, people in this thread still disagree with you.
Nobody is saying it applies to everybody. That's why I am calling it a general trend; not a universal trend.

Do you understand the difference between general and universal; or are you desperately seearching for a strawman to cling onto?
Wizard22 wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:54 am Shall we take home ownership as the standard of living? Then, by that measure, it is declining.
No, we shouldn't. We should take having access to a residence (either via purchase, rental or social grants) as a standard of living.
Wizard22 wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:17 am There's no guarantee that human history "only goes forward"
Yes there is. Physics. The arrow of time.
Wizard22 wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:17 am A person's life can be subjectively *AND* objectively better, in the past.
How is that relevant to the general claim? Just because there are exceptions it doesn't mean that the general trend doesn't hold.

You are comitting the not all fallacy.
Because you haven't proved how this "general trend" is subjectively *AND* objectively better...than the Past.

Which Past shall we use? In the context of this thread, the claims are that a previous decade is better than now...the past is better than now.

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pmI am not the minority. I have 120 billion humans who have lived throughout history on my side. You have a handful of contrarian idiots on a forum.
On your side? I doubt most of the 120 billion want their ancestors mutilating their genitals.

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pmI can dismiss the people who insist society is declining in the exact same manner I dismis Flat Earthers. You are wrong. No I will not waste my time pretending I have to defend my position against flat earthers.
Strawman, this argument is not about a flat Earth.

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pmThe journey painted by 5000 years of history is one of moral and social progress.

Your contrariannism really is running out of fuel.
Long ago, European pagan societies banned and outlawed child genital mutilation.

So the Past is better than Now. Your "progress" has vanished. Regress is just as true as "Progress">

Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pmYou did make it. And I pointed out that it's a stupid argument.

If that were true you are necessarily claiming that being poor today is no different (and most certainly not better) than being poor 5000 years ago.

You are insisting that that the criterion for poverty is objective and that it has remained unchanged for 5000 years.
Poverty is not only about money.
Last edited by Wizard22 on Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:48 am, edited 3 times in total.
Maia
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Maia »

Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:28 am
Maia wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:54 pmGermanic is a linguistic term, and the English language is a Germanic language.
If English is so Germanic, then why are the letters we using mostly Latin???

:?: :shock:
The Latin alphabet was introduced along with Christianity during the early medieval period, both in England and Germany. Latin had also been used by the Roman Empire before that, and was associated with literacy and power.

English is classed as a Germanic language but it also has a lot of Norman-French influence, deriving from the time after the Norman Conquest.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

Maia wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:44 amThe Latin alphabet was introduced along with Christianity during the early medieval period, both in England and Germany. Latin had also been used by the Roman Empire before that, and was associated with literacy and power.

English is classed as a Germanic language but it also has a lot of Norman-French influence, deriving from the time after the Norman Conquest.
English is more Græco-Roman than Germanic. Examine the letters used.
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

iambiguous wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:40 pmOkay, for the philosophers among us...note actual examples of that which you believe does confirm the fall of the West. How would you go about demonstrating it to others such that it does come closer to the objective truth rather than reflecting your own rooted existentially in dasein subjective prejudices.
Buying power of the Dollar.
Home ownership.
Optimism.
General Health and Mental Health.
Expanding Population and Political Borders.

iambiguous wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:40 pmWell, here in America, any number of folks embracing Trump and MAGA will insist the only thing that stopped them from staying on top was a crooked election in 2020. But that in 2024 the crooks will be thumped, and no one will stop them from going all the way to...fascism?

Then the West shall rise again!

Their West.
Exactly the point.

The rising Tide does not lift all boats. Progress comes at the Regress of others.

My family gets to have 10 children, while yours gets to have only one castrated son. We'll call it "Progress", for you.
Maia
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Maia »

Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:50 am
Maia wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:44 amThe Latin alphabet was introduced along with Christianity during the early medieval period, both in England and Germany. Latin had also been used by the Roman Empire before that, and was associated with literacy and power.

English is classed as a Germanic language but it also has a lot of Norman-French influence, deriving from the time after the Norman Conquest.
English is more Græco-Roman than Germanic. Examine the letters used.
You seem to be confusing the alphabet used to write the language with the language itself. You can write a language using any alphabet or script that you like. For example, when I think of the written word I don't think of it as written in a Latin script, but rather, something else entirely. Can you guess why?
Wizard22
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Wizard22 »

I understand that the sight of letters are different than linguistics via words only.

