iNow

Across the world right now, and perhaps always, there is a battle over how we the people… the orc hordes through the mothers of dragons… shall be governed. The debate is especially intense with shifting power and economic dynamics, shifting technological might, a rapidly warming cancerous climate full of droughts and floods, wars, starvation… migration… more fights not just for resources, but for lives and tribes. Some find the strongmen and authoritarian gang leaders appealing. Others find anarchy and the chaos of every man for themselves appealing. Most, however, say they want something more orderly in between. Something where we’re both free and connected with each other in the ways which matter most. Something like a democracy. But what does that mean? Democracy is a bit of a Rorschach test, and “what it means” varies tremendously from one person to the other. Ask 10 different people and you’ll get 10 different answers, hence this thread. What does democracy mean to you?? So without pasting wiki quotes and google searches to us… What DOES and what SHOULD “democracy” mean?

Depends on the type. Democracy is a bit of a Rorschach test, and what it means varies tremendously from one person to the other. This is the battle taking place in countries all across the world right now. Gonna open a new thread instead of derailing this one. Done: https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/127785-what-doesshould-“democracy”-mean/

It doesn't much matter who. What matters is they will delay. That's the goal here. If you're losing a court case, the tactic is to slow things down until you can find something to stop your bleeding. If you're winning a court case, the tactic is to speed things up so you can close it out while you have the upper hand. Trump and team have used the delay with lawyers tactic with enormous success over the last 4 decades all the way back to his years screwing people over (not paying contracts and contractors, shady real estate deals, bad beef and airline projects, distractions through tabloids, etc.) since his time in New York.

When submarines move through the water, they use sound waves to detect their surroundings and gain information about their environment. They pulse out a sonar “ping” and listen for what comes back. I presume the various specie out there in Nigeria and elsewhere may be largely doing the same.

Yeah, if only NATO weren’t equivalent to a union then Russia wouldn’t right now be using power plants like nuclear weapons equivalent to 6 Chernobyls if any stray shrapnel hits the wrong component /ridiculous

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Since this keeps getting ignored…

You really need to stop blaming the rape victim for being raped. The rapist is the one at fault. Full stop.

Are you ignoring my question on purpose, or do you not even realize one was asked?

In a way, yes. They’re calling for mates. Staking their territories. Existing and acting. Perhaps less of a debate and more of a jazz band writ very large.

It’s called tuning. Like music. When the President speaks, it’s akin to dropping a very large rock into the water. There will be waves outward in all directions, sound waves and others… waves amplified along the way by transmission hubs who then toss their own new (though decidedly smaller) rocks into their own newer / local waters. It’s musical when any one of us speaks, but it’s downright orchestral when people who have enormous reach speak… especially US Presidents… including the less benevolent ones. It’s a wave they’re creating when dropping that rock. A tidal wave. A pressure wave pushing outward into everyone’s own inward pressure points. So, yes. They “tuned” the speech. Like a guitar or violin, or a piano in a grand hall. The speech was “tuned” … thankfully… BEFORE it was broadcast out into space through the largest megaphone the world had ever seen until recent years… a US President speaking (I temper this since recent years are different with new attention shifting power centers forming, like influencers on social media, but even bigger than that and more algorithmic). Thankfully… the speech WAS tuned before it was played through speakers large and small, mechanical and humanical, to people with minds both large and small… below every curve of the atmosphere itself and across every corner and cranny of earth herself. Anyway, if it’s not called tuning then it should be, and I’m glad they tuned it before delivering it. IMO, that shows they respect their audience, whoever that may be.

Looks your browser hadn’t refreshed prior to posting this. Saw it myself and corrected via edit

Thank you, but we’re not talking about buyers and sellers vs the employer. We’re talking about employees vs their employers. Do you still in this context think the employer has LESS power than their employees? If so, why?

First you said, “the employee/employer relationship is NOT unequal in favor of employers.” Now here you said, “it’s a bleeding obvious part of normal reality that the employer has an unequal power in the relationship.” As you can see, these two positions… both posted by you… are inconsistent and mutually exclusive of one another. Which is YOUR position? It can’t be both. For clarity, my position has consistently been the one you just acknowledged was “bleedin’ obvious.” Nobody is exploring the abolition of money. This is a red herring and totally unrelated to our exchange.

No disagreement here. There are small exceptions at the margins, but I have no quarrel with this core point. That’s not what I think. How about instead of pretending I think something that I don’t… then expressing your moral outrage toward me for thinking those things I don’t think… how about you try instead addressing my request for clarity. I’m asking for you to elaborate on your view that there is no additional power weighted toward the employer in the employee/employer relationship. Individual employees can leave. That’s it, but the employer still retains almost all of the power while that employee is there working for them, and this is why people sometimes group together to achieve improved negotiating leverage. Of course the employer is more powerful. Suggesting otherwise comes across as either disingenuous or deluded, and I’m asking for your help showing me why your view here (that the employer is NOT, in fact, more powerful than an isolated employee standing lonely and isolated) is something other than one of those two things. You're not a deluded person, IMO, which means you are more likely being disingenuous here… unless, of course, you can explain your thinking since I obviously may be misunderstanding it? That part is obvious, but why do you think this?

I notice this comment has been ignored. Is it possible Mistermack realizes his position that “there isn’t an inequality of power in the employee/employer relationship” or that the employer doesn’t benefit from that asymmetry is nonsensical? Nah… of course not. Lol.

I reject your premise. What reason do I have to replace my own which suspects you have a sampling bias in your book list and it doesn’t adequately represent the population under investigation.

A fair point, but not terribly applicable given a presidents direction and involvement with their writers on these, and how they redline everything themselves up to the moment of delivery. To the thread more broadly… Does anyone think this reached those who most needed to hear it?

This is not correct. It’s paid while they are working and saved for future expenditure. You clearly don’t support the practice of paid sick leave, which is fine, but let’s not misrepresent the mechanism by which it’s offered solely to bolster a weak unpopular argument. What is the greatest point of leverage an individual has against their company, in your opinion? Where is this great strength you see? The employee either does what they’re told or they get fired and possibly replaced. It’s strange to me how anyone could say this doesn’t represent an obvious inequality of power and I’d like to better understand your position.

By what metric are you defining success in context of anarchism?

“Barr Dismisses Trump’s Request for a Special Master The former attorney general, who chose not to indict Mr. Trump in the Russia inquiry, said the Justice Department was justified in investigating his handling of government materials.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/us/politics/barr-trump-special-master.html

Yeah. I could quibble and pick nits or comment on optics, but I felt the content and the delivery met the moment.

Great points on the money. I’d go even farther and suggest the audience was more than moderates and maga, but was also the whole WORLD more broadly right now, in this moment. There are people fighting for democracy in the Middle East. People fighting for democracy inside of the Russia… inside of China… In Ukraine and Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet… all across the African continent… and throughout South America where failing petrostates propped up by commercialized cartels… people are fighting for democracy. We’re at an inflection point. The attack on democracy is being waged on many fronts. Biden was asking us to unify against that attack regardless of ideology or party. He was warning us that the attack is here. It is at our doorstep. Physical violence is no longer uncommon. It’s also no longer localized within only certain countries.

Of course, but not if ones goal is to ignore the results of free and fair elections.

Biden’s speech tonight was good. He was the right president in the moment. I wasn’t ashamed to have him be my elected representative. He asked us to defend democracy together. He even defended the hecklers taunting him (they were in Philly, after all), but spoke to the broader moment. Hopefully enough people are still listening.