Current Affairs The Landmarks of Slavery;

[dead_soft]

I think he's OK - bit middle of the road, but not bad as such.

As for what he says, nails it. Completely nails it. I wish people on here would listen to that with an objective mind and take what he says on board.

People will call this condescending, but still going to say it - for a lot of what goes on now, I see it as a hive mind lack of intelligence; a complete inability to see subtlety and rationale. I think society has got dumber over the last 20 years - the reality TV generation.

There are people who are well read on their own "side" on here, could tell you the ins and outs of Corbynism and the PLP and whatnot for example; be able to really intelligently express that political ideology when prompted... and yet have formed their views solely from sources they already agreed with, meaning they have not once challenged their belief system. They cannot identify value in an opposing view, be able to extract and modify their thought process, be able to reason out sound logic. No, they've boiled it down to two camps - left vs. right, Labour vs. Tory, right vs. wrong - what Labour or the left say is right, what the Tories say is wrong. No ifs, no buts. They've been trained to think that way and it's because, in my view, the art of debate has been lost in schools and universities and people no longer have the skill to do it.

This whole thing proves it. If you challenge anything the BLM movement do, you're a racist. You're the enemy. They don't want to hear any counter-discussion; they've decided what's "right" and that's it, end of discussion.

Or another example - the label "boomer". Any contribution or thought on a subject from someone of a certain age is disregarded, don't want to hear it, "OK boomer". Or "gammon" - because rather than deal with and address and debate and reason with an entire demographic of people, it's easier to just laugh at the stereotype of middle aged white men with skin discolouration and disregard anything and everything about them.

And I'm not ancient old man saying "my day was better"; I'm 35!

Society is broken, and it's a generational thing and a class thing and - yes - a racial thing. But the way people are trying to bridge these gaps is horrendous and leaves me shaking my head.

To be honest, it seems like you've already pretty much made up your mind that society is broken somehow. People have always had polarising viewpoints. The centre ground and compromise aren't some inherent good. I don't see it as standard that people call people racist or the enemy for challenging BLM. Being disagreed with in here isn't some great evil that suggest people are on another side.

Society has its issues but it's much, much better than it has been in many other generations. Which decades exactly would you say are better? Do you think the 70s didn't have huge polarised left/right debates?

You've written a lot but there's not really much to back it up that I can see except for some pretty hardline set viewpoints masquerading as the reasonable middle ground.

 

[Papa Shango]

I think he's OK - bit middle of the road, but not bad as such.

As for what he says, nails it. Completely nails it. I wish people on here would listen to that with an objective mind and take what he says on board.

People will call this condescending, but still going to say it - for a lot of what goes on now, I see it as a hive mind lack of intelligence; a complete inability to see subtlety and rationale. I think society has got dumber over the last 20 years - the reality TV generation.

There are people who are well read on their own "side" on here, could tell you the ins and outs of Corbynism and the PLP and whatnot for example; be able to really intelligently express that political ideology when prompted... and yet have formed their views solely from sources they already agreed with, meaning they have not once challenged their belief system. They cannot identify value in an opposing view, be able to extract and modify their thought process, be able to reason out sound logic. No, they've boiled it down to two camps - left vs. right, Labour vs. Tory, right vs. wrong - what Labour or the left say is right, what the Tories say is wrong. No ifs, no buts. They've been trained to think that way and it's because, in my view, the art of debate has been lost in schools and universities and people no longer have the skill to do it.

This whole thing proves it. If you challenge anything the BLM movement do, you're a racist. You're the enemy. They don't want to hear any counter-discussion; they've decided what's "right" and that's it, end of discussion.

Or another example - the label "boomer". Any contribution or thought on a subject from someone of a certain age is disregarded, don't want to hear it, "OK boomer". Or "gammon" - because rather than deal with and address and debate and reason with an entire demographic of people, it's easier to just laugh at the stereotype of middle aged white men with skin discolouration and disregard anything and everything about them.

And I'm not ancient old man saying "my day was better"; I'm 35!

Society is broken, and it's a generational thing and a class thing and - yes - a racial thing. But the way people are trying to bridge these gaps is horrendous and leaves me shaking my head.

You only have to look at how bad politicians are on TV these days to see that the art of debate has long gone.