You're missing out on how NOT-Germanic English really is.

The case you're making...we may as use Greeks as the standard of our linguistics seeing how Philosophy is dominated by Greek concepts. Does this therein mean English people are Greek? Or that our language is Greek?

I think you are over-estimating the Germanic impact.
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Sculptor »

Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:32 am
Sculptor wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:53 pmThe economic philosophy of Milton Friedman has crippled the West.

Whilst it has created the environment for billionaires to thrive, this has led to mass inequality, the decline in access to healthcare, housing, and personal safety for the majority. ALl this whilst society has managed to blame ordinary people for their laziness; the superrich enjoy their yachts and other technical goodies secure in the knowledge that all you need to do to earn large sums, of money, and have that money grow, is to have large sums of money.
The only people that have to actually do work, are people who have no money.

Meanwhile, China and the other BRICS economies are growing.
Can you say more about Milton Friedman?

What should the poor and middle class do...presuming that people have the motivation and ability to organize politically to change the course of direction of society?
You would have to have a revolution. Kill all the economists.
Currently, civil servants and politicians have all been schooled in this economic model. This means that the 1% control everything to their own advantage, in a decreasing spiral, of tax breaks for the rich, and relocating manufacturing outside the West. That is why there is a significant structural decline in Western economies. But the rich are too busy yachting around between the Crib and Monaco to notice.

There is a new model called Modern Monetary Theory which answers many of the problems.
There is an easy-to-read introduction if you are interested.
"The Deficit Myth" Stephanie Kelton
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Sculptor
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Sculptor »

Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 9:18 am I understand that the sight of letters are different than linguistics via words only.

You're missing out on how NOT-Germanic English really is.

The case you're making...we may as use Greeks as the standard of our linguistics seeing how Philosophy is dominated by Greek concepts. Does this therein mean English people are Greek? Or that our language is Greek?

I think you are over-estimating the Germanic impact.
Does not mean anything of the kind.
Greek we get third hand via Latin, or as a reintroduction via the Renaissance and Enlightenment science.
Even the word "greek" is not Greek.

But our base is German: father, mother brother, earth, wind and fire, hound, house, street, child, foot, heart, day, night, Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Young, Good, Eye, Ear Tree, Book, Rain, snow, friend, King, light, dark.
These are foundational common basic words.

English and German are forms of the same language.
If you know basic German words you have an English vocac.

You could get by without knowing the word "Orchestra".
This word is originally Greek. But it did not even come to us from Greece. It comes into English in the 16thC, probably from Germany but because of a pan European development in music which required the acquisition of a new word. So the fact that all Europe uses the word does not even imply a Greek influence, but a borrowing.
Democracy.
This word, although Greek is acquired via Latin in the Medieval period. But that does not mean Anglophone countries were influenced by Greece through the word. "Barbarian" democratic systems were common place before Rome, and continued in Scaninavian countries until crushed in the Christian period.
Each Greek word has its own history. But there is no continuity. Englsih is an evolved German language, as is modern German.

The Greek language gave us : all the -ologies; biology, geography, etc..
We acquired these when Greece did not even exist, as under the yoke of the Turk.

The reason for this was because there was a Pan-European community of scientists who communicated with each other mainly in Latin.
It might surprise you to learn that "Biology" was a word coined in English as late as 1819, and Geology as late as 1790s.
So the use of such words does not imply a Greek influence, as such.
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Skepdick »

Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am So...they make more convincing arguments than yours.
There's literally nothing I can do about that.

If you prefer validating lies to contradictory truths that's entirely on you.
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am It's a logical fallacy to over-generalize too.
I agree, which is precisely why I am not doing committing such a fallacy.

I am stating a basic fact. There's one society: all the humans in existence, their interactions and self-organization which gives ries to the observed sub-divisions into countries,political factions, identifies, philosophies etc. all of those categories you end up calling societies (plural) are emergent phenomena.

This is trivialy true that anybody who denies this needs their head checked. Irrespective of your nationality or society (as you conceptualize it) you grew up in you are still human with basic human rights. Are you not?
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am We are not "One Society" on Earth. Biology is divided into Species, which are Classes of Behavior
Speaking of biology - how many ecosystems are there on Earth?

