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[SalmonGod]

If someone in the US is being denied basic human rights then they have all the tools at their disposal (through our federal government) to have the problem dealt with, they just have to get off their damn asses and do something, instead of whine.

This is exactly what has happened, and the reason you can confidently challenge me to provide examples of rights being trampled on, which I assume be in regards to the present day.

Weird is making the assertion that radicalization has occurred because we reached this point by progressing too quickly, and I can only assume that his unspoken conclusion is that we should turn back the dial a bit for the sake of appeasement.

There is still a large amount of systemic discrimination in the U.S.  Racist policing currently has the pedestal.  And things like forced sterilization of gay people is within living memory.

[wierd]

Not so much "central planning" type long term goals, more "Inevitable confluence of social reforms in the face of enabling technological advancement."

The die-hard progressive, like Salmon, is more the one that is bent on a specific outcome goal.


Also, it isn't so much "appeasment", (A term that itself implies a self-righteous sense of superiority in the argument.), as it is acknowlegement of human failings. 

EG-- "Boy, it sure would be nice if people could just walk straight away after being born. We should focus our child-rearing energies toward this goal immediately!"  despite the fact that a baby's nervous system is not nearly developed enough for that kind of motor control, and this is precisely the reason why they need to crawl first.

Acknowleding that the baby is not developed enough to walk yet, is not appeasement to some idea that the baby just does not want to walk.

[smjjames]

Seems tangentially fitting, at least since wierd keeps bringing up the long term goals for human society.

Autopilot? More like no-pilot.

The most that we can probably agree on as a long term goal is survival, but even then we argue on the HOW. See: Climate Change debate and what to do about it, or don't.

[wierd]

I see the emergence of societies and legal systems to be much like the outcome of "Twitch plays Pokemon".

Enough random button pushing, and something reminiscent of structure emerges. It does not mean that central planning exists.

[Shadowlord]

I just assume human civilization on Earth is going to go extinct, while the richest folks will migrate into space habitats, either with robots or "lucky" "poors" to do most of the hard work, etc.

[wierd]

That is not the pattern that has emerged over the course of the history of human civilization.

The current trajectory for the world is resource depletion, followed by catastrophic collapse. Historically, the elite are the least likely to attempt any corrective action, as doing so would require them to be less conspicuous with their consumption-- Instead, they will elect to lay back supplies in an attempt to wait out the storm, but a catastrophe on a global scale will not resolve itself in any human-friendly time-table, meaning that such solutions are doomed failures at inception.

[smjjames]

That is not the pattern that has emerged over the course of the history of human civilization.

The current trajectory for the world is resource depletion, followed by catastrophic collapse. Historically, the elite are the least likely to attempt any corrective action, as doing so would require them to be less conspicuous with their consumption-- Instead, they will elect to lay back supplies in an attempt to wait out the storm, but a catastrophe on a global scale will not resolve itself in any human-friendly time-table, meaning that such solutions are doomed failures at inception.

And we have seen, historically what happens when some sort of climate change happens and they are unable to adapt to the new situation, The Mayan Empire (actually a collection of city states), Angkor Wat, Anasazi peoples, and those are just off the top of my head.

Egypt also had a very serious collapse at one point due to exactly the same kind of resource scarcity, in their case it was food.

Of course, the Mayans as a people are still around, the Anasazi peoples are believed to be the ancestors (or at least some of them) of the Puebloan tribes of the American SouthWest, and Egypt survived it's catastrophe. So, it's possible for us to pull through, even if things as we know it are shattered to their core.

[mainiac]

Go back to 1930s Britain please.

Chamberlin gets such a bad rap .  Really a nice guy.

[wierd]

Unless the earth becomes completely uninhabitable due to our foolish environmental policies (Not very likely, humans can endure some pretty extreme climates, especially with technological innovations) it is unlikely that humans will go EXTINCT--  That does not however, mean that the solution of the power elite-- Ignore the problem, lay back supplies to wait it out, and fuck all those other people-- is going to be an effective strategy at safeguarding the current human civilization.

The actual humans of the Mayan, Anasazi, et al civilizations survived--- But the cultures? Those died.

[SalmonGod]

Also, it isn't so much "appeasment", (A term that itself implies a self-righteous sense of superiority in the argument.), as it is acknowlegement of human failings. 