When that Nicky Morgan was on GMTV just before the whole Coronavirus thing kicked off and the whole 50,000 more nurses thing for example. What an utter shambles. It was embarrassing, then you had Hancock come on TV and compound that shambles by repeating the exact same stuff that Morgan did.

I get the feeling that nobody seems to know what they are doing these days. I don't know if its a case of people just not caring about the general population enough to even bother preparing for an interview or we are all just too stupid to bother these days.

All humans do when debating now is repeat the same thing over and over and over again. Even on here, how many people have basically typed the same post for the past 2 weeks in slightly different ways?

Not just tories by the way, they were the most obvious examples from recent events, just everyone. People are just sloppy these days.

 

[Tubey]

To be honest, it seems like you've already pretty much made up your mind that society is broken somehow. People have always had polarising viewpoints. The centre ground and compromise aren't some inherent good. I don't see it as standard that people call people racist or the enemy for challenging BLM. Being disagreed with in here isn't some great evil that suggest people are on another side.

Society has its issues but it's much, much better than it has been in many other generations. Which decades exactly would you say are better? Do you think the 70s didn't have huge polarised left/right debates?

You've written a lot but there's not really much to back it up that I can see except for some pretty hardline set viewpoints masquerading as the reasonable middle ground.

How do you think we've improved through the generations if it's not through reason and debate? Of course we've been polarised before, but not to this extent, never this visceral, never with such entrenched hatred of the "other side", like a non stop war waged on social media.

That progress has stalled in the last 20 years. Are you seriously saying society isn't broken? Really though? How much more evidence do you need - you have a literal idiot in the White House due to populism from the vote of the disillusioned. You have the UK voting to hurt themselves in every conceivable way just for the concept of "taking back control", without anyone being able to explain what the hell that even means.

You don't want to see the issue because you've set camp on one side and that's it for you. Your aim isn't to listen; it's to impose.

Whereas I for example don't understand for the life of me why people voted to leave the EU - as in really understand beyond it being a protest vote. But I've never for a moment not WANTED to understand - I'm always looking for that opposite point of view that I can learn from?

Can you hand on heart say the same?

 

[PhilM]

I think he's OK - bit middle of the road, but not bad as such.

As for what he says, nails it. Completely nails it. I wish people on here would listen to that with an objective mind and take what he says on board.

People will call this condescending, but still going to say it - for a lot of what goes on now, I see it as a hive mind lack of intelligence; a complete inability to see subtlety and rationale. I think society has got dumber over the last 20 years - the reality TV generation.

There are people who are well read on their own "side" on here, could tell you the ins and outs of Corbynism and the PLP and whatnot for example; be able to really intelligently express that political ideology when prompted... and yet have formed their views solely from sources they already agreed with, meaning they have not once challenged their belief system. They cannot identify value in an opposing view, be able to extract and modify their thought process, be able to reason out sound logic. No, they've boiled it down to two camps - left vs. right, Labour vs. Tory, right vs. wrong - what Labour or the left say is right, what the Tories say is wrong. No ifs, no buts. They've been trained to think that way and it's because, in my view, the art of debate has been lost in schools and universities and people no longer have the skill to do it.

This whole thing proves it. If you challenge anything the BLM movement do, you're a racist. You're the enemy. They don't want to hear any counter-discussion; they've decided what's "right" and that's it, end of discussion.

Or another example - the label "boomer". Any contribution or thought on a subject from someone of a certain age is disregarded, don't want to hear it, "OK boomer". Or "gammon" - because rather than deal with and address and debate and reason with an entire demographic of people, it's easier to just laugh at the stereotype of middle aged white men with skin discolouration and disregard anything and everything about them.

And I'm not ancient old man saying "my day was better"; I'm 35!

Society is broken, and it's a generational thing and a class thing and - yes - a racial thing. But the way people are trying to bridge these gaps is horrendous and leaves me shaking my head.

Nail. Head.

 

[Tubey]

You only have to look at how bad politicians are on TV these days to see that the art of debate has long gone.

When that Nicky Morgan was on GMTV just before the whole Coronavirus thing kicked off and the whole 50,000 more nurses thing for example. What an utter shambles. It was embarrassing, then you had Hancock come on TV and compound that shambles by repeating the exact same stuff that Morgan did.

