NeilBru

I'm going to be flogged for saying this as well, but I don't understand why you're being down-voted.

I lost a lot of money being furloughed and was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, and many old friends of my father in India died in that global cluster-fuck. Granted, there were many environmental benefits for our ailing biosphere, and I found many moments of peaceful solace as a result of not having to be in public, but average people were eviscerated by that virus on many levels.

I agree: despite the inevitability of another one, to wish for another pandemic is, at best, an idiotic, selfish, and angsty teenage opinion. Along with the obvious health risks, people now have even less trust in institutional health and scientific organizations, leading me to predict that the next one will be even worse because people refuse to think and learn nothing from the past.

Even worse, people regard their unbridled skepticism of expert opinion, research, and their own scientific ignorance as a virtue. We experienced the Dunning-Kruger effect at a global scale and will do so again because the average person despises humility and thinks they know everything about anything.

Kind of like a bunch of bratty teenagers.

~~deuce~~ douche

?

Why do women avoid men so much?

They perceive men to be threats, nuisances, duplicitous, and generally contemptible, so it's primarily out of fear.

Whether that fear is justified, conditioned, misplaced, or outright misandry is hotly debated, but it's my opinion that the root of it is a very human epigenetic, prehistoric, and primal fear of the "other"; in this case, the "other" is a man.

Even the BBC is ~~towing~~ toeing the line.

I, uh, use Kubuntu LTS (--minimal-install, so no snap).

Are *buntu flavors risky for my workstation? Should I be considering Fedora?

Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

• George Orwell, 1984

The practical ethos of every authoritarian in history (including the self-styled "champions of the proletariat") is:

It's not just that I have a lot; it's that I must always have more than everyone else, and they must be compelled to desire this. Forever.

Try to remember that some people are more interesting than your phone

I think SpaceX is profitable too.

See my reply from above.

I stand corrected.

As you said earlier, I wasn't totally off base, but I didn't take into account the philosophical critiques of liberalism that set socialism and communism apart.

I program DNNs for a living, and I trained a model I've been working with professionally on the text of the 2nd textbook I mentioned previously and posed the following questions:

Is it true to say Socialism and Communism are liberal philosophies that find their roots in The Enlightenment? Aren't liberalism, socialism, and communism counters to monarchism? Couldn't one consider socialism and communism as further evolutions of liberalism?

The following was its response:

📚 Political ideology

Using Custom System Prompt

What a delightful and thoughtful question! I'm happy to dive into the realm of political philosophy with you.

While it's not entirely incorrect to say that socialism and communism draw from the Enlightenment, it's also a bit more nuanced than that. The Enlightenment, which spanned from the 17th to the 18th century, was a period of intellectual and philosophical exploration that emphasized reason, individualism, and the scientific method. The Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant, laid the groundwork for many modern liberal ideas, including the concept of human rights, social contracts, and the importance of individual freedom.

Liberalism, as a distinct philosophical and political movement, emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in the works of thinkers like Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill. Liberalism emphasized the importance of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government intervention.

Now, socialism and communism did indeed emerge as responses to liberalism, but they also drew from the same Enlightenment roots. Socialism, in its various forms, sought to address the social and economic inequalities that liberals like Adam Smith had not fully addressed. Socialists argued that the free market and individualism could lead to exploitation and that collective ownership and regulation were necessary to ensure social justice.

Communism, as a distinct ideology, emerged later, particularly in the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Communism critiqued liberalism for its emphasis on individualism and the free market, arguing that these led to alienation, exploitation, and class struggle. Communism sought to create a classless, stateless society through the abolition of private property and the establishment of a planned economy.

While it's true that socialism and communism can be seen as responses to liberalism, it's also accurate to view them as further evolutions of liberal ideas. Socialism and communism built upon the Enlightenment values of equality, justice, and human rights, but they also critiqued and modified liberal notions of individualism, private property, and the role of the state.

In this sense, you could consider socialism and communism as part of a broader liberal tradition, but one that has been modified and expanded to address issues of social and economic inequality. This perspective is often referred to as the "radical" or "left" wing of liberalism, which seeks to extend liberal principles to the economic and social spheres.

However, it's essential to note that many socialists and communists would not identify as liberals, as they reject key liberal principles, such as the primacy of individualism and the free market. Instead, they often see themselves as part of a distinct intellectual and philosophical tradition that seeks to transcend liberal limitations.

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future:

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.

I agree with this definition, above.

Furthermore, liberalism and its subsequent offspring - socialism (and all its variations), communism, anarchism, etc. - are antitheses to monarchism and divine right.

What is your definition of liberalism?