Trick question... Earth is THE ecosystem. The one and only ecosystem.

It seems like the fundamental error in your reasoning is reductionism.
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am So...which direction is the West headed?
It depends on how you cherry-pick that. What falls under your umbrella term "The West" and what doesn't?

Or have you mangled that delineation to agree with your conclusion too?
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am I already countered your position with promethean's.
Oh no! A counter! Go forth and conquer Don Quixote!
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am If there's no class mobility, then who cares about "steady progress of centuries"?
It's almost like you refuse to acknowledge the class mobility I am pointing at.

Being poor today is better than being poor 5000 years ago. That IS class mobility.

The entire class of people we call "poor" has moved such that the experience of the members of this chass has drastically improved.

The entire class has shrunk also.
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am People still suffer and die in the same, if not worse ways, than ever before.
That will always be true.

Progress is the fact that FEWER people will have this experience.

Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am Because you haven't proved how this "general trend" is subjectively *AND* objectively better...than the Past.
I have, but you are unreasonably skeptical and biased towards your own conclusion, so there's no proof that can convince you.
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am Which Past shall we use? In the context of this thread, the claims are that a previous decade is better than now...the past is better than now.
There's only one past. The Immutable past. History.
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am On your side? I doubt most of the 120 billion want their ancestors mutilating their genitals.
Which is why we've progressed to oppose such barbaric tradition in "The West.". For most part.
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am Strawman, this argument is not about a flat Earth.
Nobody says it's about flat Earth. It was a metaphor for an argument that's equally uncredible and deserves no response.
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am Long ago, European pagan societies banned and outlawed child genital mutilation.

So the Past is better than Now. Your "progress" has vanished. Regress is just as true as "Progress"
So you can pin-point this one aspect of society and you are over-generalizing it to amount to the decline of The West?!?
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:43 am
Skepdick wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 7:18 pmYou did make it. And I pointed out that it's a stupid argument.

If that were true you are necessarily claiming that being poor today is no different (and most certainly not better) than being poor 5000 years ago.

You are insisting that that the criterion for poverty is objective and that it has remained unchanged for 5000 years.
Poverty is not only about money.
Where did you see the word "money" anywhere in what I said?

Poverty is about the worst overall quality of life amongst your fellow humans! You are the one who keeps trying to reduce it to arbitrary material things like property ownership; or genital mutilation.
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Maia »

Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 9:18 am I understand that the sight of letters are different than linguistics via words only.

You're missing out on how NOT-Germanic English really is.

The case you're making...we may as use Greeks as the standard of our linguistics seeing how Philosophy is dominated by Greek concepts. Does this therein mean English people are Greek? Or that our language is Greek?

I think you are over-estimating the Germanic impact.
Old English was almost entirely Germanic in its grammar and vocabulary. This is not surprising, since the Anglo-Saxons came from Germany.

The language was later influenced by Danish, through the Viking invasions. This is still reflected in Northern dialects, in particular. But Danish is also Germanic, and closely related to Old English.

Later, after 1066, it was heavily influenced by Norman French, certainly in terms of vocabulary, rather than grammar. But most of the everyday words we use are still Old English in origin.
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Re: Decline of the West???

Post by Harbal »

Maia wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 10:46 am
Wizard22 wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 9:18 am I understand that the sight of letters are different than linguistics via words only.

You're missing out on how NOT-Germanic English really is.

The case you're making...we may as use Greeks as the standard of our linguistics seeing how Philosophy is dominated by Greek concepts. Does this therein mean English people are Greek? Or that our language is Greek?

I think you are over-estimating the Germanic impact.
Old English was almost entirely Germanic in its grammar and vocabulary. This is not surprising, since the Anglo-Saxons came from Germany.

The language was later influenced by Danish, through the Viking invasions. This is still reflected in Northern dialects, in particular. But Danish is also Germanic, and closely related to Old English.

Later, after 1066, it was heavily influenced by Norman French, certainly in terms of vocabulary, rather than grammar. But most of the everyday words we use are still Old English in origin.
It's almost as if Wizard22 doesn't know what he's talking about, isn't it? :|
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