I get the feeling that nobody seems to know what they are doing these days. I don't know if its a case of people just not caring about the general population enough to even bother preparing for an interview or we are all just too stupid to bother these days.

All humans do when debating now is repeat the same thing over and over and over again. Even on here, how many people have basically typed the same post for the past 2 weeks in slightly different ways?

Not just tories by the way, they were the most obvious examples from recent events, just everyone. People are just sloppy these days.

Oh the problem with politics is the reliance on slogans and scripts. There's no point in winning an argument if you can just repeat "Get Brexit Done" or "Take Back Control", boil it down to one very easy to understand but nebulous message and win the day.

They're crap by design, because they don't express an original thought ever. They're just carted out to push the party line.

 

[dead_soft]

How do you think we've improved through the generations if it's not through reason and debate? Of course we've been polarised before, but not to this extent, never this visceral, never with such entrenched hatred of the "other side", like a non stop war waged on social media.

That progress has stalled in the last 20 years. Are you seriously saying society isn't broken? Really though? How much more evidence do you need - you have a literal idiot in the White House due to populism from the vote of the disillusioned. You have the UK voting to hurt themselves in every conceivable way just for the concept of "taking back control", without anyone being able to explain what the hell that even means.

You don't want to see the issue because you've set camp on one side and that's it for you. Your aim isn't to listen; it's to impose.

Whereas I for example don't understand for the life of me why people voted to leave the EU - as in really understand beyond it being a protest vote. But I've never for a moment not WANTED to understand - I'm always looking for that opposite point of view that I can learn from?

Can you hand on heart say the same?

See, what you've done here, because I don't agree with you is to attack me and say I don't want to see it. I don't see it, I watched part of Gervais (I turned it off because I've heard the same tired argument for years from pub bores) but his rant about free speech going - where? Where do we have less free speech than normal? He's a man with access directly to millions of people, hundreds of thousands go to see him live, millions watch the TV shows he's given free reign to make. He's a literal argument against what he's arguing.

Where have I said I'm not looking to engage or learn? You're being very patronising in your view that you've got it right and everyone else has got it wrong. I'm talking to you on here where I disagree. I've asked you for proof and evidence of what you're saying. All you've done is come back and suggest it's all in bad faith. It doesn't sound much like you want to listen. Where am I imposing a view?

We have voted for Thatcher, Bush was president in early 2000s, they voted for a Hollywood film star who wasn't the sharpest mind, it's not all new

 

[Tubey]

See, what you've done here, because I don't agree with you is to attack me and say I don't want to see it. I don't see it, I watched part of Gervais (I turned it off because I've heard the same tired argument for years from pub bores) but his rant about free speech going - where? Where do we have less free speech than normal? He's a man with access directly to millions of people, hundreds of thousands go to see him live, millions watch the TV shows he's given free reign to make. He's a literal argument against what he's arguing.

Where have I said I'm not looking to engage or learn? You're being very patronising in your view that you've got it right and everyone else has got it wrong. I'm talking to you on here where I disagree. I've asked you for proof and evidence of what you're saying. All you've done is come back and suggest it's all in bad faith. It doesn't sound much like you want to listen. Where am I imposing a view?

We have voted for Thatcher, Bush was president in early 2000s, they voted for a Hollywood film star who wasn't the sharpest mind, it's not all new

Point proven.

 

[tsubaki]

How do you think we've improved through the generations if it's not through reason and debate? Of course we've been polarised before, but not to this extent, never this visceral, never with such entrenched hatred of the "other side", like a non stop war waged on social media.

That progress has stalled in the last 20 years. Are you seriously saying society isn't broken? Really though? How much more evidence do you need - you have a literal idiot in the White House due to populism from the vote of the disillusioned. You have the UK voting to hurt themselves in every conceivable way just for the concept of "taking back control", without anyone being able to explain what the hell that even means.

You don't want to see the issue because you've set camp on one side and that's it for you. Your aim isn't to listen; it's to impose.

Whereas I for example don't understand for the life of me why people voted to leave the EU - as in really understand beyond it being a protest vote. But I've never for a moment not WANTED to understand - I'm always looking for that opposite point of view that I can learn from?