EG-- "Boy, it sure would be nice if people could just walk straight away after being born. We should focus our child-rearing energies toward this goal immediately!"  despite the fact that a baby's nervous system is not nearly developed enough for that kind of motor control, and this is precisely the reason why they need to crawl first.

Acknowleding that the baby is not developed enough to walk yet, is not appeasement to some idea that the baby just does not want to walk.

I understand what you're saying.  What I need to know is what does this mean in terms of the social behavior you expect from a progressive?  I've held dozens of friendly conversations with bigots that lasted for many hours about my progressive views vs their bigoted views, and accepted their company in casual social situations.  I'm not about social ostracization of people I disagree with, and I've chewed out progressive friends for posting smug progressive memes that are pointlessly insulting or rejecting the company of people they disagree with.

But when bigotry actualizes into one human being actively harming another, and I am in a position where I have a tangible choice between passive acceptance, support, or opposition... what exactly do you expect?

If your response is ever passive acceptance or support, due to the potential for violent threat otherwise... you're going to have to tell me what you think appeasement means, if you don't think this qualifies.

[wierd]

This is a loaded question.

When you are able to prevent harm, without causing more harm in the process, you should make the attempt to prevent the harm.

However, it is important to understand that human minds are not endlessly plastic, and individual people's minds are not able to adapt efficiently as they age.  Lamentably, this means older people are less tolerant of new social mores.

Accepting that this is the case, and enacting social reforms at a pace that enables these people to naturally be removed from political concern through natural age and death, while still reaching for the progressive goal, handily removes the danger of radicalization (Dead people cant blow up buildings, or spread rhetoric that is inflammatory) at the consequence of getting to the finish line later.

I suppose a reasonable analogy might be a cancer patient.  They have inoperable tumors, that are life threatening, and are quite painful to them.

We have 3 course of action that we could take--

1) We could attempt to cut out the tumors right away anyway, and damn the consequences. At least the tumors are gone.
2) We can use slow chemo therapy to slowly kill the tumors, and have a better overall prognosis for the patient.
3) We can just ignore the cancer patient totally. In fact, we will just deny them any kind of treatment at all.

The typical progressive tends to favor action 1, since they view any length of time in which the patient suffers from the tumors as unimaginably horrible, even if doing so is very bad for the patient in the long run.  I favor option 2, which takes longer, and forces the patient to endure having the painful tumors for a time. The recalcitrant biggot favors option 3.

Choosing option 2 does not mean that you are trying to appease supporters of option 3.

[smjjames]

Unless the earth becomes completely uninhabitable due to our foolish environmental policies (Not very likely, humans can endure some pretty extreme climates, especially with technological innovations) it is unlikely that humans will go EXTINCT--  That does not however, mean that the solution of the power elite-- Ignore the problem, lay back supplies to wait it out, and fuck all those other people-- is going to be an effective strategy at safeguarding the current human civilization.

The actual humans of the Mayan, Anasazi, et al civilizations survived--- But the cultures? Those died.

Uh, while the Mayan civilization collapsed, the culture was alive, thriving even, right up to Spanish contact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization#Postclassic_period_.28c._950.E2.80.931539_AD.29

Sure it wasn't the same as it was during it's prime, even the Egyptian culture wasn't untouched when it came out of it's time of crisis. It wasn't radically changed, but there were some changes.

[wierd]

Given the perfect storm of climate change from reliance on fossil fuels, the lack of a clean alternative to fossil fuels for the continuation of our mercantile society, and the financial disincentive to develop such alternatives (excepting where climate change is forcing the issue), I would say that given the current rate of progress of the above, we will reach the point of being unsustainable, and collapse.

Modern global mercantile society requires economic growth. The best that could happen with this kind of resource depletion is plateauing-- that is lethal to modern civilization.

Humans will survive, but the age of crazy consumerism will be over.

[TheBiggerFish]

Well, there are clean alternatives (solar, wind, hydrogen, whatever the stuff is where you use waste to get methane...), but we just haven't started DEPLOYING them effectively.

[wierd]

There is no viable alternative to fossil fuels in regard to individual transportation.
There is no contender for the energy density of fossil fuels in your car's gas tank, with the same kind of ease of refilling or safety in handling.

Individual transportation is very important to modern civilization.