Can you hand on heart say the same?

Tubey this would be a fantastic argument for you to make if only you didn't back the orthodoxy that was in charge for at least 15 of those 20 years, and call out @dead_soft in exactly the same sort of way you criticise other people for doing.

 

[Lanolin]

See, what you've done here, because I don't agree with you is to attack me and say I don't want to see it. I don't see it, I watched part of Gervais (I turned it off because I've heard the same tired argument for years from pub bores) but his rant about free speech going - where? Where do we have less free speech than normal? He's a man with access directly to millions of people, hundreds of thousands go to see him live, millions watch the TV shows he's given free reign to make. He's a literal argument against what he's arguing.

Where have I said I'm not looking to engage or learn? You're being very patronising in your view that you've got it right and everyone else has got it wrong. I'm talking to you on here where I disagree. I've asked you for proof and evidence of what you're saying. All you've done is come back and suggest it's all in bad faith. It doesn't sound much like you want to listen. Where am I imposing a view?

We have voted for Thatcher, Bush was president in early 2000s, they voted for a Hollywood film star who wasn't the sharpest mind, it's not all new

He’s got a point though hasn’t he? Over and over again in the last few days there’s been people saying ‘i don’t like where this is going, where does it end?’ and the responses have just been going ‘haha the pyramids eh lads’. And then someone says no seriously I’m asking you where we draw the line and The response is ‘look just buy little Britain on dvd if you’re that bothered.’ There’s been no attempt at all to actually answer questions properly or accept that there are valid points being made, it’s just ad hominem attacks saying people are too thick to understand.

Also immediately jumping to the conclusion that any graffiti etc has been done by the other side in an attempt to discredit is really, really, seriously weird. Like proper cult behaviour.

 

[Tubey]

Tubey this would be a fantastic argument for you to make if only you didn't back the orthodoxy that was in charge for at least 15 of those 20 years, and call out @dead_soft in exactly the same sort of way you criticise other people for doing.

Yet another example of "if I'm not 100% on one side, I'm definitely 100% on the other side".

No, I most definitely have not done the bolded bit there. I have criticised where I felt it valid and praised where needed, regardless of political party, based on merit. I have voted Labour and Conservative in those times, including when in power and when not in power. I'm the literal opposite of what you've said there.

 

[dead_soft]

Point proven.

Ah yes, free speech is dead because I don’t find Ricky Gervais interesting

 

[Tubey]

Ah yes, free speech is dead because I don’t find Ricky Gervais interesting

No, not free speech - just the ability to debate and grow.

You proved everything I said in that post with that sentence. It was easier to dismiss what he said as a "pub bore" and not even bother listen to it than try to genuinely extract anything from it of value. Because you'd already decided it wasn't a source of information you'd agree with so it wasn't worth your time.

I honestly couldn't have responded in any way but to highlight that sentence - it said all that needed to be said.

 

[ForeverBlue92]

Apparently the PL are replacing players names on their shirts to BLM for the next 12 games.

All getting a bit tick box daft now isnt it

 

[tsubaki]

Yet another example of "if I'm not 100% on one side, I'm definitely 100% on the other side".

No, I most definitely have not done the bolded bit there. I have criticised where I felt it valid and praised where needed, regardless of political party, based on merit. I have voted Labour and Conservative in those times, including when in power and when not in power. I'm the literal opposite of what you've said there.

Not really, because for that to be the literal opposite of what I said there you'd have had to have voted against the orthodoxy for 15 of those 20 years.

As for the rest of your post, this is exactly what you criticise others for doing - its based on you being right and the people you disagree with being wrong, without any real evidence being presented either way.

I'd have thought years in this forum taking part in the threads about Labour, about anti-semitism and various other issues would have tought you that there are wide variations amongst peoples opinions, but it seems not.

Finally - in relation to Gervais - to echo @dead_soft I do think its bizarre that the people who shout loudest about free speech are the ones who have the most access to it.

 

[Tubey]

Apparently the PL are replacing players names on their shirts to BLM for the next 12 games.

All getting a bit tick box daft now isnt it

Have no problem with this. Sure, it's a corporation doing a thing for the sake of the corporation, but ultimately it conveys a cause, gives it publicity and is harmless.